• Chris Chibnall has brought the domestic side of this half-season’s divide between the world of the domestic and the world of stories. Now, Steven Moffat brings us back to the world of stories with a 1930s noir companion departure.
• And here, we see the danger of the world of stories laid bare. This danger is represented by the Weeping Angels, the most metafictional monsters in Doctor Who, and the Winter Quays battery farm, a chilling inversion of the Weeping angels’ ability to “kill you kindly” by sending their victims back in time. The world of stories is literally consuming Rory, threatening to take away his autonomy and personhood by trapping him in this world for the rest of his life. And it’s a return to a recurring plot in Moffat stories: as with “The Beast Below”, we get another story about the characters being trapped in a repeating cycle that needs to be broken.
• Key to the story’s central metaphor is the “Melody Malone” Book, which is first cleverly used for exposition, with the scenes of the Doctor and Amy reading about River and Rory intercut with the 1930s scenes, and the titles providing useful foreshadowing. Most of all, the book lays out the story’s key themes of inevitability, fictionality, and the intersection of the two when stories are brought to a close. The Doctor doesn’t like endings, but here, he is forced to confront them.
• The episode is also the story of two marriages: Amy and Rory’s, and the Doctor and River’s. It’s the first time the two couples have been on screen together since “The Wedding of River Song”, and the portrayal of both marriages informs the other.
• First, let’s look at the portrayal of the Doctor and River’s marriage. It’s not a flattering portrayal of their relationship, as their storyline is basically constructed around their marital argument. This is emphasized by River’s telling Amy the Doctor “doesn’t like endings” a line that is linked to the central tragedy of the Doctor’s relationship with River: for the Doctor, their relationship began with an ending. The uncomfortable side of the Doctor and River’s relationship is thrown into sharp relief in this episode, although it is not condoned: the Doctor’s dislike of endings is something that makes him useless in this story. After landing the TARDIS in 1930s Manhattan, he is unable to accomplish anything for the remainder of the episode, merely expositing at Amy and Rory while the other characters fight to change their fat he has. And while he doesn’t like endings, he is, ultimately forced to confront and accept them.
• Amy and Rory’s marriage serves as a counterpoint to that of River and the Doctor, with the Doctor and River’s fight contrasting to Amy and Rory’s commitment to one another. Rory and Amy escape Winter Quay because Rory becomes aware of his fictionality, his ability to die repeatedly and to keep coming back, breaking the cycle of the corrupted land of fiction with meta fictional self awareness. And they achieve this while bringing the marriage metaphor full circle, with Amy standing alongside Rory in a united attempt to break the paradox.
• But even as Rory escapes the Angels, his fate is literally set in stone, leading to Amelia’s last farewell in the Graveyard. This is, of course, a sequence lacking in plot clarity, as the means of the Pond’s separation from the Doctor is a little too contrived (why can’t the Doctor meet the Ponds in the 1940s? Or outside of New York?) but the emotional clarity makes it work – the Doctor knows he won’t see Amy again, and can’t let her go, but Amy has to move past her time with him, and, with River’s assistance, leaves the Doctor to be with Rory.
• And so we end on the last page of River’s book, with the Doctor chasing after the ending he’s tried to reject, forced to confront what he’s been avoiding all episode. And in something of a reversal of the start of his story with River, which has been a significant part of the subtext of the episode, the Doctor is told to go back to the beginning of Amelia’s story as he finishes his time with her, bringing the story of the Ponds full circle.
• Key to the story’s central metaphor is the “Melody Malone” Book, which is first cleverly used for exposition, with the scenes of the Doctor and Amy reading about River and Rory intercut with the 1930s scenes, and the titles providing useful foreshadowing. Most of all, the book lays out the story’s key themes of inevitability, fictionality, and the intersection of the two when stories are brought to a close. The Doctor doesn’t like endings, but here, he is forced to confront them.
• The episode is also the story of two marriages: Amy and Rory’s, and the Doctor and River’s. It’s the first time the two couples have been on screen together since “The Wedding of River Song”, and the portrayal of both marriages informs the other.
• First, let’s look at the portrayal of the Doctor and River’s marriage. It’s not a flattering portrayal of their relationship, as their storyline is basically constructed around their marital argument. This is emphasized by River’s telling Amy the Doctor “doesn’t like endings” a line that is linked to the central tragedy of the Doctor’s relationship with River: for the Doctor, their relationship began with an ending. The uncomfortable side of the Doctor and River’s relationship is thrown into sharp relief in this episode, although it is not condoned: the Doctor’s dislike of endings is something that makes him useless in this story. After landing the TARDIS in 1930s Manhattan, he is unable to accomplish anything for the remainder of the episode, merely expositing at Amy and Rory while the other characters fight to change their fat he has. And while he doesn’t like endings, he is, ultimately forced to confront and accept them.
• Amy and Rory’s marriage serves as a counterpoint to that of River and the Doctor, with the Doctor and River’s fight contrasting to Amy and Rory’s commitment to one another. Rory and Amy escape Winter Quay because Rory becomes aware of his fictionality, his ability to die repeatedly and to keep coming back, breaking the cycle of the corrupted land of fiction with meta fictional self awareness. And they achieve this while bringing the marriage metaphor full circle, with Amy standing alongside Rory in a united attempt to break the paradox.
• But even as Rory escapes the Angels, his fate is literally set in stone, leading to Amelia’s last farewell in the Graveyard. This is, of course, a sequence lacking in plot clarity, as the means of the Pond’s separation from the Doctor is a little too contrived (why can’t the Doctor meet the Ponds in the 1940s? Or outside of New York?) but the emotional clarity makes it work – the Doctor knows he won’t see Amy again, and can’t let her go, but Amy has to move past her time with him, and, with River’s assistance, leaves the Doctor to be with Rory.
• And so we end on the last page of River’s book, with the Doctor chasing after the ending he’s tried to reject, forced to confront what he’s been avoiding all episode. And in something of a reversal of the start of his story with River, which has been a significant part of the subtext of the episode, the Doctor is told to go back to the beginning of Amelia’s story as he finishes his time with her, bringing the story of the Ponds full circle.
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