The Pandorica Opens

212a – "The Pandorica Opens"
Doctor Who episode
Auton legionaries leading The Doctor towards the Pandorica as part of the alliance's plan to imprison the Doctor.
Cast
Doctor Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)
Companions Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams)
Others Alex Kingston – River Song Tony Curran – Vincent van Gogh Bill Paterson – Bracewell Ian McNeice – Winston Churchill Sophie Okonedo – Liz Ten Marcus O'Donovan – Claudio Clive Wood – Commander Christopher Ryan – Commander Stark Ruari Mears – Cyber Leader Paul Kasey – Judoon Howard Lee – Doctor Gachet Barnaby Edwards – Dalek Simon Fisher-Becker – Dorium Joe Jacobs – Guard Chrissie Cotterill – Madame Vernet David Fynn – Marcellus
Production
Writer	Steven Moffat
Director	Toby Haynes
Script editor	Lindsey Alford
Producer	Peter Bennett
Executive producer(s)	Steven Moffat Piers Wenger Beth Willis
Production code	1.12
Series	Series 5
Length	1st of 2-part story, 50 minutes
Originally broadcast	19 June 2010 (2010-06-19)
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → "The Lodger" "The Big Bang"

"The Pandorica Opens"^[1][2] is the twelfth episode, and first in a two-part story, in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, broadcast on 19 June 2010.^[1] The Doctor's friends send him a warning;^[3] he deals with a message on a cliff, a mysterious box and a love story that spans millennia. It was written by Steven Moffat, the head writer and executive producer of the series. The two-part story won the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form).^[4]

Contents 1 Plot 1.1 Continuity 2 Production 3 Broadcast and reception 3.1 Critical reception 4 References 5 External links

Plot

The Doctor and Amy Pond, following a message from River Song, arrive in Roman Britain on Earth in 102 AD, where they find River posing as Cleopatra. River shows the Doctor a Vincent van Gogh painting titled The Pandorica Opens, which depicts the TARDIS exploding. River had recovered the painting in the 52nd century, and travelled to the time-space coordinates on the painting using a time agent's Vortex Manipulator. The Doctor realises the "Pandorica", a fabled prison for the universe's deadliest being, must be stored in a memorable location near the coordinates: Stonehenge.

At Stonehenge, the Doctor, Amy, and River find a passage to an underground area. Inside, they find the Pandorica, a giant metal box outfitted with every type of lock imaginable. While examining the Pandorica, Amy confronts the Doctor about the engagement ring; he says that it belonged to a "friend", and that nothing is ever truly forgotten. The Pandorica is transmitting a signal amplified by Stonehenge's rocks across the universe, and River warns the Doctor that the signal is drawing "everything that ever hated [him]" to Earth that night. The Doctor is aided by a volunteer group of Roman legionaries; the centurion in charge of them is revealed to be Rory. Neither Rory nor the Doctor can explain Rory's presence, as he was consumed by a crack in the universe during the events of "Cold Blood." When Amy comes around after being knocked out by a damaged Cyberman, she does not remember Rory. Rory is upset about that, but the Doctor assures him that Amy will remember him in time, and hands him the engagement ring.

The Doctor's enemies begin to orbit overhead, and the Doctor buys himself additional time with a threatening speech. He urges River to bring the TARDIS to Stonehenge while he, Amy, Rory, and the legionaries prepare. When River tries to use the time machine, an outside force takes control of the TARDIS and pilots it to Amy's house in the present day. After River leaves the TARDIS, the scanner screen cracks and a menacing voice says: "Silence will fall." River discovers landing patterns in Amy's garden and sees that someone has broken into the house. She finds in Amy's room a story book about Pandora's box and a children's book about Roman Britain. River communicates this to the Doctor, and warns him that the Pandorica must be a trap, created out of Amy's memories. River identifies her current space-time coordinates—26 June 2010, the date the Doctor identified as the onset of the time energy explosion that caused the cracks in the universe ("Flesh and Stone"). The Doctor warns her to leave immediately, but again she finds herself trapped inside the TARDIS, as the central console begins to go critical.

