Doctor Who: The Big Bang

Last week's episode, The Pandorica Opens ended on several exciting cliffhangers . The Doctor's old enemies had teamed up against him and trapped him in the Pandorica. The Tardis had exploded. Amy had died. The Universe was destroyed. Having raised the threat level as far as it could go, Steven Moffat has no choice but to bring it back down. The cliffhangers were resolved in a fairly dull way.. How did the Doctor escape the Pandorica? Through Rory using the Sonic Screwdriver. How did Amy survive being killed? The Pandorica suddenly is a life preserving device.   How did River escape the exploding Tardis? The Doctor simply teleported in to rescue her. The one question we didn't get an answer to was the identity of the party that blew up the Doctor's Tardis.

The Big Bang  is, unusually for a finale, small in scale. The main focus is on a museum where the Doctor, Amy, Amelia, Rory and River run around, trying to find a way to reboot the universe and evade the one surviving Dalek in the universe. It wasn't a direction I was expecting Steven to take us, and I admit to being a little disappointed that we didn't find out who was pulling the strings behind this whole incident. It seems we must wait a while before we find out the identity of the mysterious voice was that drew the Tardis off course.

It was nice to see little Amelia back. The alternate universe with no stars was at least a fascinating idea. The Stone Dalek was a good look even if it was a fairly flimsy monster that had to recharge itself over time.

Matt Smith has been the best thing in this series. In many ways the show has relied on him when stories were not up to scratch. The scene where he says goodbye to little Amelia is heartbreaking as we see the old man in the Tardis.

I was disappointing that nothing was revealed about River. She is apparently scary enough to make a Dalek beg for mercy. I hope there's a good reason for this and it isn't just Moffat trying to make her look more impressive.

The other big moment in this episode was the wedding between Amy and Rory. . It is great that they will carry on travelling with the Doctor as we have never had a married couple as companions before.

Since the story focuses so much on the regular cast, other characters, such as Amy's Aunt Sharon get practically no development. Amy's parents appear briefly but they are not particularly memorable and I have no desire to see them come back. All in all, this episode was alright on its own merits but did not match up to the anticipation.

So, who is River Song? What caused the Tardis to explode on the day of Amy and Rory's wedding? And what is the mysterious Silence? These are questions that we will have to wait several months to find out.

7/10