Past Seasons: The Pond Years

[Lisin]

A place to discuss particular episodes, arcs and moments from the Pond's seasons. Please remember this isn't a complete catch-all topic -- check out the forum for character topics and other places for show-related talk.

[Vikitty]

The Eleven/Amy/Rory/River Team TARDIS is probably my favourite team since Nine/Rose/Mickey/Jack. 

 

Honestly, the show is more fun with multiple companions. There are so many more opportunities for stories with different pairings/teamups and the chemistry is just so beautiful.

[HauntedBathroom]

I adore the season six Team TARDIS as well. They could spark off each other in so many interesting ways, that you didn't really get when it was Doctor+1.

[SVNBob]

Necroing this thread for a fun-ish reason.

A while ago, I read a thread on reddit in which the poster opined the theory that series 7A, the last episodes of the Pond story, was actually shown out of order from the Doctor's point of view.  Meaning that, like River, we weren't seeing events in actual chronological order.  Said poster then watched the series in a shuffled order, and posted that it seemed to work.  Well, I also had to try it, as did a few of my friends.  So we recently did.

1. Angels in Manhattan.  Yep, this was the first story, not the last.
2. Dinosaurs on a Spaceship.
3. Power of Three.
4. Asylum of the Daleks.
5. A Town Called Mercy.
6. The Pond Life minisode (that was originally the lead-in to Asylum.)  This was included for one scene that I'll mention below.

And it does actually seem to mostly work in this order.  It's a little timey-wimey, but doesn't really refer to that.  As one of us put it, it turns all the foreshadowing into a history lesson.

There is one change I'd make if anyone else wants to try this experiment, though.  I'd flip the order of Asylum and Power of Three.   Doing that puts everything after Angels in an order that seems to correspond to and/or symbolize the Five Stages of Grief.

1. Dinosaurs has the Doctor acting like things are normal.  It also starts in Egypt and features Nefertiti, Queen of "De Nile".
2. What better represents Anger in Doctor Who than Daleks?  Plus there's the intro scene of Amy with "HATE" written on her knuckles.
3. Power of 3 has the Doctor asking to stay with the Ponds; literally bargaining for more time with them.
4. Mercy has one actual suicide and a second one considered.  Very apt for symbolizing Depression.
5. Pond Life has the running plot of the Doctor leaving voicemails for the Ponds, until the final segment, when he uses the sonic to erase the message he just left.  In this order, this moment gives the impression that he's finally accepted that he has to let the Ponds go.  So he does.

In the end, I think this shuffled order does work really well as an alternative take on the series.  I'd recommend trying it at least the once.

[Affogato]

I just rewatched some of these episodes (in honor of Matt Smith being in 'house of the dragon' and because I've had a few days off.).

Hey, Amy is a really old fashioned image of a woman. Her life revolves around the doctor and then Rory. Her greatest storyline, and perhaps tragedy, is motherhood. She has a small, weird series of romance heroine jobs, none of which really seem to stick. Her relationship with Rory is an outrageously romance novel one, he waits for her for 2,000 years! He is protective! Eventually the doctor begins to treat him as an equal.

River, with her lipstick weapon and her degree, because she is clever, but really got it to have a byzantine way to contact The Doctor, is no more modern or progressive. Not much agency, at all.

The whole thing works, though, because of the acting. All of them express such emotion, such love, such loss, such courage that they imbue these old (and perhaps slightly offensive?) and certainly predictable tropes with new life.

So, just a thought, really. The thing is that there is so much Doctor Who that it can contain all kinds of storylines, and a lot of this one is The Doctor being attracted to the Happily Ever After storyline, his wanting his companions to have a Happily Ever After.