| abstract | - First part of the season finale, penned by Steven Moffat. The episode opens in France, 1890. Vincent van Gogh is ill and screaming his head off, and the entire town can hear him. His doctor explains to Vincent's landlord that he's ill, but she's more concerned about his new painting. It's weirder than usual. Cabinet War Rooms, 1941. The Allies have found a painting in Arles, and it's confirmed as a genuine Van Gogh. After seeing the painting, Winston Churchill gets on the phone to the Doctor. River Song, in a 51st Century prison, gets the call instead (relayed by the TARDIS) and breaks out after talking to Churchill. She makes her way to the Royal Gallery, and gets caught nicking the painting by Liz Ten, who lets her go after she sees the painting. River then is able to procure a vortex manipulator fresh off the wrist of a Time Agent (well, not exactly...) after a bit of haggling, and, well, travels in time. We join the Doctor, who's taking Amy to the oldest planet in the universe. There's a message on the cliff side that no-one's ever translated, but that changes today. "Why today?", Amy asks. Because of the TARDIS' Translator Microbes, answers the Doctor. They open the doors, and see in fifty foot letters, you guessed it, "Hello Sweetie!". River's also left the Doctor some co-ordinates, which take the TARDIS to Roman Britain (102AD), where River's playing Cleopatra. As soon as the Doctor gets there, we finally get a peek at the painting; it's the TARDIS. And it's exploding. ...Ah. Luckily, Vincent has left date and map references on the painting. The painting's name? "The Pandorica Opens". The Doctor insists that it's a fairytale, while River argues that if it is real, it's here, it's opening and it's related to the TARDIS going kaboom. Cut to the trio on horseback, riding to Stonehenge. River and Amy have a Timey-Wimey conversation about their goodbye last time; "I'll see you again when the Pandorica opens," River had said. Maybe she did say that. But she hasn't yet. Maybe she will have. They move aside a stone and go under Stonehenge. Inside, they find a box carved with complicated patterns and symbols: the Pandorica. More than just a fairytale, then. Something's trapped inside there, a goblin or a trickster or a warrior soaked in the blood of a thousand galaxies. "The most feared being of all the cosmos", the Doctor says. Indestructible, can't be caught or reasoned with; it would just drop out of the sky and tear down their world. How did it get caught? Like all fairytales, a good wizard came and tricked him. Amy takes a moment to mention that it's a bit like Pandora's Box, her favourite book when she was a kid; all the bad things trapped inside it that came into the world when the box opened. Hell, even the name's similar. This arouses the Doctor's suspicion: Amy's favourite subject at school, the Romans, and now her favourite childhood book. Never overlook a coincidence. Unless you're busy, then always overlook a coincidence. And it's opening from the inside, breaking all kinds of locks and safe-holders; what could get past all that? What could inspire that level of fear? And moreover, how did Vincent van Gogh know about it, since he won't even be alive for another few centuries? Well, Stonehenge is broadcasting a warning to everyone, everywhere and everywhen; the Pandorica is opening. Wait a minute: a message to everyone, everywhere? So, who else is coming? At least 10,000 starships -- but it could be 100,000, a million, a hundred million; the scanners are going into overload. A voice comes through; Daleks. Dalek battleships, at least 12,000 armed to the teeth. But they can surprise them; three of them against 12,000 battleships and they'll be killed... you know what, never mind. And then Cybermen, too; but we can turn them against each other, the Daleks are so angry they'll fight anyone! But there's more coming through: Sontarans, the Slitheen family, Judoon, Roboform, Chelonians, Nestene, Drahvi, Sycorax, Zygons, Atraxi, Draconians. And they're all here for the Pandorica. What could it possibly be? Everything that's ever hated the Doctor is coming for him tonight. River tells him to run, just this once, just run; he can't win, he can't even fight. But they have the greatest fighting force in the history of the earth with them: the Romans. River rides back to get help, but it's not easy; the general has seen through her Cleopatra gig. It mainly has to do with the real Cleo being in Egypt and, well, dead (for 130 years, actually). But don't worry, a faceless, voiceless Roman soldier appears in the doorway to help. Who could it possibly be? Back to Underhenge. The Doctor keeps scanning the Box, when Amy pulls out the ring. "Are you proposing to someone?" she asks. Well, no. It was a friend of his, the Doctor says, someone he lost. He tries to coax Amy into remembering Rory: sometimes, people fall out of the world, but they leave things behind; faces in photographs, half-eaten meals, luggage, rings. Nothing is ever completely forgotten; if they can be remembered they can come back. And the night he picked Amy up -- her house was too big, too many empty rooms. Doesn't it bother her that her life doesn't make any sense? Suddenly, something is shooting at them and the Doctor needs to get a closer look. He has a brilliant plan -- "LOOK AT ME, I'M A TARGET!" Amy runs out in front while the Doctor gets