 The story title refers to the Pandorica, first mentioned by Prisoner Zero in "The Eleventh Hour" and later by River Song in "The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone" in which The Doctor declares he believes the Pandorica to be merely a fairytale. It is also the title of Van Gogh's painting seen in this story.
The name ‘Pandorica’ is derived from the name ‘Pandora’. In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman on Earth. According to the ancient tales, Pandora was given a jar, or a box, by the gods but told never to open it. When curiosity got the better of her she disobeyed and opened the container, discovering too late it held unstoppable evils which escaped into the world.
A number of characters who have appeared in Season Thirty One (New Series 5) returned in this story. They include Rory Williams, Vincent Van Gogh ("Vincent and The Doctor"), Liz 10 ("The Beast Below"), Winston Churchill and Bracewell ("Victory of the Daleks") and River Song ("The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone").
The pre-opening credit sequence for the first episode is 7 minutes and 18 seconds long while the pre-opening credit sequence for the second episode is 7 minutes and 35 seconds - the longest that there has been to date. The previous longest pre-opening credit sequence (at 5 minutes and 48 seconds) was "Amy's Choice ".
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 Zygons, the Atraxi and the Draconians. Of these, the story visually depicted only the Daleks (in the New Paradigm introduced in "Victory of the Daleks"), the Nestene (previously seen in the 2005 Ninth Doctor story "Rose"), the revived show's version of the Cybermen and Sontarans, along with the Judoon, Sycorax, Hoix, Silurians and Roboforms (seen in "The Christmas Invasion" and "The Runaway Bride"). Footage from Doctor Who Confidential showed artists dressed as Blowfish, Weevils, Uvodni for the same scene, but they appear only for a split second in the story.
The Weevils, Blowfish and Uvodni are the first aliens originally from a spin-off series to appear in the main show. Whereas the Chelonians, from the novels, get their first mention in a television story.
The Terileptils appeared in the 1982 Fifth Doctor story "The Visitation" and with help from The Doctor, were responsible for the Great Fire of London. The Drahvins appeared in the 1965 First Doctor story "Galaxy 4" and are beautiful, fair-haired female humanoids but who are callous, militaristic and seemingly devoid of compassion. This is the first time both are mentioned since the show was revived in 2005.
A quote from this story was used as reward for completing a puzzle on the BBC Doctor Who website. This quote was ‘Yes, okay, okay, okay, okay. Dalek fleet, minimum twelve thousand battleships, armed to the teeth. Ahhhh, but we've got surprise on our side! They'll never expect three people to attack twelve thousand Dalek battleships, because we'd be killed instantly, so it would be a fairly short surprise. Forget Surprise’.
In River Song's timeline, this story takes place before the "The Time of Angels/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 imprisoned here at the start of this story. This story also marks the second use (in The Doctor's timeline) of River Song’s hallucinogenic lipstick.
It is claimed that Planet One is the oldest planet in the universe. River Song’s message, written on one of its cliff faces, reads "HELLO SWEETIE" with "ΘΣ Φ ΓΥΔϟ" underneath. "HELLO SWEETIE" (was used as her greeting to The Doctor in both "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead" and "The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone"). The first two characters of the second line are ‘ΘΣ’ which are the Greek characters theta and sigma. ‘Theta Sigma’ was the college nickname Drax called The Doctor in 1979 Fourth Doctor story "The Armageddon Factor", which The Doctor confirms in the 1988 Seventh Doctor story "The Happiness Patrol".
Since the script quite clearly indicates the Greek letters are actually the co-ordinates to River Songs location in 102 AD England, it is possibly more instructive to view this as a sequence of Greek numerals. Translating them non-additively, the numbers would be: "Θ (9) Σ (200) Φ (500) Γ (3) Υ (400) Δ (4) ϟ (90)". An additive translation - the usual way Greek numerals work - would be: "9, 200, 503, 404, 90". This gives co-ordinates in five dimensions, which corresponds to the number of dimensions Susan informed Ian Chesterton, in the 1963 First Doctor story "An Unearthly Child", were necessary to calculate locations.
