Doctor: “I’ll be back for you as soon as I can, I promise.”
Amy: “You always say that.”
Doctor: “I always come back.”
We’re five episodes into this season, and I feel like I need some sort of flow chart to keep track of what’s going on. This was a great conclusion to the new chapter of the Weeping Angels story, but many other questions were brought up in this hour that we likely won’t get an answer to until the season finale.
I mentioned briefly last week that the climax of “The Time of Angels” involved the Doctor grabbing a gun to shoot out a gravity globe. I was hoping that there would be an explanation for that choice, but sadly, it went unnoticed. I’m no expert on sonic screwdrivers, but it seems that it could have handled the simple task of making a gravity globe explode. There’s even a setting to repair barbed wire! I mean, really. A major aspect of the Doctor’s character has been that he hates guns; several episodes revolve around the fact that he refuses to use a violent weapon against his opponents, preferring instead to rely on the sonic and his cleverness. So it seemed a very odd choice to have the Doctor randomly pick up a gun for no apparent reason and not make a big deal of it at all. I realize that he didn’t use it to directly harm anyone, but it felt like Moffat & c. were coming dangerously close to breaking the well-established rules of the Doctor Who world, and something similar happens later in this episode.
Shooting out the gravity globe allowed the Doctor and his crew to reach the ship about thirty feet above them (something about gravity — just keep that in mind for the rest of the episode). This gives them a bit of a head start against the Angels, but they’re gaining power and rapidly catching up. The group makes it to the flight deck, and this is where things start to get quite creepy again. Amy has been counting down from ten for the last few minutes without even realizing it, and the Doctor asks the leader of the Angels what they’ve done to her. His response: “We shall take her. We shall take all of you. We shall have dominion over all time and space.”
The Angels begin taunting the Doctor, laughing at him because he’s missed something. Behind him, a giant crack in the wall is revealed, and to the Doctor and Amy’s horror, they recognize it as the crack from Amy’s bedroom wall. I was surprised that the Doctor and Amy were allowed to notice the crack at this point in the season, as I was expecting this to be a slow build to the finale in the way that Bad Wolf was in Season 1. The Doctor stays behind to examine the wall while he sends everyone else ahead of him into the “oxygen factory,” a forest of trees that are filled with wires on the inside. The Doctor takes some readings of the crack with the sonic screwdriver and realizes that it’s releasing time energy into the universe, which has the power to erase the existence of anyone who gets too close to it.
The Doctor narrowly escapes from the Angels and catches up to the rest of the group, but Amy has fallen seriously ill. When she looked into the eyes of the Angel in the previous episode, it entered her mind and is taking over her body. A tiny Angel is visible in Amy’s eye, another great visual effect. The Doctor yells and paces while he tries to figure out how to save her, and he shouts at Amy to keep quiet while he thinks. He’s actually quite rude to Amy and River on several occasions, which may or may not be worth noting. He realizes that the Angel is playing in Amy’s mind on a sort of virtual screen, and if she keeps her eyes shut, the Angel won’t be able to control her. The plan works, but it means that Amy is without vision until the Angels are defeated.
The Doctor, River, and Father Octavian leave Amy behind in the forest, with four armed men guarding her. The Doctor is quick to leave Amy alone, rushing off after giving her a little pat on the head. Suddenly, he’s back, but now he’s very different; reassuring, tender, and desperate to make Amy trust him. Amy wants the truth and the Doctor tells her, “If I always told you the truth, I wouldn’t need you to trust me.” This scene is gorgeous, and I want to see more of this in their relationship. The theory floating around is that this is not the same Doctor that just left a moment ago, but rather the Doctor has crossed his own timeline to give Amy this message. This makes a lot of sense, and the Doctor may have done this back in “The Eleventh Hour” as well, when we got the random shot of little Amelia looking up at the sky. Much has been made on Doctor Who about the dangers of crossing timelines (see “Father’s Day,” for example) so if this is actually what’s happening, I’m guessing there’s some epic reason for the Doctor to take such a risk.
