__Last Time: __"Closing Time"
SPOILER ALERT!
London 5:02 PM, 22nd April 2011 — It may be a little different than you remember, with flying cars (of a sort), pterodactyls terrorizing small children, and Charles Dickens on the telly talking about his next big Christmas story:
Winston Churchill is the Holy Roman Emperor, being attended to his Silurian Doctor:
The soothsayer is brought in, a bearded and bedraggled Doctor:
Oh, not just any woman.
After the opening credits, we are taken back to sometime "Earlier…"
The Doctor has decided not to take his pending death lying down. He has decided to learn as much as he can about the Silence. He starts by getting everything the Daleks know. He next tracks down Gideon Vandeleur and envoy of the Silence — but actually the time traveling justice machine the Tesselecta in disguise — to find the Silence's weakest link. He then plays that weakest link, Gantok, in a deadly game of "Live Chess". Gantok then takes him to Dorium Maldovar, last seen headless on Demon's Run, but living as a disembodied head in the catacombs of the Silence.
But remember, this is still just the Doctor telling Emperor Churchill a little story:
Back to the story, we get a little encapsulation of Silence and what they are up to:
Maldovar reveals that the Silence is doing everything in their power to prevent the Doctor from fulfilling his very dangerous future:
But of course, the scene cuts before we can hear the question. The Doctor — back on the TARDIS with Maldovar's head — is looking shaken with his new information.
Meanwhile, back at 5:02 PM:
But it's clear that Winston and The Doctor have been on the move, running from something, but they don't seem to remember what they were running from, or even that they were running. I wonder who that could be, then.
Back in the story, The Doctor gets some sad news, when trying to call an old friend he could always turn to for help, or just to listen and provide sound advice:
This is a touching tribute to Nicholas Courtney, the actor who played the Brigadier, who recently passed away.
But, now the Doctor seems to accept his fate: he must die. We get what appears to be a flashback in the flashback, where the Doctor gives the Tesselecta three blue envelopes to be delivered:
Hmmm… maybe there is something more they can do to help, but we will have to wait for now. The Doctor is resigned as he relays the story of his final hours at Lake Silencio. Everything is going according to memory:
But then, a woman happens:
…and time stops:
We are back in the "present" but the Doctor and Churchill are indeed fighting the Silence on the floor of Senate. Suddenly Amy and a band of soldiers break in rescuing the Doctor and Winston. But Amy is wearing an eye patch and takes out a gun and shoots the Doctor in the head. Of course, things are not as they appear, and the Doctor wakes up on a train with Amy.
The Doctor gets back to his old self, although his hair looks a bit longer. Amy remembers both the Doctor being shot and not being shot, and she's trying to fix things. She also remembers a "Rory" but not what he looks like. Just then, Captain Williams comes in, now a soldier under Amy's command. It's actually Rory, but they seem unaware that they are madly in love.
The train arrives at Area 52, one of the great pyramids at Giza, now with a great big American flag on the side — and the holding place for several of the Silence.
I wonder if the iDrive has an Apple logo on it. The Doctor and River are soon reunited, an a captured Madame Kovarian as well:
But the Doctor knows what has to happen. He and River have to touch in order to restart time and keep the universe from disintegrating. But River has plans to rewrite time to save the Doctor.
There's one little sang: The Silence aren;t as captured as they appeared to be. With the appearance of the Doctor, they easily break free of their cells. The Silence also turn the eye patches on their wearers, as they short our on every bodies faces, killing them or causing agonizing pain. Madame Kovarian is first amused, until her own eye patch begins to short:
River, Amy, and Captain Williams lead the Doctor to the top of the pyramid to show him something:
But the Doctor knows this will not work, that the fixed point and time can't be fixed it can only happen. So, he marries River Song, telling her his name. Why? I'm still not exactly clear how this was a necessity other than the title of the episode would have had to be something else.
They seal the deal with a kiss, time starts back up, and the Doctor dies, but not before letting River know that this was inevitable…
In a garden Amy sits with a bottle of wine. There's a flash of light and River appears:
But, of course, the Doctor is dead. Or is he?
Remember when the Tesselecta asked if there was anything else they could do? Remember how they are a shape shifting time ship?
Yep, it was not the Doctor on Lake Silencio, but the Tesselecta. Well, he was in the Tesselecta ship, but it's a pretty rugged piece of machinery. The Doctor whispers into River's ear just before she is about to shoot him, that she should look into his eye, where she sees a happy little Doctor dancing around.
The Doctor is taking Dorium back to the catacombs:
And there ends series six. The Doctor lives, but will now be living in the shadows. I'm not sure what that means though.
We knew the Doctor couldn't die, or else the show would be over. But Moffat had written himself into a corner. He may have know all along that this was going to be the Tesselact, but we had no way of knowing at the time. When the Tesselact showed up for the first time in "Let's Kill Hitler" it seemed like such an obvious solution, that I had discounted it as a possibility.
As with last season, the conclusion of the series story arc is not the the answer to all of the questions that have been raised. Most obviously, there are the events yet to be seen on the Fields of Trenismore.
And exactly what does it mean for the Doctor to live in the shadows? Will he ever return to earth? Does he really think that Dorium can keep his secret? Do the Silence really believe that he is dead? And, other than for the imagery, what the Hell is the point of the Apollo space suit that River was wearing? I know it was controlling her actions, but why did the silence have to go through all of that just to make a suit to control River?
