Time Travel,

I know Doctor Who has a time machine but tonight is the sixth episode of the series and the fourth different transmission time (in the UK). I can't help thinking the constantly shifting time shows something of a lack of network commitment.

No real spoilers here.

Still a bit about the Doctor Who finale though so if you'd rather not take the chance, don't read on.

Just a brief note about a textbook example of how to write well but manage brevity. In a single scene, with entirely convincing dialogue, Steven Moffat managed to establish that we were in a new Universe, describe how the new Universe differed from the old one, explain that there were some people who remembered the old one, briefly give some hints about the social set up in the new UK, show that Amelia's aunt not only considered her to have mental problems but had tried to get them treated AND include a joke about Richard Dawkins.

It's taken almost as many words for me to describe it as he used to do it. If that isn't a model of concise writing, I don't know what is.

DO NOT READ THIS POST EITHER...

...unless you have seen the series finale to Doctor Who or don't care about knowing the ending.

Mega-spoilers ahead.

As high concept science fiction goes it doesn't get much better than this. Creating a new and gradually collapsing universe in which there is one sun (which isn't a sun at all) and one planet with a moon and nothing else is just what happened between the end of The Pandorica Opens and the start of Big Bang. Amy/Amelia as everyone has suspected all along turned out to be the key.

The new version of the Universe was established and described, eight year old Amelia was shown as crucial because she could remember the stars, a visit to the museum revealed what appeared to be fossilised Daleks  and the Pandorica, a mysterious unseen figure kept interacting with Amelia, leaving cryptic instructions to follow, Amelia turned out to be able to open the Pandorica by touching it (for reasons explained later) and when she did it was the older Amy inside not the Doctor.

And that was just the pre-credit sequence.

The episode zipped along at an unbelievable pace, throwing in multiple versions of the time-jumping doctor, explaining away apparent continuity errors in earlier episodes, establishing stable time-loops and using a collision between the exploding Tardis and the indestructable Pandorica to reboot the entire Universe.

Oh yes, almost forgot, there was also drama, emotion, a 2000 year vigil by the Auton Rory, the resurrection of the real Rory (and Amy's previously unseen and forgotten parents) and a wedding thrown in.

There were also enough loose ends and hints to set up the new season. All in all quite exceptional.

DO NOT READ THIS POST...

...unless one of the following is true

a) you have already seen the penultimate Doctor Who episode of the season, The Pandorica Opens

b) you haven't seen it but don't care if you find out what happens

The rest of this post contains SPOILERS (and nothing but spoilers).

So, let's see if I can summarise

All the Doctor Who baddies have teamed up
The Doctor is tricked and then imprisoned for eternity.
Rory returns but turns out to be a Auton.
Amy is dead.
River and the Tardis have blown up.
The whole Universe has been destroyed. (Probably destroyed in such a way that it never existed to begin with.)

And, on top of all that, the entire finale, perhaps the entire series, has been constructed out of elements of Amy's childhood fantasies by persons unknown for reasons unknown by methods unknown.

When he writes a cliffhanger, he doesn't mess about, does he?

Can't wait to see what next week's is all about.

Tenth of several

Today will see the announcement by the BBC of who will replace David Tennant in the role of Doctor Who. This, while not exactly the lead story, has made the national news on all the channels. I'm moderately interested but what caught my attention particularly was this comment on the BBC news.

"David Tennant is the tenth of several actors to play the Doctor."

There seems to be something odd about it to me. I can't quite put my finger on it but the phrase "tenth of several" seems wrong. Ten seems too many to be part of several, especially as the phrasing (tenth rather than last or most recent) seems to imply that there were more after him so that the number he is part of is even bigger.