Rory initially displays confusion at how he could have been ‘erased from time’, having been absent during "The Time of Angels/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 a story for the first time when the TARDIS is transported to Amy's house.
Christopher Ryan plays a Sontaran called Commander Stark in this story; he previously played the Sontaran General Staal in the 2008 Tenth Doctor story "The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky", in which Staal was apparently killed in the explosion of the Sontaran ship.
The Pandorica is located under Stonehenge on Earth. Which The Doctor called ‘Underhenge’. The first episode was broadcast just a few days before the Summer Solstice.
This story deliberately evoked the feel of the Indiana Jones franchise. River’ Song’s scene at The Maldovarium is a gag drawn directly from the teaser sequence of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The use of flambeaux in the cavernous ‘Underhenge’ was directly inspired by the teaser to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Finally director Toby Haynes played back a cue from Raiders while filming the sequence of The Doctor, River Song and Amy Pond entering the ‘Underhenge’ in order to give the sequence appropriate tempo.
Similarly, the sequence with the disembodied Cyberman head contains elements of John Carpenter's The Thing, in which one character is revealed to secretly be an alien being which other characters call ‘The Thing’, and after attempts to kill him it manifests legs and antenna in his head, detaches itself and crawls away. The head in The Thing is quickly dispatched in the film; however, the Cyber-Head also emulates the whipping tendrils and eerie sound manifested by ‘The Thing’ in its other incarnations in the movie. Additionally, like The Thing the sentinel Cyberman is seeking a new host body to sustain it.
Additionally, the disembodied Cyberman head tells Amy ‘You will be assimilated’. This is a line more associated with the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation, a cybernetic species similar to Cybermen whose intent was to integrate other species into their collective and assimilate their technology and knowledge to improve their own.
Amy Pond is heard to mention her deep interest in Roman culture. Interestingly Karen Gillan's original appearance in the show was that of a soothsayer in the 2008 Tenth Doctor story "The Fires of Pompeii".
When River begins having problems flying the TARDIS, The Doctor tells her she's not flying it right, to which she promptly quips, ‘I'm flying it PERFECTLY. You taught me!. In their previous meeting (in The Doctor's timeline), River Song mocked The Doctor for not being able to properly fly the TARDIS, namely, always leaving the brakes on when it lands.
This story marks at least the third time in the revised show that the fate of every universe is at stake (see "The Stolen Earth/Journey's End" and "The End of Time").
This second episode of this story revisits several scenes from earlier stories in the season. The first scene in the second episode, following the recap of events from "The Pandorica Opens", is taken from the start of "The Eleventh Hour" and the shots of young Amelia's garden mirror early scenes from the earlier story. However, unlike in the earlier story, this time The Doctor does not crash into Amelia’s garden and only appears later to direct her to the National Museum.
As The Doctor rewinds through his life, he sees events which relate to "The Lodger", but which were not shown in that story. Next he visits the events during "The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone", revealing the truth of what happened in the forest between The Doctor and Amy and that his message to Amy was given by a future Doctor. Also briefly seen are Vincent Van Gogh ("Vincent and The Doctor"), Weeping Angels ("The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone"), Silurians ("Cold Blood/The Hungry Earth"), Saturnynians ("Vampires of Venice"), Daleks ("Victory of the Daleks"), Smilers and Star Whales ("The Beast Below"). Finally, he arrives in seven-year-old Amelia's house after she waited for him in "The Eleventh Hour". After carrying her up to her bedroom The Doctor is heard telling the young Amy, while she is asleep, of how he got his TARDIS.
Look out for the scenes in the museum. It included a number of anomalies as a result of the altered timeline, including penguins in the Nile and Egyptians in the Himalayas.