behind it, tackling it to the ground and disabling it. He warns Amy to stay where she is, while a disembodied Cyberhead approaches behind her. It's crawling and scrabbling around on its wires, and tangling around her wrists (at which point the dessicated human head is ejected) while the arm electrocutes the Doctor. She slams it against a stone wall, but before she can escape, a sleeping dart is shot into her neck. "YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED." The Cyberman proper walks in and picks up its head. Amy manages to stumble behind a big door and shut it. It rattles a bit and falls open, revealing the Cyberman with a sword stabbed through it and pinned to the wood. Amy passes out, but Rory, in full Roman gear, catches her and carries her out. The Doctor scans her and starts babbling, looking at two huge Cyberguns; Cybermen, Cyberweapons, why is one of them in there, was it locked in by one of its own? But there's something right in his face that he's missing, something right in front of him, something big. He'll get it in a minute. He walks away from Rory and -- Wait. He pokes Rory quite apprehensively. Not to be rude, but Rory died and was erased from time. Turns out, Rory doesn't really have an answer either. He just died and became a Roman centurion. It's sort of distracting. He walks over to the sleeping Amy. "Did she miss me?" Oh, Rory. There's commotion above them before the Doctor can answer, and the sky above Stonehenge is filled with all kinds of alien spaceships. They're surrounded. The Doctor tells River to get the TARDIS to him, while he grabs the scanner and shouts into it. He addresses each and every single one of the starships: could they all stop whizzing about please, because "I! AM! TALKING!". Who's got the Pandorica? He does, next question. Who's coming to take it? Look at him: And the aliens must have dropped the Villain Ball, because they all get the hell out. Well, for half an hour, anyway. To decide who gets to take the first shot. On the TARDIS, River is having some problems. It's not dematerialising right, and it can't be controlled. Back to Stonehenge where Amy's waking up. She bumps into Rory and recognises him as the guy who... did the... swordy thing. The Doctor sends her up to get some fresh air. Rory is rather traumatized and angsts for a bit before the Doctor shuts him up and tosses Rory the ring. There's no explanation to this; Rory was eaten up by a crack in time and space and now he's here with a head full of Roman memories. It's unexplainable, and to be honest, rather distracting, but the Universe is big and sometimes impossible things just happen and people call them miracles. The Doctor's never seen one, but this is close enough. Rory goes after Amy. The TARDIS and River have landed, but the screen is showing a mess of nothing. River goes out the door when the screen cracks, and suddenly a creepy voice from nowhere announces "silence will fall". They've landed outside Amy's house on June 26th, 2010. The door's been broken wide open and there are burn marks on the grass. In Amy's room, River finds a picture book of Romans and Pandora's Box. They're exactly the same Roman soldiers from Stonehenge; maybe they're illusions, maybe they're cover-ups, but they were created from Amy's memories. Then she notices a photo of Amy and Rory together, the latter dressed as a centurion, and we realize that Rory is also a construct. Rory tries to get Amy to remember him. She's crying, but she doesn't know why. She's happy, but why is she happy? The TARDIS is still uncontrollable, the doors won't open, and again that creepy voice from nowhere that says "silence will fall". The Pandorica gives off a high-pitched whine and suddenly all the Romans stop. Including Rory. A light comes from the Pandorica, and when the Romans start up again, the ones underground are frogmarching the Doctor towards it. In reality, the Romans are perfected Autons, part of the Nestene consciousness, made to forget what they really were -- until it was time. Rory's struggling to keep hold of his humanity, while trying to get Amy away. "I'm Rory! I'm Rory! I'm Rory --" "-- Williams. From Leadworth. My boyfriend. How could I ever forget you?" Oh, Amy. Underground, Daleks have appeared, along with Cybermen, Judoon, Sontarans, etc. The Pandorica opens. It is ready. For the Doctor. Above ground, Rory's lost his hold and shoots Amy while clinging to her. The aliens watch while the Doctor is dragged into the Pandorica. River re-wires the TARDIS. Amy dies. Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans; they've all formed an alliance against the Doctor. They have deduced that the cracks in time are threatening reality and erasing all other universes, and that they have spawned from the explosion of the TARDIS. They're here to save reality from the Doctor under the (false) logic that only he can pilot the TARDIS, shutting him in the Pandorica (while he shouts desperately) in hopes that the TARDIS won't explode without him around. Elsewhere in time and space, River opens the TARDIS doors to... a slab of concrete, as behind her the ship starts to explode. "I'm sorry, my love." The alliance has failed. We zoom out from Rory holding Amy's body, a shot of the Earth against stars and galaxies exploding until all fades out in a black void of nothingness --
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