Anyone who hasn't seen the episode and doesn't somehow already know River Song's identity and doesn't want that spoiled, go away now.
Right then, if Steven Moffat ever gets access to a real TARDIS, I have a few suggestions for him. If, for example, he's ever going to build an entire episode around one massive revelation, Empire Strikes Back-style, he shouldn't blatantly give it away in all the promotional materials.
At a bare minimum, what you know going into this episode is that a) Amy's giving birth, and b) we'll find out who River is. It doesn't take any fantastic leap of the imagination to put two and two together. And any pretense of uncertainty gets thrown out the window a minute in when we learn that Amy's daughter's name is Melody Pond, thus spoiling the ending for anyone with either a thesaurus or a working knowledge of the English language.
What I'm saying is that the so-called "revelation" at the end of the episode is nothing of the sort, but rather the confirmation of the suspicions of every Who fan with a brain.
We've had this problem before. Back in "Time of Angels," the Doctor was remarkably thick about the fact that the Aplans had two heads but the statues had one. It's never a good thing when the viewers get ahead of the Doctor, and for us to get that far ahead of the companions suggests that they're not the sharpest knives in the drawer.
(Side note: if Rory technically didn't exist during the events of "The Pandorica Opens," how did his daughter?)
(Other side note: so Melody's all special because she was concieved inside the TARDIS. Wait, is Moffat honestly saying that, for example, Ian and Barbara, whose relationship is practically canon, never got it on? Or is he saying that Rory and Amy are just really, really bad at practicing contraception? Remember, Rory's fantasy in "Amy's Choice" was her getting pregnant, at home, five years after they left the Doctor. Look, this isn't the sort of show where details would be all that appropriate, but... seriously?)
(Other other side note: where the hell were the Cybermen?)
You'll notice I haven't said that much about the plot. That's because it's a bit insane. The Doctor gathers a bunch of allies we've never seen before (or more accurately, he gathers an army of Silurians, led by someone we've never seen before, a Sontaran we've never seen before, and a fat blue guy we have seen before, but never with the Doctor) and goes on the warpath, bloodlessly winning a victory only to find out that he's been fooled twice by the same trick, which is the only real plot twist in the episode.
A friend of mine recently described Harry Potter 7A as a massive tease, and I can't help but feel that that's exactly what this episode was. The problem was we all knew the truth from very early on, and the "proper revelation" of it was something of a letdown. It'd be like dropping a massive, obvious hint at the start of The Empire Strikes Back as to Darth Vader's real identity, except worse, because Empire still has other plot twists (the midget is Yoda, Lando is a traitor) and watchable moments ("I know"). It is not one massive enticement to watch Return of the Jedi.
Now is it fair to compare this episode, which is the first of a two-parter, to a film? No, but this is the mid-season break. Even Star Trek Voyager never went as low as to make a season finale that basically did nothing more than say "hey, come back next fall."
There is, simply put, no meat in this episode.
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