DOCTOR WHO 7.05 - The Angels Take Manhattan

Scanners indicate an absence of spoilers

So then, here we are at the mid-series finale, or rather the the mini-season climax as I think of it. After this, there's no more Doctor Who until Christmas. But what a fine choice of adversary for this final episode! Following in the footsteps of both the Muppets and Jason Voorhees, the most iconic of monsters that new Who has spawned, the Weeping Angels, return for a third momentous outing!  

Now I must confess, in what seems to be a somewhat traditional fashion for this series, the title did give me pause for thought. For this isn't the first time, that the TARDIS crew has visited the Big Apple. However the last time was the less than fondly remembered Daleks in Manhattan. Of course, considering their previous appearances, Blink and The Time of the Angels/Flesh And Stone, some the better adventures the series had delivered since its triumphant return in 2005, I really shouldn't have worried. 

Well, not about that at least...

...What I should have been fretting about is how in the name of Sutek am I going to review this without spoilers! For, of course, this final episode sees showrunner Steven Moffat returning to scripting duties. And as long-time readers know, his episodes always give me a headache reviewing sans spoilers! 

So then what can I tell you? Well, the Angels are on top creepy form as per usual, New York looks fantastic, the performances are great and the scripting is Moffat on good form... And that's it, thank you and goodnight! 

What you want more? Who do you think you are? An extra in Oliver! ?

Oh alright then... but be warned....

POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR ANYONE WHO HAS SUCKED BACK IN TIME BY ANGELS, IMPRISONED ON A PYRAMID ON MARS OR OTHERWISE BEEN OBLIVIOUS OF WHAT IMPORTANT EVENT THIS EPISODE CONTAINS

Still with me? Ok then...

 ...*deep breathe*...

... This episode sees the return of River Song! 

Right that'll teach you to skip ahead, oh impatient one! 

ABSO-FLIPPIN -UTELY LAST SPOILER WARNING FOR ALL THOSE LIVING IN A CAVE WITH THE TRIBE OF GUMM AND HAVEN'T SEEN A SCINTILLA OF WHO NEWS IN THE LAST NINE MONTHS

Right then, no messin' about, in this episode we bid the Ponds a fond farewell. And this departure has been billed by all concerned as 'heart-breaking'. And indeed, judging by the amount 'ahm fine... I jus' got somefink in mah eye...' style twitterings on my time-line, I think it's fair to say that this was no mere hyperbole! 

Of course, the big question is HOW they go and one I won't answer here. However what I will say is that I thought is was a very satisfying departure. It's a very fine, and yes rather touching (look I jus' got somefink in mah eye...), conclusion to the whole of Amy and Rory's story arc. Definite thumbs up (and hanky in the other mitt) from me. 

And I also think it's fair to say, that in that light, it does seem like that this has been a little complete series on its own, rather than a half-season. Furthermore, having got the conclusion, I do think my initial suspicions were correct - namely, that this set of stories are as unconnected as we were lead to believe. 

Now then I know many of you have been missing the spoilerific second reviews I've done for series past of Doctor Who and so therefore I've having a marathon rewatch of this quintet of adventures in the coming week and will deliver a suitably epic, no spoiler left unturned, end of season round-up, and test the above hypothesis... probably to destruction! 

But for now, I'll round this off by saying that this series has been a rather strong run. It may not have been biggest, or best, and it may have been rather light-weight much of the time, but it's certainly been fairly solid, without a single episode I've not enjoyed. The show's been ticking along nicely, and while some may feel it's been idling, I would point out that next year is the big 50th anniversary and I suspect they are saving the really big guns for then...

DOCTOR WHO 5.4 & 5.5 - The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone

Angel Bob here … Terribly sorry sir, but there will be spoilers…

So was it worth the wait?

For those of you who have missed the previous instalments of these reviews, when these two episodes first aired, I was off gallivanting around Florid far from the reach of either the BBC or its iPlayer. And rather than *ahem* acquire them and watch the return of the Weeping Angels on a tiny netbook screen, I opted to wait until I had returned to Blighty.

Now the obvious upside of this plan, was that essentially I had a feature length dose of Doctor Who to come home to. But an unexpected bonus was that I got view a ‘clean’ version of The Time of Angels - that is a version without the climatic speech at the close of the episode destroyed by the appearance of a cartoon dancing berk…

Now I shall refrain from ranting further on ‘Nortongate’ except to say that it was obviously a travesty of broadcasting. But it was also very heartening to see the flood of complaints from viewers which hopefully will stem the tide of the IIPs (in-program pointers) on British TV. And make no mistake, this kind of trailing and pimping over a program is a cancer - from my recent jaunt to the US, I noticed that since my last visit a couple of years ago, some channels have now become virtually unwatchable with an IIP appearing every five minutes. Finally on this subject, I would direct you to this article over at Den of Geek in which an industry insider comments on the whole affair.

