"Doctor Who," Spoiler, Spoiler, the Ponds, Spoiler

Okay, so it's been about a week since the last episode of "Doctor Who" before it went on hiatus, and if you don't want to know anything about it or anything else that's happened during this last cycle, please stop reading now. Though considering how this set of episodes has been promoted, I don't know how you could have missed hearing about the biggest spoiler if you're even a casual fan of "Doctor Who."

Anyway, to business. "The Angels Take Manhattan" brought back the Weeping Angels again, and was the last episode to feature Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill as Amy Pond and Rory Williams, collectively known as The Ponds, the Eleventh Doctor's chief Companions for the last two-and-a-half series. The pair got quite the sendoff, an emotionally charged hour full of terrible choices, big sacrifices, leaps of faith, and tearful goodbyes. I loved every minute of it. I've heard a few complaints that the retirement of the Ponds was too abrupt, but Stephen Moffat and his crew have spent these last five episodes giving Amy and Rory a far fuller and more developed story than most of their prior counterparts. One thing I've always liked about Moffat is that time is always a factor in his "Doctor Who" stories. Though the Ponds only debuted in 2010, at least a decade has elapsed in the timeline of the series, and their relationship has gone through major ups and downs, including a brief and rather contrived split. That suggests years of other adventures happening offscreen, and in the last series there was ample evidence that the Ponds were quietly building an ordinary life together when the Doctor wasn't around.

From this latest five episode little half-season, the penultimate episode, "The Power of Three" was my favorite, because it finally showed Amy and Rory living that ordinary life, which is not something most Companions manage to do while still being Companions. Also you can really sense the timeline accelerating, and large amounts of time seems to pass between each individual episode. So, when the Doctor lands on their doorstep in "The Power of Three," suddenly Amy is a successful travel writer instead of a model, and Rory's father, played by Mark Williams, has returned from his extended globetrotting stint that we only saw him begin two weeks ago in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship." The events of "The Power of Three" take place over a whole year, during which time the Doctor briefly moves in with the Ponds and samples the stationary life. Throughout the hour, we see the clash between the Ponds maintaining a normal life and the adventuring with the Doctor that frequently upends their plans. I was expecting Amy and Rory to choose to leave on their own, but in the end they can't give him up, just as the Doctor can't give them up. And that set up the traumatic parting in "The Angels Take Manhattan."

It took me a long time to warm up to this set of characters. I liked Amy's forwardness, but she got a little too forward until the Doctor roped Rory into traveling with them. Then Rory was awfully bland and prone to getting himself sidelined (and killed) all the time, until the Pandorica adventure that cemented him and Amy as the best "Doctor Who" couple of the modern era. As for Matt Smith as the Doctor, I didn't find myself fully accepting his take on the character until late in his second year, but the same thing was true of my experience with David Tennant. I liked the way that the tensions among the three characters worked out, though, the way it was established that Amy and the Doctor had a special relationship, but Rory loved her more, and when push came to shove, Amy would choose Rory. It just took a while for everyone involved to work this out.

I wasn't thrilled that their last adventure together would involve the Weeping Angels, which worked so well in "Blink," but quickly became less effective in their later appearances. However, their ability to separate the inseparable trio proved they were the right choice. Nobody died, but the Ponds, or perhaps they would prefer to be called the Williamses, get involuntarily sent back in time to a point where the Doctor can't follow them, to happily live out their lives together in the past. The real kicker is how close they came to avoiding that fate, and how much they had to go through in vain, only to be confronted by those final goodbyes. As much as Moffat's scripting tried to soften the blow, there's no denying that this was a dark chapter in the Doctor's adventures, one that's likely to leave a considerable mark. And yet, thanks to all the legwork in the previous episodes, we know Amy and Rory will be just fine living out normal lives together. It's the Doctor, with all his guilt, that we need to keep an eye on.

Jenna-Louise Coleman will debut as the Doctor's newest companion in the Christmas special. Can't wait!
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