In the latest episode of Doctor Who, the Doctor saves his future wife Dr. River Song as she jumps out of a doomed plane, just as she had predicted back in season 4. As they explore the wreckage of the crashed Byzantium (which had also been mentioned in season 4), they discover that in their cargo hold was a single Weeping Angel. As the Angel escapes, the Doctor and company find themselves learning much more about the Angels than they had originally bargained for, as well as losing the Angel inside a Maze of the Dead – a catacomb filled with stone statues.
In my opinion, the episode “Blink” from Season 3 of Doctor Who is the best episode of Doctor Who since the relaunch. It featured one of the most creative forms of story telling, as well as one of the most intriguing and creepy new villains. So with expectations high, how did the return of the Weeping Angels play out?
As always, spoilers are discussed in the review.
If someone is to come back and tackle one of the more complex Doctor Who villains, it’s only appropriate that it would be their creator – Steven Moffat. This is his third written episode this season, and he’s showing a great deal of creative control over the show. This is both something that I enjoy and am a little confused about, as the previous show runner opened the show much more to different writers to tell all kind of unique and crazy stories. I suppose considering how densely this is stuck into the over all mythos of Doctor Who with the return of River, however, that a certain amount of understanding and control is needed.
This brings me to my first talking point- the return of River. When River showed up in season 4 as the Doctor’s Wife (although that was the first time they had met), it brought up a lot of questions. In fact, being married to a Time Lord is probably the most aggravating thing that any person could endure – yet River did it. Unfortunately, considering the time line of their relationship is so out of sync with one another, it’s a bit hard to follow. This episode didn’t make that any easier. In fact, she was almost a new character. River was much more energetic and playful than she was in the library. I’ll be honest here – time travel alone is pretty crazy to understand when it comes to a traveler such as the Doctor, but introducing a grand romantic subplot that is over arcing throughout his life… it’s just leaving me perplexed. I liked having a character show up who had alluded to the relationship, but having her come back and complicate it further is, while I suppose a nice nod to fans, unnecessarily confusing. It’s not something I can say I really enjoy.
The return of the Angels was good though. While part of me thinks that bringing them back and expanding the mythos is unnecessary, the things that were changed were interesting and effectively creepy. I’m pretty sure I say this in every review of Doctor Who I write, but the show is fantastic at taking villains and enemies who you don’t initially fear and making them horrifying. The Angels are one of the best examples of them, because you never actually see them move – you can’t! So adding to their story by allowing them some new powers does manage to effectively and tastefully expand on their story. Now they have the ability to exist from anything that take their image, which is ridiculously creepy. On top of that, they’re able to possess the dead, which they use to taunt the Doctor. It’s all rather spooky, and the eventual reveal that very statue is in fact an Angel who has been starving to death is a pretty creepy one because now, not only is there an Angel stalking in the shadows, but there are Angels everywhere, which leads in to where next week will go.
In general, it’s a pretty good episode. One thing I can’t help but comment on was that in the initial season trailer, we had seen the Doctor use a handgun – something the previous Doctor had been very adamant about establishing his intense objection to. Some people had been kind of nervous as to what this meant for Smith, but as we see in this episode, it makes sense enough that it’s not disrespectful to the previous iteration of Doctor Who as 11 is merely using it against an inanimate object and not an actual living thing. This means that the initial teaser is greatly effective in teasing but not spoiling anything, and the payoff is good enough that it doesn’t insult fans. However, the episode isn’t great. It’s not that I disliked the episode, but it lacks a lot of the clever trickery that “Blink” had. This is a much more straight forward episode, which is fine, but the Angels are definitely not as scary here. They’re still intensely creepy (and next week’s episode looks amazing), but it’s not as clever now. Again, I’m not saying that the episode was bad… but perhaps it was a bit too hyped to deliver.
Continued belowThis episode was also the first to effectively NOT try and play for a new (and “younger” and “hipper”) crowd, as it was focused merely on reintroducing old elements to the new Doctor. This is something that I was really happy about because Moffat obviously just wanted to tell more stories with the Angels, and I was and am all for that. Smith really does have a daunting task of following up four seasons worth of knowledge, so the scene in the museum is really quite telling of just how long the Doctor has existed and how well Smith is handling the transition in this role. While Gillan has been played down recently, she also manages be a bit more relevant, and is definitely an entertaining companion of the Doctor. She has succumbed to the same infatuation that every companion has (and fairly quicker as well), but she’s much more humorous and catty in this episode with the appearance of River, and her “becoming an Angel” thing will be interesting to see next week.
Although a tad bit underwhelming given my obvious hype and high expectations, the episode provided a good and solid amount of entertainment. I enjoyed the episode outside of the River elements, and I’m happy to have the Angels back. It should be interesting to see the continuation in next week’s episode and it’s definitely a step up from last week’s. This season has definitely been a tad bit rocky, but my hopes are still high and I still have faith.
As a side note, I will not be providing a Doctor Who review next week as I will be out of the office on vacation. Check back in two weeks for a review of both the next episode and the episode after that, which has lady vampires who hopefully do not sparkle and play baseball for the duration of the episode.
