The first big two-parter of the new season of Doctor Who comes to an end, and there are two notable things about it. It’s a slightly odd set of episodes, because the two-part format feels slightly off for it, like it would be better served as one extra-long story. But, at the same time, it’s one of the most continuity, season-story-plot dependent episodes we’ve had since the season opener.
While the first episode featured multiple and visually varied locations, the second consists mostly of the Doctor and company either running down corridors (even if one of those corridors is a forest on a space-ship, one of the best ideas served up in the show in terms of world-building in years) or standing around in control rooms. It’s like part four of a seven part Pertwee-era story. It’s almost as if Moffat, after spending all that time the previous week to introduce and establish new characters, reintroduce older characters, and give us a visually interesting setting for a story, decided that this week all he really needed to do to keep the audience engaged was, well…have Amy walk through a forest.
It’s dangerous to let expectations for episodes build up too much, and the two-parters are a good example of why. In the first part, the Weeping Angels have their abilities and nature expanded into something quite powerful and quite sinister. Here, when it is explicitly explained that the whole point that they are hiding within Amy’s eye is to scare her to death, because it is fun to do so, comes off not as evil so much as petulantly bullying. There’s nothing wrong with having a bully as a villain, but when the bully is a creature that can’t move when you look at it and kills you by sending you back in time and can steal your voice…it’s a bit banal.
The method used to defeat them is also a bit underwhelming. They all…fall down. Yes, on the one hand, it’s a clever use of the fact that space is not two-dimensional and “up” in a space-ship is relative. But on the other, the Doctor doesn’t have to outwit his enemies…he just has to wait for them to fall into a big glowing time-space energy crack thing. As far as left-field, deus ex machina endings go, it’s not “Tinkerbell Doctor” but it’s still awfully convenient.
And about that crack…this is the first time since the first episode that it has actually featured as a significant plot point. The use of “story-arcs” within seasons of the new series of the show has been controversial with some fans, not least because when every single program on the air has a season long story-arc, it becomes less of an original, unifying element and more of a tedious box that needs to be checked off to make sure that the audience is still paying attention. Apart from the conveniently eating the enemy of the week, the crack’s appearance and Amy’s realization of its significance is well used. That the Doctor is taken aback by it, and by Amy’s behavior at the end of the episode, is at odds, though, with the suggestion in the first episode that the Doctor is aware that something involving Amy and the cracks is afoot, when he turned off the TARDIS scanner before Amy could see it. I think we also witnessed a significant clue for the story-arc in the forest, with the easily missed clue when the Doctor returns to console Amy.
Speaking of Amy’s behavior, it’s a little hard to tell what precisely the final scene, when Amy makes sexual advances on the Doctor, is meant to mean, exactly. The simplest, and most likely, is that it’s the final clue the Doctor needs that something is manipulating Amy, and the date of her wedding is an element of that manipulation. To go further into that invites discussions of fan angst, fan rage and the dreaded “shippers.” I’m not of the subset of Doctor Who fans who think that the Doctor should never ever have any suggestion of a sexual identity. I’m on record as thinking that “Looms” were the single stupidest idea to ever crop up in connection to the series, after all, even worse than “half human.” Heck, it’s pretty much impossible to read the Doctor’s reaction to the departure of Jo Grant as anything other than that of a jilted not-quite-boyfriend. But since I’m also of the school of Doctor Who fans who think that the primary in-story reason why the Doctor keeps traveling with young girls is because they’re Susan substitutes, it was nice to get even a brief in-story suggestion that the Doctor is put off by the suggestion of having a physical relationship with a companion.
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I’ve seen it listed as a mistake that the Doctor is wearing his jacket when he returns to console Amy, but I’m not so sure this is the Doctor who left moments ago with the Bishop and River.
I will also say that while it was shocking to see Amy really throw herself at the Doctor, it is much preferable to the “I’ll just wait to be noticed” type of companion we’ve had in the new series(this is also why I liked Donna).
“I will also say that while it was shocking to see Amy really throw herself at the Doctor, it is much preferable to the “I’ll just wait to be noticed” type of companion we’ve had in the new series(this is also why I liked Donna).”
EXACTLY, Scott. I’d rather her maul him and get it over with than make puppy dog eyes and have lots of Meaningful Looks. Also, it’s about time someone noticed that The Doctor is TOTALLY HOT (if gangly Brits are your thing).
I think The Doctor knew there was something Up with Amy and the cracks, but hadn’t realized just how big the threat was until the end of this episode.
The Weeping Angels from these eps, now presumably erased from existence (not all Angels everywhere, but a whole fat lot of them) were a great run but hopefully … that’s it. LOVED them in “Blink,” liked them in Part 1 of this two-parter… but liked them a little less in Part 2. The more time we spend with them the less scary-effective they are. Some story/char devices you can give leeway to, but the whole premise of the Weeping Angels is that they can get you in literally the blink of an eye. Yes, yes, they were regenerating and such, not quite ‘up to speed’ (*ouch* sorry) but there were some fat long moments where it felt like they didn’t really pounce when they easily could have. I think they’re of the less-is-more variety of villain.