The Blinovitch Limitation Effect occurs in a very small way when The Doctor taps the sonic screwdriver iterations together. It does not occur, however, when Amy and her past/alternate universe selves touch, or when the two iterations of the Eleventh Doctor physically touch. This may be because there is some form of electrical energy inside the screwdriver, but not in Amy or The Doctor. The Doctor has previously interacted with himself and Rose also touched a past version of herself. Neither occurrences invoking the effect.
This is the second time, since the show was revived in 2005, that The Doctor has been shot by a Dalek. This previously occurred during "The Stolen Earth/Journey's End".
The Doctor is heard to state that Fezs are cool, much in the same way he has said bow ties are cool throughout this season. It seems that The Doctor likes his hats. The First Doctor occasionally wore one and in his first adventure, the Third Doctor donned a wide brimmed hat although he later abandoned it. The Fourth, Fifth and Seventh Doctors were seldom without hats whilst the Second Doctor favoured elaborate headgear and on more than one occasion was known to admire other people's, saying ‘I should like a hat like that!’.
The message that The Doctor sends to River Song contained just the word, ‘Geronimo’. This is a saying said a lot by the Eleventh Doctor and was first heard by him shortly after the regeneration scene in "The End of Time".
The line ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’ spoken by Amy, is also said by Doctor Ruth Winters in the episode of Casualty which was broadcast, also on BBC One, a few hours after Doctor Who. Both were spoken on or just before a wedding (on in Amy's case, before in Ruth's case). Whereas Ruth was referring to a number of items to give her good luck, Amy was referring to the TARDIS and it was this that enabled the TARDIS to materialise during her wedding reception.
This is the third time that The Doctor has got involved in a companion’s wedding. Unlike the previous two weddings The Doctor finally gets to hit the dance floor and celebrate in style! In "The Runaway Bride", the reception for a cancelled wedding was interrupted by alien intruders and in "The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith" (from The Sarah Jane Adventures), when The Doctor crashed the nuptials of Sarah Jane Smith, it ended in death.
With Rory and Amy getting married, and then continuing their travels in the TARDIS, makes this the first occasion a married couple have been companions of The Doctor.
This is the first time in the revived show that a finale has a happy ending. This story is also the first time, since the show returned in 2005, that a season does not end with either a change of Doctor or a companion departing. "Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways" concluded with the Ninth Doctor regenerating, "Army of Ghosts/Doomsday" culminated with Rose Tyler trapped in another universe and "The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords" saw Martha Jones leave the TARDIS. "The Stolen Earth/Journey's End" finished with Donna’s travels coming to a heartbreaking halt and The Doctor was travelling alone in "The End of Time". But "The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang" sees The Doctor, Amy and Rory, this season’s companions, staying on at the end. Amy is also the first companion since Rose to travel with The Doctor through a whole season, and to continue doing so after the finale.
It is possible that time may have been rewritten for River Song, as the story "The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone" involved a crack in the universe, and since this earlier story is set after "The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang" for her, the crack should no longer be there, meaning there may now be a new way the Weeping Angels were defeated. Things still end the same way for River Song, as she is heard to tell The Doctor in "The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone" that she will be there when the Pandorica Opens.
Following on immediately after each episode of this story, on BBC3, were the twelth and thirteenth chapters of the fifth series of Doctor Who Confidential. These being "Alien Abduction" and "Out of Time". Both looked into the making of this story. They were presented by Alex Price.
This story won the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.
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The Firsts:
The first time that the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond encounter the Cybermen.
The first time that the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond encounter the Sontarans.
The first time that the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond encounter the Judoon.
The first time that Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) and Caitlin Blackwood (Amelia) appear in the same scene.
The first appearance of Weevils (from the spin-off series Torchwood) in Doctor Who.
The first time in the revised series that the time vortex sequence, used in the start and end credits, is shown within a story.
The first time a married couple have been companions of The Doctor.
The first time in the revised series that the final story of a season has a happy ending.
The first time in the revised series that the final story of a season does not end with either a change of Doctor or a companion departing.
The first Doctor Who story to be directed by Toby Haynes.
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(Position = 1 out of 10)
(Position = 42 out of 241)
