The most iconic of the villains of the modern Doctor Who era take center stage this week, as the fam heads back to the Swinging Sixties and a village full of Weeping Angels. Who ends up with the upper hand when it’s all over? Fire up the TARDIS for a road trip to the “Village of the Angels.” And remember: Spoilers!
1. Angels Amok
The Angels are running the show now. They’ve taken control of the TARDIS and dump the fam in the village of Medderton on November 21, 1967. (Yes, Doctor Who. We see what you did there, setting the episode 54 years before its actual premiere date to the day.) The mystery on the surface is that of missing ten year old Peggy, but that’s just on the surface. There’s Weeping Angels all over town, including one holding the body of Claire Brown hostage.
Remember Claire? You saw her back in the premiere walking home and attempting to enter her home while some Weeping Angels stalked her. They sent her back to 1965, so she’s been living in the Swinging Sixties for two years. (And has certainly adapted well with her wardrobe – – I loved her look in this episode, reminding me of the Second Doctor’s Polly.) Her hallucinations of wings and sand in her eye suggest that a Weeping Angel is inside her, who claims to be one gone rogue from a larger organization called The Division – – the group also happens to be on the hunt for the Doctor, as you’ll recall from the Ruth Doctor.
How the Doctor doesn’t pick up on this immediately is a bit of a conundrum. And we’re going to see later that this omission is going to have grave consequences for her.
2. Check the Sound (Again)
I promise (maybe – – my fingers may or may not be crossed behind my back) that this is the last time I am going to complain about the sound mixing in this episode, but it’s once again really bad. Climactic music at more than one key point drowns out dialogue. And while this story is easier to follow in terms of linear structure than last week, it’s still very problematic. One possible reason is the difference in sound systems from high quality speakers used in television production and the speakers in standard televisions. It’s similar to the issues folks with older TVs had watching the final season of Game of Thrones – – those older TVs rendered the lighting of the show poorer than when viewed on a more modern model. (That of course, is the least of the problems with that particular season of that show, as those who survived it know.)
It’s a plausible explanation, but if that was the case, wouldn’t this be a more common problem across the industry? Outside of this show and some of the CW shows, I haven’t noticed sound issues like this, both in a mix of live and recorded television.
3. A Healthy Curiosity
A welcome development this season is how all the supporting players to the Doctor embrace the otherworldly things and situations they end up part of. There’s no questioning, no fighting, no denial of what is right in front of their faces. Note how well Dan’s embraced the time traveling lifestyle. (Maybe too well? Is there something we don’t know about him?) Professor Jericho, a scientist in Medderton who befriended Claire and attempts to get to the bottom of what she’s experienced is quite eager to dive deeper into Weeping Angel lore with the Doctor, hooking her and Claire up to his own experiments as the Doctor reads Claire’s mind to talk to the Angel inside and taking the Doctor’s warnings of the danger the Angels possess very seriously.
In a world that prioritizes feelings over facts, when scientific expertise is thrown aside if it doesn’t fit your opinions, these characters serve as gentle and welcoming reminder of the importance of the scientific method and a healthy curiosity for the world around them.
4. Zapped Back in Time
We all know what the Angels can do: feed off of the quantum energy of a life to come, sending their victim back in time to live out their lives somewhere else, far from all that is familiar and dear. Up until now, we’ve seen victims of the Angels resigned to their fate, from Billy Shipton to even Amy Pond and Rory Williams.
Continued belowSomething we haven’t seen to date, though, is when a victim of the Angels decides to fight back. Not only does Claire try to make some sense of how she ended up in the 1960s, Dan and Yaz also aren’t taking their imprisonment by the Angels lying down. In the search for Peggy, they end up sent back to 1901, where they find young Peggy in Medderton — the only person in Medderton. The Angels not only have taken the entire population of the village out, but the village itself out of time, placing it floating in space alongside the Medderton of 1967. And that’s where Dan, Yaz, and Peggy connect with the Doctor, Peggy’s older self in 1967, and a whole lot of Angels.
Dan and Yaz do a lot of wandering around 1901 in this episode and not much else, which is disappointing, particularly in the case of Dan who we the viewers are still getting to know. Strolling a rural English village with the occasional HEY DON’T DO THAT isn’t a barometer for one’s character or skills. The trailer for next week’s episode does hint that we’re going to see the companions fight back against their Weeping Angel fate, though – – and that’s going to be something different and interesting to see.
5. “Well. Shit just got real.”
The title of this thought is just what I said to my better half when we got to this episode’s climax. Because shit did, in fact, just get real for the Doctor and the fam.
Remember when I said that the fact that the Doctor didn’t pick up on the danger of The Division early on would have grave consequences for her? Here they are. Her attempt to bluff the Angel living in Claire out of her body and to the hands of The Division turns out to be . . . wait for it . . .
The Division has a bigger prize in mind than any Rogue Weeping Angel: the Doctor herself. And right before everyone’s eyes, Jodie Whittaker turns into a Weeping Angel for The Division.
Shit’s gotten real, indeed.
Roll (a bit disjointed) credits.
6. STOP THE CREDITS
Because time is all flux’ed up, and because Marvel’s trained us not to turn the tv off or walk out of the theater the minute we see who the best boy is and who’s handled accounting and craft services, those strange credits stop to bring us back to . . . Vinder. Vinder?
Time to back up in this flux’ed up timeline to our B(el) plot. Bel’s still working her way through space (or what is left of it) on the hunt for her life partner. On one planet called Pizzano (which sounds less like a planet and more like a pasta dish one gets in Little Italy), she finds that Azure and The Passenger are tricking residents by promising them safety from the Flux . . . but harvesting their bodies for The Passenger instead. Bel’s not falling for this, saving one of the inhabitants who leads Vinder, when he arrives some time later, to a message Bel’s left for her love. The joy on his face from the brief and interrupted missive certainly makes you more invested in their reunion attempts than what’s going on with the Doctor.
It’s easy to attribute that kind of reaction to shoddy underdeveloped writing on main characters, but I also can’t help but wonder if Vinder’s part of long term Doctor Who plans. Could Vinder be the next Doctor? It’s certainly high time to see a Black person captaining the TARDIS. And while I’d love to see the Ruth Doctor, I won’t close the door to Vinder at the controls either.
See you next week, fam.
We’ll see you next week for “Chapter Five: Survivors of the Flux” and let us know what you thought of the episode in the comments!