Sharper viewers than I put together the “that’s not the Doctor that just left Amy a moment ago” when it came to that scene in the ‘woods’ — when I first watched I felt a sort of subliminal hiccup when he re-entered the frame, hands first. He kind of came from a different direction (slightly) and the jacket is too big a point to be a gaff, as tight as the shot was (you really have to look to see he’s wearing it). They’re just not that sloppy, no matter how rushed the production schedule is.
I’ll say on the one hand that it was bracing to see a Companion finally make The Pass, as its the undercurrent in many ways for both several other Companions (and many, many viewers) … but it was also… jarring. Can’t decide if that’s some nonsense in my head or if something about the scene is trying to tell us something (as in the ‘Future Doctor’ popping back to tell Amy she must remember. That seems key, that Amy remember).
This harried version of the Doctor is … different. All I can say is a little of that goes a long way. I don’t need him to always keep his cool (how dull would that be) but there’s a bit of pissiness to his “I’m working on it! I’m working on it!” that I hope fades somewhat over the course of this incarnation’s development.
Venitian Vamps next week, the return of scruffy cute fiance, and … more Doctor.
Color me a rabid fan.
p.s. Father Octavian’s death, his line “You know me at my best” and then the god awful *krench* sound offscreen when the Angel (presumably) breaks his neck after the Doctor runs into the ship — dear god, that was well done all the way around. He was a salty character in how he related with the others — very military — which made his noble final words and death all the more poignant.
This might seem like a nit but it’s kept me wondering for a while now: why has no one ever just tried to break the statues when they’re frozen? I mean, in three episodes it never occurred to anyone to just haul off and knock their heads off with a hammer. I mean, if they’re just marble or stone, you could probably bust them up fairly quickly. It’d be one thing if they had a throwaway line where someone said, “I tried to knock it’s head off with a sledge, but they’re stronger than steel!” but it’s kind of an odd elision.
“it was bracing to see a Companion finally make The Pass”
You mean a FEMALE companion, don’t you? Or are we forgetting somebody? ;-)
I got a bit overthinky with that forest scene, and went back and watched about three times (two, then). And yeah. Timing’s evvvvver so slightly off. Might yet be a continuity error, though.
Funny, innit, how What Happens To The Soldiers…happens to the soldiers. I mean, what young Amy says in the first episode…and yeah, I went back and watched that again about five times, trying to work out What He Says…and ended up wondering who else might have “Happens To The Soldiers.”
Like I said: overthinky. Trained to look for the clues is one thing, seeing connections that aren’t there is another (stupidly, the awareness of an arcing story laid over the top of the week-to-week adventure is making me a little sad. Really enjoying these characters interacting, and I don’t want it to end just yet).
Alex Kingston turning up in FlashForward tonight was a bit jarring. Not as jarring as James Callis, like, but enough. Thinking that Moffat er al. are being a bit obviously misdirectional with River. I mean…it can’t be…right?
And on a completely spurious tip: I bought my mother one of those spongey toys that expands when dumped in water. Kind of wish it hadn’t been an angel as she has put the bloody thing in a vase on the other side of the room, and despite my best efforts, it keeps being turned back to face me. And it’s still growing. *shiver*
//\Oo/\\
Please forgive me for going off-topic, and commenting on one of your Twitter posts (I do not use Twitter myself):
THE PARENT TRAP is based on a German novel (by the author of EMIL AND THE DETECTIVES), published in English as LOTTIE AND LISA. In the novel, the parents are rather poor–as I recall, the mother owns a struggling dress shop, and the father is an unsuccessful composer–and the reason the twins are split up after the divorce is because neither parent can afford to raise both children alone. The Disney film kept the plot device of separated twins, but also made both parents fabulously wealthy. As you correctly note, this makes the story nonsensical, but I guess Disney thought no one would want to spend two hours watching a bunch of poor people.
Is anyone else bothered that Moffat is using this crack to erase RTD stories from continuity? The Cyber King is definitely gone and it looks like Daleks kidnapping Earth is next. I know ‘true fans’ will never forgive RTD for the blasphemy of making Doctor Who so popular but this just feels petty. Between how god-damned annoying I find Amy, Moffat apparently forgetting how to do anything but horror, and now this drivel, I’m missing RTD even more!
I don’t think it’s erasing anything, it’s just explaining why certain events in the Doctor’s timeline aren’t always recognized by other characters. The Cyber King definitely happened to the Doctor, but time can be rewritten. There’s no reason to think there should be any one, definitive timeline in a show about time travel.
I’m curious as to why the Byzantium crashed if the angel that wrecked it never existed.
I liked the Doctor’s reaction to Amy’s advances… he seemed properly mortified by both their age difference and her species. It seems like an attempt to distance from the RTD era, which is fine by me…
Oh, that’s easy. The Byzantium crashed because … well, you see when River had that recording … um, no, I mean… the Home Box was … uh… not exactly …I meant to say that because the Weeping Angels were dying they… damn. Ummm … Hey! Look over there! *runs away*
It also seems like River cannot possibly have earned her pardon for dispatching the Weeping Angel, seeing as how no one would recognize that it had existed. Or at least, few people, there ought to be Time Agents running around in the 55th century,
The doctor losing his cool under pressure is a direct nod to Patrick Troughton’s Doctor … and Peter Davison as well. I like that he’s more vulnerable than Tennant’s incarnation.