It’s been said by those lucky enough to have seen this series finale ahead of broadcast that visually, it explained where all the money for the ‘back six’ was spent. Now we know they were telling the truth – from the first moment, the alternate, broken, timeline was a festival of weirdness, as if someone had smashed Harry Potter and Primeval together in a Large Hadron Collider and poured the results into our TV screens. Of course a visual feast with the logic of an acid trip is all very fine and dandy, but if on some level if doesn’t deliver on all the promise that’s been swirling around it for so long, it just looks like burning license fees. So the question is – did The Wedding deliver?
For this reviewer, solidly, yes. Questions were not only answered but, in an increasingly rare display of expositional Who, actually explained. The sheer volume of ideas thrown into this episode was positively breathtaking (memo to Sebastian Coe and Boris Johnson – Live Chess: too late for London 2012?). There were moments of delicious comedy – anyone else get the feeling Moffatt’s been just dying to write “Pond...Amelia Pond” since he first thought her up? – and there were also some genuinely creepy moments – carnivorous skulls, frankly, are an idea that will worm their way into the subconscious of your Inner-Eight-Year-Old and gnaw away at their peace of mind, and the moment when the Silence-creatures were discovered, en masse, upside down was disturbing and shocking – there’ll be more than a few actual eight-year-olds who have trouble sleeping tonight.
There were nods to the past, and a telling, respectful homage to Nicholas Courtney, and his timeless Brigadier. And very very pleasingly, we saw the return of the “Numskulls” in the Tessalector, and perhaps more to the point, they turned out to be crucial to the solution of the whole series story-arc.
In terms of the resolution, this year’s finale feels like an equaliser, a one-all in the debate between those who are happy with the wibbly-wobbly explanations of previous Moffatt masterpieces, and those of the older guard, who have been beginning to mutter “Gimme some Spock” and who thought the Pandorica Alliance was ludicrous. The Silence-creatures by way of contrast (it seems wrong to simply call them The Silence at this point, when clearly, The Silence is a religious faction, rather than a species) were still deeply unpleasant in a proper, Who-monster way, Madam Kovarian was positively delightful in her waspishness – “Oh, they’re flirting, do I have to watch this?” - and River proved to be both Hell On High Heels and The Doctor’s Great Love, as though she was herself a split timeline, where both of her possible personalities co-exist.
The business with the eye-patches was pleasingly guessable – time’s disintegrating, you need a way of spotting the differences – and above all, this reviewer was delighted to see not a single wretched mention of The Flesh. Phew – easy, lazy plotline averted there, Mr Moffatt, thanks for that.
Amy’s final scene with Kovarian was entirely believable, despite the consequences of guilt that her decision left her with, and, if this is the end of the Family Pond in ongoing Who, then there’s a pleasing everything-turned-out-alrightness about the three of them with glasses of wine, realising the Doctor’s still alive out there, a (now less conspicuous?) mad man with a box, and the best of all possible examples.
The ending though was loaded with questions – OK, so the “Fall of the Eleven” will be at Trenzalore, and the Question is still out there. Perhaps equally interesting is whether this means that, behind the scenes, there are plans for series seven to be the last with Smith in the Tardis – the fall sounds pretty final, and the question of his identity has a ‘Cartmel Master Plan’ tinge of adding the mystery back in. So is the fall of the Eleven the end of Smith’s career as a timelord, and is it being queued up for the next season? Or is ‘the Eleven’ merely a gracenote nod to the 50th anniversary in 2013? Or, since this is Steven Moffatt we're talking about, is it far more likely to be none of the above?
It is of course – even on this site – far too early to tell.
For now, let’s raise a glass with the Ponds, toast a finale well done, and then go forward – to poignant fun with Sarah-Jane, and straight on till Christmas.
Cheers!
