The Doctor: “The writing. The graffiti. Old High Gallifreyan! The lost language of the Time Lords. There were days—there were many days—these words could burn stars, and raise up empires, and topple gods.”
Amy: “What does this say?”
The Doctor: “‘Hello, Sweetie.'”
Well, that was perhaps the best intro to a Doctor Who episode that I’ve ever seen. From the first moment she’s onscreen, River Song is clearly a brilliant, fearless woman who can hold her own against the Doctor. I’m sure even those who had never seen “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead” were intrigued by her. And that escape from the starliner to the TARDIS? It was both beautiful and surprising – I initially missed the line about the air corridor, and thought, How is she doing that?!
More discussion after the jump…
The Doctor is not very happy about meeting up with River and actually tries to ditch her after catching up with the ship. She’s comfortable in the TARDIS (loved that she hung her heels on the screen), she knows how to fly the TARDIS better than the Doctor at this point, and the fact that their timeline is all jumbled up causes some issues. They know things about each other that the other doesn’t yet: he knows she’ll become a Professor and how she\’s going to die, and she has a little diary filled with things about some unknown incarnation of the Doctor.
Amy, for her part, seems to feel a mixture of jealousy and genuine curiosity about their relationship. She is convinced that River Song is the Doctor’s future wife, and the answer is never definitively given. The Doctor continues to try to keep Amy out of danger by asking her to stay behind on the TARDIS, and she gets left behind with the video image of the Weeping Angel while River and the Doctor work together. Of course, leaving Amy alone with the video is the thing that really gets the Weeping Angels plot moving.
People who know the episode “Blink,” also written by Steven Moffat, have been anticipating the return of the Angels for quite some time. That episode was brilliant, and the Angels were scary because they were so simple. They can’t move while any living creature is looking at them, but when you look away for even a second, they will come after you. In those days, the Angels touched you and you landed some time in the past, stuck there living out your life while the Angels fed on your potential energy in the future. Now, the Angels are much more sophisticated in their trickery, and much more violent. I was a little disappointed by this at first, but I get it. If the Doctor knows exactly what the Angels want and how they’re going to get it, there\’s no obstacle for him.
So now we have the twist where an image of the Angel becomes an Angel itself, leading to the wonderful scene where Amy is stuck in the room with the video Angel. It felt very much like The Ring, and I still don’t quite understand how she stopped it by freezing on a blank screen, but it was suspenseful and looked great as well. Amy doesn\’t come out of this completely unharmed, however. Having looked into the Angel’s eyes, she begins to have trouble with her vision and eventually she believes her hand has turned to stone. She tells the Doctor to leave her behind, telling him she’s not so “clingy” that she needs him to die for her. He refuses, and bites her hand to make her realize that it\’s all in her head.
The Angels can also take on the voice of their victims, and one of them speaks to the Doctor through a radio. This was reminiscent of another Moffat two-parter, “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances,” where the child takes over the radio communication to ask for his mother. It turns out that every statue in the Maze of the Dead is an Angel that’s losing its form, and the Doctor and his group are completely surrounded. The Angels are trying to make the Doctor angry for some reason, taunting him about how the last victim trusted the Doctor, but he allowed him to die anyway. The Doctor grabs a gun and speaks to the Angel, who is using the voice of Bob, the last victim:
The Doctor: “Didn’t anyone ever tell you? There’s one thing you never put in a trap, if you’re smart. If you value your continued existence. If you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there’s one thing you never ever put in a trap.”
Bob: “And what would that be, sir?”
The Doctor: “Me.”
The Doctor shoots out the gravity globe and the episode ends, to be continued next week in “Flesh and Stone.” I thought this was the best episode of season 5 so far, and I can’t wait for the conclusion. Thoughts?
Screencaps from Sonic Biro.
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