Back to the scene: one by one, the guards wander off to get a look at the light coming from the ship, and each time the leader of the group forgets their existence. It’s a wonderful scene, made even scarier because Amy can’t open her eyes and has no idea what’s going on around her. The last guard finally succumbs to his curiosity and leaves Amy alone with a radio communicator, promising to be right back. He disappears, of course, but the Doctor’s voice is suddenly on the radio and he’s going to guide Amy towards him. Amy stumbles through the forest until she is surrounded by Angels, and while this scene was lovely and tense, it completely changes what we know about the Angels and ultimately goes nowhere.
The Doctor explains that the Angels’ instincts have kicked in, meaning they’re frozen and not that interested in killing Amy. If she walks as though she can see, the Angels will believe her and stay frozen. These are not the same Angels we saw in “Blink.” She makes her way past them slowly but stumbles and falls, losing her grip on the communicator. As her panic increases, the Angels begin to move. She calls out to the Doctor, who for some reason won’t answer her, and just as an Angel is about to touch her, River teleports her into the ship’s cabin. Well…alright then. The new rules felt like a cheat so that Amy could be placed in another dangerous, scary situation.
The Angels are gathered outside of the cabin, draining the last of the ship’s power. As a time traveler, the Doctor is a complicated space-time event, and the Angels want him to throw himself into the gap in the universe, closing it and saving both the Angels and his friends. The Angels have forgotten, though, that they’re all standing on a vertical ship and as they drain the ship’s power, the gravity field that’s holding them up begins to fail. In an obvious visual parallel to the climax of “Doomsday,” the Doctor, River, and Amy desperately hold on while the Angels fall into the time field, which then closes itself. Unlike poor Rose Tyler, they all manage to hang on without falling.
Outside on the beach, the Doctor and River say goodbye. She’s about to be picked up by the prison ship, but hopes she’s earned a pardon for her crimes. It’s revealed that she killed a good man, a hero. “It’s a long story, Doctor. It can’t be told. It has to be lived,” she tells him. We’re clearly meant to assume that River kills the Doctor at some point, but I don’t think it’s that simple. I’m not even going to attempt to figure out the River Song/Doctor timeline at this point, because it’s all wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey and I think my head will explode. She tells him she’ll be back soon, when the Pandorica opens, and then she’s gone. The Doctor looks out at the water.
Amy: “What are you thinking?”
Doctor: “Time can be rewritten.”
Those are very dangerous words for the Doctor. Amy knows that he’s running from River, so she wants to show the Doctor what she’s running from. They go back to her bedroom, having been gone for five minutes, and she shows him her wedding dress and engagement ring. She then decides it’s time to go for it with the Doctor, and it’s hilariously awkward as he tries to fend her off. Smith and Gillan played this scene really well, but I’m not sure how I felt about the situation. In the Doctor Who Confidential for this episode, Moffat talks about how none of the previous companions noticed how handsome and wonderful the Doctor is, to which I say, “Huh?” With the exception of Donna, women (and Captain Jack) can’t seem to resist the Doctor. Apparently, that was all about unrequited love, and Amy just wants him for sex.
Anyway, the Doctor realizes that Amy’s wedding day is when bad things are going to happen, and he has to sort it all out. He tosses her back into the TARDIS and they take off on their next adventure. I can’t wait to see how they awkwardly recover from the sexual debacle.
I also need to quickly mention Father Octavian’s touching death scene, if only for this exchange:
Octavian: “Sir, the Angels are coming. You have to leave me.”
Doctor: “You’ll die.”
Octavian: “I will die in the knowledge that my courage did not desert me at the end. For that I thank God, and bless the path that takes you to safety.”
Doctor: “I wish I’d known you better.”
Octavian: “I think, sir, you know me at my best.”
That’s some beautiful writing.
So, MAY 22: Amy gets into another dire situation with the Doctor in “The Vampires of Venice.”
Screencaps from Sonic Biro.
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