Well, we start off with another EPIC ENTRANCE as we see Vincent Van Gogh having some sort of fit, then Winston Churchill examining a painting, and finally, River Song as she receives Churchill's phone call, which was meant for the Doctor. River escapes her cell and obtains both a vortex manipulator "off the wrist of Time Agent ... I said off the wrist!" and the painting, which depicts the TARDIS exploding. Meanwhile, the Doctor decides on a whim, apparently, to take Amy to the first written words on Earth, and is astonished to find that they translate into HELLO SWEETIE. He travels to Stonehenge based on coordinates that River also left.
River has used her hallucinogenic lipstick to make the Romans think that she's Cleopatra. Why, I don't know. It doesn't really make sense. She tells the Doctor about the Pandorica, which supposedly contains that biggest threat in the universe, and the Doctor again claims that it's a myth. They go to Stonehenge, and surprise, surprise, the Pandorica is located beneath.
As they enter the cavern below Stonehenge, the camera reveals the twitching head of a Cyberman.
They find the Pandorica and examine it, and discover that it's sending out a signal. Amy makes a comment that "Pandorica" is similar to "Pandora's Box", which was her favorite Greek myth. Also, she thinks that Romans are hot. River finds that there are at least 10,000 space ships in the sky above them, containing Daleks, Cybermen, and a ton of other enemies that the Doctor has encountered over the years. They go to the Romans for help, and River goes to the TARDIS with the intent to bring it back to the cavern. However, the TARDIS doesn't cooperate, and takes off with her.
Meanwhile, the broken Cyberman terrorizes the Doctor and Amy, and just as Amy is about to be captured by it, she is rescued by - Rory? Yes, that's right, Rory is a Roman soldier, and Amy doesn't remember him at all. He tells the Doctor that he died and woke up as a Roman soldier! It's so weird! The Doctor encourages him to go talk to Amy to try to get her to remember him.
The TARDIS brings River to Amy's house, where she enters Amy's bedroom and finds all the Doctor and Amy toys, as well as a book about the Romans and the tale of Pandora's Box. She relays this all to the Doctor, who realizes that this whole thing is a trap created out of Amy's memories.
The cavern is suddenly overrun by the Doctor's arch nemesis-es gather in the cavern and capture him, placing him inside the Pandorica. See, he's the biggest threat in the universe! It turns out that the Romans are all plastic Autons, which we last saw in Rose. He tries to tell them that the TARDIS is the thing that actually explodes, and it's happening right now, on June 26, 2010.
Well, Rory is an Auton, too, and just as Amy remembers who he is, he starts to act all robotic. Amy tries to convince Rory that he can be human if he can feel human, but just then, he unwillingly shoots her.
And, in 2010, the TARDIS explodes. TO BE CONTINUED ...
Repeat Ideas:
1) Oh no! Amy might be dead - AGAIN! This is what, the third time this season? 1) Flesh and Stone, she'll die if she opens her eyes for more than a second; 2) Vampires of Venice, she appears dead when Isabella saves her; 3) Hungry Earth, she disappears under the ground and is presumed dead; 4) Amy's Choice, she kills herself in the dream. Nope, sorry, this is the fifth time that it appears that Amy is either dead or in mortal peril. I think Moffat has some deep psychological issues that need to be dealt with.
2) Amy tries to help Rory overcome being a plastic Auton by filling him with his human memories, just like the Doctor convinced the android scientist Bracewell that he could be human by making him remember his false memories (Victory of the Daleks).
Dislikes:
1) Why is the Cyberman head there? River just said that Stonehenge is already thousands of years old by this point - if they left the Cyberman there as a guard and the Celts destroyed it, as the Doctor surmised, wouldn't the head have either been taken or destroyed by this time? I guess it depends on when the Cyberman was posted there. Anyway, I don't feel like it works. If they wanted the destroyed Cyberman to be there, the whole thing should have been inside the cavern.
2) The Doctor tells Amy that something which can be remembered can come back - but Rory died before he was absorbed by the Crack's energy, so if he came back, why would he come back alive?
3) I don't understand why the Daleks would be erased from Amy's memory and nothing else. I've been paying attention this time around, because last year everyone was talking about "all the things" that Amy couldn't remember. There's been nothing else besides the Daleks, and there's no reason why they would be erased out of her memory!
4) The Doctor absolutely freaks out about the Pandorica and gives a psychotic speech to the space ships. I guess he thinks that they're all there to claim whatever is inside as their weapon, but still - he acts so freaking crazy. How is this different from the Tenth Doctor acting like he was a God during that interim season?
5) Okay, so say that all this stuff WAS gleaned from Amy's memory. When River goes to Amy's house, she finds the following: one book about Roman soldiers, one book about Pandora's Box, and one photo of Roman Rory and Amy. WHAAAAA? First of all, how do those things just happen to be lying around? Second - why is there a picture of Rory? Rory doesn't exist! He was never born!
6) Once again, it is reiterated that on 26/6/10, silence will fall. This is important to remember.
7) River says that the Doctor taught her how to fly the TARDIS, but in another episode (I can't remember if it's in The Time of Angels or at some point in Series 6) she says that she learned from a better man than the Doctor.
8) The statement "only the Doctor can fly the TARDIS" is a red herring. I think it's solely in there to make people think that River is somehow an incarnation of the Doctor.
Likes:
1) The mention of the Time Agent. River is currently in jail in the 52nd century, which is right after Captain Jack Harness's time (51st century), so the Time Agency should be going strong at this point. Some people have theorized that the vortex manipulator was taken from Captain Jack, but this is impossible, as he wouldn't be anywhere near the Time Agency so as not to cross his own time line. And, if it was prior to him traveling with the Doctor, then there wouldn't be a wrist inside the box (insinuated by the "I said off the wrist" statement, because Jack wasn't immortal at that point. (My own theory is, and has been for a while, that River is a former Time Agent herself.)
2) After Amy is knocked out by the Cyberman's sleeping draught dart, she walks up to the Doctor and says, "ahhhhh" and he looks in her mouth and checks her out to make sure she's okay. I thought that was hilarious!
3) When hearing the Daleks, the look on the Doctor's face plainly reads, "not again."
4) The Doctor interacts with Rory, not realizing that Rory shouldn't be there. The exchange between him and Rory is hilarious!
5) Rory is responsible for "killing" Amy. I'd kill her, too, ungrateful bitch that she is.
Enjoy, before we get into the f*%#ed up, crack-inspired finale of Series 5.
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