The Big Bang

Absolute genius. To link back to the first episode and show us the clues he left sprinkled throughout the 1st series shows remarkable confidence from Steven Moffat. Such complexity also shows the respect he has for his audience's intelligence.

This 2 parter was the best season finale so far in 'New Who' and wipes away the memory of Tennant as 'Yoda' Doctor with the Master.

As for Matt Smith - brilliant as usual - especially in the more emotional scenes with young Amy and all handled a lot better than the somewhat over the top style we got from Tennant & Davies.

Whilst other dramas seem to lose their way ( Lost, Heroes ) Doctor Who goes from strength to strength - and as long as Matt and Steven are around I don't see that changing.

... December 2014 to be precise and (most fans should be OK with this) I went back in time to make a few points:

* when I first saw this episode in real time (or that version of me contemporaneous with the episode as aired) I recall being happy and anticipatory. Life was full of promise. Going forward, the series would I reasoned be at least this good every episode possibly better. Well, I was wrong, don't want to annoy any die-hard fans but the reason I am (in the future) re-watching the entire Amy Pond series as opposed to watching the current (late 2014) Dr Who in real time is that the older version (the one being reviewed) is not merely slightly better, it is better on an order of magnitude that staggers the imagination. So much for the promise of a brighter tomorrow

* frankly on rewatching I was gobsmacked by how sharp the writing was. I mean you could cut a steak with it. Just the ending of this season could be a clinic in film school. At the end, in the last few minutes, in addition to wrapping up loose ends, the writing team (the two of them) not only manage to riff off the "something old, something new" adage -- AND MAKE IT IMPORTANT TO THE STORY! -- but the word banter when the doc does not understand whether he is proposing to River or asking her if she is single....?

Folks, this is beyond good writing, it is in a class by itself

Bottom line -- there is a not an IMDb rating high enough for this series arc. They say that you can show comedies to people in the hospital and they will get better. They should try showing this series to people who have given up on life ... to see if they can find their spark again.

Worked for me

Under Davies watch, Doctor Who became a mad rush of wackiness with incoherent stories and implausible deus ex machina endings.

Under Moffat, the series has improved significantly. Though they weren't all winners this season, Victory of the Daleks and the Upstairs Neighbor (I forget the exact title) were absolutely horrible, Moffat's finale' was absolutely perfect.

He tied in the entire series with things he's layered. He had a direction since the beginning, and followed it through competently.

While still maintaining a wackiness quota, Matt Smith's performance is stunning, and the finale shows us just how in deep he is with the character. You feel for the characters so much, and you want so BADLY to see the satisfying ending, and he gives it. He gives it without going over the top or pulling something out of his posterior.

I'm looking forward to next season, hoping they can overcome the rushed-out, hackneyed episodes that greatly suffered this otherwise great season. I foresee that the Doctor has nowhere to go but up after Davies, and with Moffat's brilliant storytelling, it WILL get better. It will.

There are times when I despair, things appear from thin air, in disbelief I stare and it matters because I care.

There are times when I cry out, there's confusion and then doubt, what next for them to flout and it makes me want to shout.

There are times I'm on cloud nine, loose ends join to intertwine, everything has been sublime although this time it's been just fine.

After watching the cliffhanger to "The Pandorica Opens", i remember thinking to myself "well how are they going to follow that up satisfyingly?" luckily, writer Steven Moffat, as normal, succeeded. With this season finale i was expecting a huge explosion fest, the sort of thing i was accustomed to during the RTD era, luckily Moffat is more clever in his stories, and wrote a very interesting, and clever story, don't want to spoil anything, but believe me, it was possibly the most clever story the show has ever brought out, and it ties in, perfectly almost, with the rest of series 5. Now, don't get me wrong, this episode was not perfect, there were plenty of plot holes, for example: how can Nestene Rory still be there if the Nestene's never existed? (i can except that maybe Amy wouldn't have disappeared since she still exists in this alternate timeline, and maybe the doctor was protected by the Pandorica). Still, nothing is flawless, and the plot holes aren't nearly as annoying as they were back when Davies was writing.

The stone Dalek is very effective, and it's actually pretty intimidating (something i wasn't expecting from the teletubby daleks) and it even managed to make me jump at one point, it really is pretty amazing that one Dalek (and one that's not even WORKING properly) can seem more powerful than a whole empire of them.

The emotion in this episode is frequent, and there are several time's where you may be on the verge of tears, the difference between Moffat and davies' writing in my opinion, is that Moffat can write interesting characters AND a good story, whereas with Davies it tends to be one or the other.

The resolution of the episode is a deus ex machina, but it helps that they give it some build up, and properly EXPLAIN it, rather than just pulling it out of nowhere, and giving us an incredibly vague explanation for it. Plus, it actually make's some sense, unlike RTD's little deus ex machinas.....

Overall, this is an excellent season finale for an overall good season with only a few weak points (Victory of the Daleks, and "The Hungry Earth/ Cold Blood".