Back at Stonehenge, the Doctor discovers that the volunteer legionaries, including Rory, are Autons, and he is quickly captured as the Doctor's foes materialise around him. Above ground, as Rory fights to retain his human identity, Amy suddenly remembers him, but as his Auton identity emerges, he unwillingly shoots and kills her. The Doctor struggles against his captors, who reveal that they have formed an alliance to imprison him in the Pandorica. They believe the Doctor caused the time energy explosion that will destroy the universe, despite the Doctor's insistence that the TARDIS is responsible. As the Doctor is sealed into the Pandorica, explosions surround the Earth in space before a fade to black and silence.

Continuity

• From the Doctor's perspective, approximately three weeks have elapsed since the start of the preceding episode, "The Lodger".^[5]
• The episode title refers to the Pandorica, first mentioned by Prisoner Zero in "The Eleventh Hour" and later by River Song in the fifth episode of this series, "Flesh and Stone" where the Doctor declares he believes the Pandorica to be merely a fairy tale. It is also the title of Van Gogh's painting in the episode.
• Rory initially displays confusion at how he could have been "erased from time", having been absent during "Flesh and Stone" when the Doctor and Amy first encountered this phenomenon.
• The re-designed time vortex, used in the start and end credit sequences since "The Eleventh Hour", is shown within an episode for the first time when the TARDIS (piloted by River Song) is transported to Amy's house in 2010.
• In River Song's timeline, this takes place before "The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone", where she mentions "I remember it well," and also being imprisoned in the Stormcage facility for killing a man. She is seen to be a prisoner here at the start of the episode. This episode also marks the second use of River's hallucinogenic lipstick on the programme. River's message on the oldest planet of the universe in the extended cold open says, "HELLO SWEETIE" (used as her greeting to the Doctor in both "Silence in the Library" and "The Time of Angels") along with several characters underneath — supposedly the coordinates for finding River in 102 AD. The first two characters are "ΘΣ" which are the Greek characters theta and sigma. "Theta Sigma" was the college nickname Drax called the Doctor in The Armageddon Factor, and which the Doctor confirmed in The Happiness Patrol.
• The painting of the TARDIS explosion passes through several characters from previous episodes: the painting is created by Vincent Van Gogh after his meeting with the Doctor ("Vincent and the Doctor"), which is found in 1941 by Winston Churchill and Professor Bracewell ("Victory of the Daleks"). Churchill attempts to contact the Doctor through the TARDIS phone system, but instead connects with River in the 52nd Century who is still imprisoned for a previous crime. River escapes and steals the painting, now in the collection of Liz 10 ("The Beast Below"), before she finally obtains a Vortex Manipulator to travel to the past and warn the Doctor.
• River Song announces alien races whose space ships have received the transmission from Stonehenge. They are the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Sontarans, the Terileptils, the Slitheen, the Chelonians, the Nestene, the Drahvins, the Sycorax, the Haemo-goths,^[6] the Zygons, the Atraxi and the Draconians. The only ones to feature in the episode are the Daleks, Autons, the Cybermen, Sontarans, Judoon, Sycorax, Hoix, Silurians, Roboforms and Atraxi. Blowfish, Weevils, and Uvodni appear only for a split second.^[7] The Chelonians (created by writer Gareth Roberts for his novel The Highest Science) were planned to make their debut had an early draft of "Planet of the Dead" made it to completion.^[8]
• The only Sontaran to speak in the episode is Commander Stark, played by Christopher Ryan; he had played the Sontaran General Staal in the series four two-parter "The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky".

Production

The read-through for "The Pandorica Opens" took place on 13 January 2010 in the Upper Boat Studios. It began later than planned as cold weather delayed the arrival of some of the cast and crew.^[9] Half of the scene with Liz 10 (Sophie Okonedo) was filmed in advance on 22 October 2009 along with scenes of "The Beast Below" at an orangery at Margam Country Park, Port Talbot. The other half, featuring Alex Kingston as River Song, was filmed 5 February 2010.^[10] The Doctor's speech to the alien spaceships was filmed 3 February, while Rory shooting Amy was shot on 4 February, amongst rain.^[10]

Filming was done at the real Stonehenge in Wiltshire on the night of 2 February 2010.^[10] However, some scenes were filmed using a lightweight replica known as "Foamhenge", which was set up in the Port Talbot location.^[10] The "Underhenge" set was the biggest built in the BBC's Upper Boat Studios. The script referred to it as similar to a temple found in Indiana Jones, and director Toby Haynes actually played music by John Williams, the composer for the Indiana Jones films, to help the actors slow down as they explored the set.^[11]

