Review of Closing Time
Warning:  This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

On the surface, Closing Time is a light-hearted, family-oriented romp leading us into the series finale. I, for one, don’t believe it. I think it’s highly unlikely that the production team would use something so utterly fluffy to head into the final stretch of the series, especially with all the portents of doom we’ve been getting since The Impossible Astronaut aired back in April.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2011 BBC

It doesn’t even take very thorough digging to see there’s way more than the top-layer story here. The whole thing is very “meta.” Here are just a few examples of how it references previous episodes:

• Opening: much like Rose, the shop girls close up, then find danger in a dark part of the shop.
• The Doctor visiting Craig: “Doctor’s Reward,” anyone?
• Another baby: could there be any more babies (or kids) in this series? (Will the Doctor’s cot reappear next week, or next series?)
• “Stop noticing; just go”: did he learn nothing from Bowie Base One?
• “You always win! You always survive!”: Obviously, this references the fans’ view of the Doctor. The lovely, not-quite-weepy expression of the Doctor’s reaction is supposed to help convince us that’s not going to happen again this time. (Sorry, Mr. Moffat; protest all you like, but no one’s buying it.)
• “He needs someone”: Donna told him so. But did he listen? Noooooo. And where did it get him? Hello, Eleven!
• “Oh, please. Just give me this.”: Seems we’ve heard this somewhere before…
• Impossible Astronaut continuity: he nicks the blue envelopes from Sophie and gets a Stetson from Craig.

None of this even touches on moments like the blatant nod to those (either neowhovians or potential converts) who may try to watch the show with long-time fans. The Doctor’s exchange with Craig over terminology (“It’s not a rat! It’s a Cybermat!” “All right. Don’t have a go at me, just because I don’t know the names.”) was priceless. (On that note, I’m extremely happy to see the Cybermats again. They’re one of my favorite silly bits from Tomb of the Cybermen, where they first appeared.) Then there’s the way it refers back to The Lodger without really answering Craig’s (quite astute and relevant, in my opinion) question: “And this is coincidence, is it?”

While coincidence may be what the universe does for fun, it doesn’t appear to be in Moffat’s vocabulary (at least, he makes infrequent use of it; the Grand Moff definitely strikes me as someone fond of Chekov’s gun – or at least of making us look for it). Blazing at us from a shop wall, literally larger-than-life, is something that certainly looks gun-shaped. Though the camera work forced us to focus on the ad copy for the perfume Amy’s shilling (“for the girl who’s tired of waiting”), if you look carefully enough, you can see the name of the fragrance is petrichor – which, if you’ve been paying attention, should sound familiar. Neither the name nor the tag line strike me as something to be ignored.

I’m not sure how it will all pan out, but I’m relatively firmly convinced that there’s something “alternative” at work. Perhaps it’s another universe, perhaps it’s another version of the Doctor, or perhaps it’s an alternate consciousness (like a dream). Though I’m not as set on a particular interpretation as some folks (like a friend who insists it’s Omega – which I’d love, but don’t completely believe), some of the things we’ve seen throughout the series smack of the Doctor’s subconscious (like the perfume ad). If you really stretch, you can even come up with a way that the Doctor getting knocked out by a Cyberman is a good candidate for the moment an alternate timeline/whatever takes over.

But enough of the portentous crap. How was the episode itself? Personally, I was pleased with the way that the Cyber story was made extremely secondary, rather opposite the norm. Overall, I was more amused than irritated by the general effect (though I found the scene where Craig attempts to do some investigation on his own more painful than funny). Matt Smith and James Cordon, as the Doctor and Craig, do have really great chemistry, and play off each other well. For some reason I also found Craig a more likable character this time around, maybe because of the whole parenthood angle.

Oddly, though, that shared parenthood actually made me uncomfortable in several spots. This being Doctor Who, after all, I was always half-expecting something unpleasant to crop up and cause havoc for little Alfie. There were several points at which the characters were going on with their conversation, and I couldn’t help asking, “OK – where’s the baby?!” Nothing ever came of it, but that part of my persona was always on guard.

At the climactic scene, though, everything flip-flopped. The parent in me was getting all snoofly and mentally punching the air. However, the Fan Me was absolutely cringing. Exploding heads? An exploding base? All from the emotional feedback that “blew them up with love”? Give me a break… Next time I’ll have to keep careful reign on at which point I wear my Parent Hat and when I wear my Fan one.

Now let’s talk about the coda. I suppose I’m supposed to be squee’ing in anticipation. Mostly, I’m rolling my eyes. The eyewitness accounts from the children (even if they are made a bit silly by the end) are rather overwrought. And why, in the name of all we hold dear, does everyone and their pet poodle – across the universe, no less – know who the Doctor is?!? Do you seriously expect me to believe that River can’t remember anything about her past with Kovarian (not even that she was trained to kill the Doctor)?

It’s interesting to see River apparently forcibly placed in the astronaut suit. But it’s all too pat. We’ve been led to believe since the first moment we learned she’d killed a man that it was the Doctor she’d killed, just like we’ve been led to believe that she’s probably the Doctor’s wife in some sense/at some point in the timestream (something exacerbated by the title of the upcoming episode). I’ve come to expect more than the obvious, and “River kills the Doctor” seems as obvious a plot point as they come. If there’s not more to it than that, I’m going to be bitterly disappointed in Moffat.