Wow. Nobody's using spoiler tags. That does not surprise me. But nobody's complained? THAT surprises me. I guess xanfor's busy this weekend.
overall loved the episode, but the more time goes by, the more I'm bugged by the whole fixed point thing. It's partly that he "fooled" everyone so easily (and perhaps time itself was not fooled, but presumably the silence and every other enemy he has in the universe all fall for this switcheroo), but also the way it was just felt hastily tacked on at the last second of the episode.
And then the justice department/teselecta crew conspired with him? So.. they[/i[ know he's not dead. So presumably they falsified their own records to help him... And... I thought, when they weren't shoving pineapples up hitler's ass, part of their job was protecting the timeline as they knew it. So conspiring to help try to change the way they believed things were supposed to unfold felt off to me.
And lastly, he bends over backwards to prevent amy, rory, and river from knowing what he's doing; seemed to me he only told river because she was actually willing to let the whole universe die rather than kill him, forcing his hand. And then what? River promptly tells amy and rory that he's not really dead, and then the doctor himself tells Dorium's head. So... yeah. way to keep a secret that fools the entire universe for some undefined period of time...
I would've liked to see them not rush the ending like that. Leave us thinking he's dead, replace the reveal at the end with a tease of river and past-doctor on some adventure we had not actually seen yet - and we know they have many more than we've seen, which are still in river's future even if he really was dead. They could've taken more time, teased it out a bit, dropped hints. Maybe river gets suspicious when events start diverging from what's written in their journal in little ways. I dunno, to me it just felt rushed at the end, and I think it could've been more satisfying an explanation if they'd taken more time to tease it out instead of just "bam! montage of the stuff we deliberately omitted before!" (which is a device they abuse a bit too often for my taste)
hrm. wall of text. Despite all that, I did love the episode, heh. So much excellence.
-rory: "You've really never done this before, have you?"
-Amy's drawing of rory... "I can't find him. I love him very much, don't I?" doc: (looking at drawing) "... apparently."
-winston churchill. "A record? Good lord man, have you never heard of downloads?"
-doc: "Don't panic. In small numbers they're not difficult." heh.
-amy: "And I'm his... mother in law."
Oh, and a wonder. Where's the tardis? Wasn't paying as much attention the first time, but the sound when river arrived at amy's at the end was not the tardis sound. Just a bit of zappy electrical noise, not sure but I think like the ... whassitcalled, quick and dirty timetravel, like jack's. Though I've never noticed her wearing one. Thoughts?