For the scene in which the Doctor, Amy, and River are riding on horses, the close-ups of the characters riding were filmed by having the actors sit on a saddle mounted on the back of a truck and act like they were riding a horse. They were filmed performing this as the truck drove to achieve the effect of the passing country. Wide shots were taken of stunt doubles of the three actors riding real horses.^[7] This scene was filmed on 1 February 2010.^[10]

Broadcast and reception

"The Pandorica Opens" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One and simulcast on BBC HD on 19 June 2010.^[12] For the first time in the series, the episode was not followed by a short trailer for the next episode, the finale.^[9] Inital overnight ratings showed that 5.38 million viewers had watched the episode on BBC One, while a further 497,000 watched on BBC HD, combining for a total of 5.88 million.^[13] Final consolidated figures showed a total of 7.57 million viewers, with 6.94 on BBC One and 635,000 on BBC HD.^[14] The episode was given an "excellent" Appreciation Index of 88, the highest for the series at time of broadcast,^[15] though this was subsequently bested the next week by the conclusion.^[16]

"The Pandorica Opens" was released in Region 2 on DVD and Blu-ray on 6 September 2010 with "Vincent and the Doctor", "The Lodger" and "The Big Bang".^{[17] [18]} It was then re-released as part of the Complete Fifth Series boxset on 8 November 2011.^[19]

Critical reception

"The Pandorica Opens" received positive reviews. Dan Martin of The Guardian praised the cinematic scope and cliffhanger,calling it "the most audacious of showstoppers". He thought that so much happened in the episode that Rory's return felt like "a minor plot point", though he considered that was because the audience knew it was going to happen.^[2] Gavin Fuller, writing for The Daily Telegraph, praising it for bringing an "epic, cinematic tale to stick in the memory" that the series had "arguably lacked", though he thought the assembly of the Alliance was "rather fanboyish on Moffat's part". He also praised Matt Smith for "hit[ting] the right note" and the revelations at the end for being "genuinly shocking". Like Martin, he said that Rory's return was "unsurprising", though "well-handled" and with some touching moments between he and Amy.^[20]

Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times called it "perhaps the most epic, salivating Doctor Who ever" and praised the four leads and Moffat for "packing in surprises and slotting together the season puzzle with a dazzling plot, urgent pace and terrific dialogue".^[11] IGN's Matt Wales rated the episode 9 out of 10, saying it "managed to pack in an absurd number of standout moments" and was "beautifully delivered, if not quite as satisfying as other two-part openers thanks to its wilful evasiveness". However, he thought that the slow-motion ending "dipped a little too violently into melodrama", though it was "hard to fault that bravado downbeat cliffhanger".^[21]

SFX magazine's Richard Edwards awarded the episode five out of five stars, with a "delicious twist", "great character stuff", and "touching scenes" between Amy and Rory. He thought that the Alliance was "unlikely" but it worked because the series arc had been "cleverly constructed".^[22] Sam McPherson of Zap2it gave it an A+, praising it for being an improvement upon the finales of previous series. He also thought the use of the Alliance was well done, as it portrayed them as being more misguided than evil.^[23] The A.V. Club's Keith Phipps gave the episode an A-, though expressed concern whether the conclusion would be able to satisfy the set-up.^[24]

The episode, along with its conclusion, was awarded the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form).^[4]

References

External links

• The Pandorica Opens (TV story) on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki
• "The Pandorica Opens" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
• "The Pandorica Opens" at the Internet Movie Database
• "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang" at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang" at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

Doctor Who series 5 episodes "The Eleventh Hour" "The Beast Below" "Victory of the Daleks" "The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone" "The Vampires of Venice" "Amy's Choice" "The Hungry Earth" / "Cold Blood" "Vincent and the Doctor" "The Lodger" "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang"

Doctor Who: River Song television stories Tenth Doctor "Silence in the Library" / "Forest of the Dead" Eleventh Doctor "The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone" "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang" "The Impossible Astronaut" / "Day of the Moon" "A Good Man Goes to War" / "Let's Kill Hitler" "The Wedding of River Song" Minor appearances "Journey's End" "Closing Time"