Right, so having interrupted my own review with a Norton intrusion – that’s what we call real irony, class. Are you listening at the back? Yes, Morrisette, I do mean you girl! – let’s get back to the action…

And the downside of this plan? Well, two parters in new Who have had a tendency to deliver a strong first half and then crumble in the second. However the notable exceptions however were The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead which sprang from the pen of one Steven Moffat…

So again, was it worth the wait?

The short answer is a resounding ‘yes’! Moffat said that rather than just rehash the creepiness of Blink, he wanted to do something different with the Lonely Assassins and cited the tonal shift from Alien to Aliens as his template. And by Rassilion, he succeeded, and in fact I’d go as far to say he did a beeter job than James Cameron in moving a scary monster into an action realm. Don’t get me wrong, I love Aliens as much as the next man, but he did turn the xenomorphs into standard goons for the most part, with only the Queen retaining a level of menace equal to the lone creature in Ridley Scott’s film. Whereas Moffat’s returning Angels retain their creep factor and if anything are all the more horrifying with their new decayed features.

Frankly, this story was so good, it’s almost redundant to review it. It’s already been lauded to the high heavens and it would appear that the majority of people are hailing it as the best episodes new Doctor Who has produced thus far, and some even going as far as best story ever.

And while I’m not sure I’d go as far as to be dishing up the bestest ever awards just yet – I’m very wary of making such definitively grandiose claims so soon after the event, as time and perspective tends to make fools of those who do, the sheer quality of these two episodes are severely tempting me to transgress my own critical rules. So warily baring my neck to the wrath of Chronos and Terminus, I’d have to say that The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone wins hands down the Best Two Parter Ever medal from the judges at Hypnogoria.

That said though, and taking as read the heaps of praise for the script, performances and direction, I did have a few very little niggles. First up, are the ‘rules’ governing the angels themselves – I wasn’t entirely clear on how they were avoiding quantum locking each other – we have large numbers of angels in sight of each other here and in their first appearance Blink this was their undoing. Similarly, I wasn’t sure that the business with them not being sure if Amy could see them or not strictly made gelled with the lore either. However both of these quibbles can be easily swept away with the claim that these were ‘restoring’ angels – one could say that as they were not at full strength the rules of the quantum locking are not in full effect.

At the end of the day, they are Moffat’s own creation and hence the rules of their powers are entirely up to him. However I did feel that the addition of a line or two could have negated these niggles. But that said, those lines might still be in the post - the Moff has hinted that scenes in earlier episodes may be revisited later in a time-wimey fashion and in Flesh and Stone there is an instance that suggests this - ff you go back to the scenes when the Doctor is leaving Amy alone, you’ll notice that his jacket reappears and his sleeves are rolled up. Obviously this could just be a glaring continuity error but considering the “remember what I told you when you were seven” dialogue and the rumours that Amelia Pond – the child Amy – is going to make another appearance suggests that this is on of the points we are going to revisit in a future story.

And speaking of future stories, I was very pleased by the elaboration of the River Song saga. When we first were introduced to this enigmatic character in Silence In the Library/Forest of the Dead, although I enjoyed the mystery of her future relationship with the Doctor, I did worry that Moffat had set up a loose thread that would flap about in the continuity for all time. However when it was confirmed that he would be taking over the reins from Russell T Davies, pencilling in an area of the Doctor’s future didn’t look like such a continuity hazard all of a sudden. And after the revelations this two parter brought, I now have no doubts that Steven Moffat has thought out the cross-temporal relationship between the Doctor and River Song very, very carefully.

Which neatly brings me to my final point for this review – the quality of the plotting of the series as a whole. When the crack reappeared on the TARDIS screen at the close of The Eleventh Hour and again on the hull of the Starship UK in the Beast Below, a few were groaning that this was yet another reiteration of the pseudo-story arc tactics of RTD i.e. insert a particular reference into every episodes and pass it off as a season wide story thread. And to be honest, I was off the same mind, thinking ‘here we go again’.

So then it was a fantastic surprise to find the cracks fleshed out and elaborated on in episode 5. Coupled with the time-wimey stuff mention above, and other hints that have been surfacing along with the cracks in each episode, it would appear that contrary to all expectations, we actually got a proper story arc being developed, one that is integrated into the plots of the individual episodes at a far deeper level than merely throwing in an signifying catchphrase now and then.

It’s still a bit early to say, but I also suspect that the stories themselves are going to mesh together thematically far more than we have seen previously in new Who. Certainly outside the ins and outs of the narrative concerns, there is a running theme of subverting expectations in this new series, of setting things up in a familiar manner and then turning them on their head. So we aren’t expecting the revelations about the cracks and the silence, and more than we were expecting the Daleks to survive and win, or The Beast Below to turn out to be more about Amy than the Smilers.

Overall this series of Doctor Who is certainly delivering the goods, and continuing to flex its muscles further week by week. And the only real problem with The Time of Angel/Flesh and Stone is that next week’s Vampires in Venice has one hell of a steep hill to climb…