Having been a fan of The Weeping Angels when they made the
debut back in 2007, it was great news when it was revealed that they would be
appearing in the new series. Blink was a superb story and is most likely to
remain at the number four spot of top rate stories. This story also sees the
return of River Song who when we last saw her was quite happy in her ‘heaven’.
Due to the complex timeline for her this is obviously before that story for
her. The pre-title scene is totally mad but its great. It centres largely
around River Song and how she escapes from the ship that she’s on. She has
managed to engrave on a stone box that would be read 12,000 years later by the
Doctor and the Doctor arrives just at the time that River gets ejected out of
the ship.
I love the idea of an army of religious people. The church
in the 51st as the Doctor says has moved on and thankfully the
characters aren’t frustratingly preachy. Octavian is the Bishop and is well
played by Iain Glen. He does act like he’s in charge but is willing to trust
the Doctor and listen to what he says.
The Weeping Angels seen in Blink were scavengers and that
means that the weeping angels in this story are much stronger and much more
dangerous. One of the new advances in the character since Blink comes during
the scene where The Doctor, River and Amy are watching the Angel on the screen on
a four second loop and there is the moment where it is coming out of the screen
and is going to attack Amy. This is a great little scene causes it basically
says that an image of an angel becomes an angel. That is why you will never see
a Weeping Angel selfie. Another development of the Weeping Angels is that statues
that people think are the Aplans are in fact the Weeping Angels evolving
because they were dying before the Byzantium crashed.
Amy asks the Doctor if River Song is his wife and obviously
we know that they do get married. Amy does get stuck in the traditional
companion role in this story which isn’t a bad thing but she slowly becomes
stone after dealing with the Weeping Angel.
The sets used as the caves are really good because they are
claustrophobic and dimly lit and I am reminded of how brightly lit things were
during the classic era. The whole caves section is a mixture of actual caves
and CGI and they work well together.
The build up to the cliffhanger is good and infamous. The
Angels are about to circle the Doctor and the others and the Doctor is going to
shoot a gun into the engines of the Byzantium which even I know isn’t a good
thing to do. The episode ends with the explosion happening and watching it now
I am able to enjoy it for what it is. Sadly in 2010 this was spoilt by Graham
Norton inserting himself in Doctor Who yet again. After his unexpected
appearance in the Rose episode back in 2005, this was far more obvious of a
problem with TV itself as there is a desperation on the part of the TV channels
to point out what’s coming up next and in the case of this episode it’s a desperation
to tell us what’s coming up next while the current programme is on and the appearance
of the Graham Norton indent appearing while Smith is pointing the gun in the
air. This does ruin the ending somewhat and since then I don’t recall that this
has happened.
This is a good episode. I think that the ganging up between
Amy and River is somewhat annoying but apart from that it’s a very well written
and well directed and things look good for the next episode.
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