Doctor Who: Auton stories Third Doctor Spearhead from Space Terror of the Autons Ninth Doctor "Rose" Eleventh Doctor "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang" Minor appearance "Love & Monsters" BBV films Auton Auton 2: Sentinel Auton 3: Awakening Novels Business Unusual Synthespians™ Autonomy Big Finish Productions audio dramas Brave New Town

Doctor Who: Cybermen stories First Doctor The Tenth Planet Second Doctor The Moonbase The Tomb of the Cybermen The Wheel in Space The Invasion Fourth Doctor Revenge of the Cybermen Fifth Doctor Earthshock The Five Doctors Sixth Doctor Attack of the Cybermen Seventh Doctor Silver Nemesis Tenth Doctor "Rise of the Cybermen" / "The Age of Steel" "Army of Ghosts" / "Doomsday" "The Next Doctor" Eleventh Doctor "The Pandorica Opens" "Closing Time" Torchwood "Cyberwoman" Minor appearances The War Games The Mind of Evil Carnival of Monsters Logopolis Mawdryn Undead "Dalek" "Human Nature" "A Good Man Goes to War"

Doctor Who: Dalek television stories First Doctor The Daleks The Dalek Invasion of Earth The Chase "Mission to the Unknown" The Daleks' Master Plan Second Doctor The Power of the Daleks The Evil of the Daleks Third Doctor Day of the Daleks Planet of the Daleks Death to the Daleks Fourth Doctor Genesis of the Daleks Destiny of the Daleks Fifth Doctor Resurrection of the Daleks Sixth Doctor Revelation of the Daleks Seventh Doctor Remembrance of the Daleks Ninth Doctor "Dalek" "Bad Wolf" / "The Parting of the Ways" Tenth Doctor "Army of Ghosts" / "Doomsday" "Daleks in Manhattan" / "Evolution of the Daleks" "The Stolen Earth" / "Journey's End" Eleventh Doctor "Victory of the Daleks" "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang" Minor appearances The Space Museum The Wheel in Space The War Games The Mind of Evil Frontier in Space Logopolis Mawdryn Undead "The Five Doctors" Doctor Who "Human Nature" "The Waters of Mars" "The Beast Below" "The Wedding of River Song" See also Davros Dr. Who and the Daleks Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death

Doctor Who: Sontaran stories Third Doctor The Time Warrior Fourth Doctor The Sontaran Experiment The Invasion of Time Sixth Doctor The Two Doctors Tenth Doctor "The Sontaran Stratagem" / "The Poison Sky" Eleventh Doctor "A Good Man Goes to War" The Sarah Jane Adventures The Last Sontaran Enemy of the Bane Minor appearances Logopolis The End of Time "The Pandorica Opens" Audio Heroes of Sontar The Five Companions Books Lords of the Storm Shakedown The Eight Doctors The Sontaran Games The Taking of Chelsea 426 Other A Fix with Sontarans Destiny of the Doctors Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans See also Rutan The Gunpowder Plot

Doctor Who: Silurian and Sea Devil stories Third Doctor Doctor Who and the Silurians The Sea Devils Fifth Doctor Warriors of the Deep Eleventh Doctor "The Hungry Earth" / "Cold Blood" "A Good Man Goes to War" Minor appearances Frontier in Space "Curse of Anubis" "The Pandorica Opens" "The Wedding of River Song"

Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (2003–2020) "Conversations with Dead People" (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) (2003) Gollum's Acceptance Speech at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards (2004) "33" (Battlestar Galactica (2005) "The Empty Child" / "The Doctor Dances" (Doctor Who) (2006) "The Girl in the Fireplace" (Doctor Who) (2007) "Blink" (Doctor Who) (2008) Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2009) "The Waters of Mars" (Doctor Who) (2010) "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang" (Doctor Who) (2011) Complete List (1958–1980) (1981–2002) (Long form: 2003–2020) (Short form: 2003–2020)

2011 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form Winner "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang" (Doctor Who) Nominees "A Christmas Carol" (Doctor Who) "Vincent and the Doctor" (Doctor Who) Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury The Lost Thing