The Top 10 Modern Doctor Who Episodes

[h2]3. The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang[/h2]

Written by Steven Moffat

Series 5 of Doctor Who is the best season the modern series has ever produced, or is likely to ever produce. A perfectly realized combination of narrative ambition and character development, the series was incredible from start to finish, but it was this two-part finale that really solidified the season’s legacy. Steven Moffat threw a whole lot of balls up in the air over the course of the season, and while a few, like the explosion of the TARDIS, have yet to come back down to earth, the sheer number of plot and character threads he ties together in these two hours is staggering.

But “The Pandorica Opens” and “The Big Bang” are about so much more than satisfying plot resolution. It is what those narrative climaxes mean to the characters that really matters, and these two episodes are so absurdly full of great character moments – Rory chooses to stay with Amy and the Pandorica for 2000 years, the Doctor’s speech to a young, sleeping Amy before he is erased from time, and Amy’s conjuring of the Doctor at her wedding, to name the standouts – that maintaining dry eyes to the end is nearly impossible. Season Finales simply do not come better than these two episodes, so brilliant and beautiful and satisfying they are as a climax. I’ve often said that no matter what Moffat and Smith did from here on out, their legacies would be cemented by the work done here, and nowhere is that more apparent than in this bit of writing, perfectly delivered by Smith, which summarizes better than I ever could the power of these two episodes, and the cumulative impact of the fifth season as a whole:

“It’s funny. I thought, if you could hear me, I could hang on, somehow. Silly me. Silly old Doctor. When you wake up, you’ll have a mum and dad, and you won’t even remember me. Well, you’ll remember me a little. I’ll be a story in your head. But that’s OK: we’re all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know, it was the best. A daft old man, who stole a magic box and ran away. Did I ever tell you I stole it? Well, I borrowed it; I was always going to take it back. Oh, that box, Amy, you’ll dream about that box. It’ll never leave you. Big and little at the same time, brand-new and ancient, and the bluest blue, ever. And the times we had, eh? Would’ve had. Never had. In your dreams, they’ll still be there. The Doctor and Amy Pond… and the days that never came.” 

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