If you’re not interested in Doctor Who spoilers or theory or anything related, come back in a day or two when I can guarantee the subject will not be Doctor Who. Otherwise, again, paraphrasing Bette Davis in “All About Eve,” fasten your seatbelt because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
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On September 29, 2012, the Doctor Who fall finale aired. The episode, entitled “The Angels Take Manhattan” was written by Steven Moffat and was the last episode featuring the companions known lovingly as “The Ponds.” The Ponds are actually Rory Williams and Amy Pond Williams. The Ponds left the Doctor at the conclusion of the episode and we were led to believe that they had a happy and fruitful life. But as soon as the episode ended, fandom screamed for a visual closure, a closure that they felt they didn’t get in that last episode.
This post is not a review of the episode or discussion of all of the major plot holes (and there were many). Rather this post is about the visual closure that we didn’t see it, but was written. As it turns out Chris Chibnall, who wrote the Doctor Who episodes, The Power of Three (which aired the week before the finale) and Dinosaurs on a Spaceship also wrote a scene for The Power of Three that was never produced. This scene provides, in my opinion, the visual closure that was so desperately needed in Moffat’s script. Thankfully, the BBC has authorized the release of the story boards and when viewed as an epilogue to The Angels Take Manhattan gives the Ponds a very proper and compelling send-off. I just wish Moffat had been able to incorporate it in his script.