Spoilers follow.
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| Image via Tardis Newsroom |
Before I go off and read the reviews and reactions, I want to just sit and be by myself with this one. It's a fairly dramatic milestone for the series, the departure of the Pond/Williamses, and it's one of the more emotionally resonant ones. If feels final. Rose's did, too, but of course she came back; still, I feel like they've given us the final chapter (and afterword, as it were) of Amy and Rory's story. I'm not sure the logic of why the Doctor can't see them again is valid. I can understand his not being able to go back to Manhattan, 1938, but, if Amy's going to be a publisher, it doesn't seem like she's going to be forced to stay in New York. She and Rory are going to live a long time and surely the Doctor could meet them later, somewhere else? Or can't he because he read in the book that he didn't?
Amy and Rory at least got to be together, it's the Doctor (and the fans) who bear the brunt of the loss. That seems fair and is ultimately why I like this story more than the Rose, Martha, and Donna farewells. (Martha's wasn't brutal like Rose and Donna's were, but it was unsatisfying because she was too good a character to throw away as the "rebound" companion.)
A few things don't quite sync up for me emotionally in this one though: the relationship between River and the Doctor; and, that there's apparently no thought of Rory's dad? Have they been travelling for very long together again since where we left off the end of the last episode, that the promise nothing will happen to them is old and forgotten?
The Doctor spiffing up to see River, that was well played, but the rest of the their time together feels like we're looking in on abusive relationship. River's broken wrist, her warning to Amy to never let the Doctor see her age because he doesn't like it, this is some uncomfortable stuff.
The Weeping Angels & the cherubs, those are still creepy and great. The Statue of Liberty, frozen in the same place in both the private eye's beginning sequence, and then later when Amy and Rory flee to the same roof, that comes off as just having run out of money to show the Liberty angel any other way.
Now, the long wait for the Christmas special begins.
