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| The Doctor realizes he's made a terrible mistake. |
2 episodes: The Time of Angels, Flesh and Stone. Approx. 84 minutes. Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: Adam Smith. Produced by: Tracie Simpson.
THE PLOT
The Doctor has brought a less-than-enthusiastic Amy to a space museum. He's come to gloat over everything the museum got wrong about its various exhibits and also to "keep score" of his own accomplishments. He is brought up short by one exhibit, though - a "home box" from an ancient starliner, which has been inscribed with Gallifreyan writing specifically to draw his attention.
The message brings him to the exact time/space coordinates of River Song (Alex Kingston). For the Doctor, this is their second meeting, but for her they are still old friends. River is working with a team of soldier/monks, led by the dutiful Father Octavian (Iain Glen), securing the wreckage of a crashed space liner. Captive on that ship was a Weeping Angel, an incredibly powerful alien force with a built-in defense mechanism: Any time anyone is looking at it, the Angel appears to be an immobile statue.
The Doctor agrees to help the soldier/monks put the Weeping Angel out of commission in order for them to secure the crashed ship. Then he makes a shocking discovery, one that changes the entire shape of the mission!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: I remain very impressed with Matt Smith, despite a very uneven introductory set of stories! With a good story, it's hardly surprising that he does quite a bit more. The Eleventh Doctor's anger is particularly interesting. I alluded to it in my review of The Beast Below, and it seems to be holding that this incarnation of the Doctor gets angry more easily than previous incarnations - and his anger is darker and more focused. I hope something is done with that trait, because there's a lot of potential there.
Amy: Her highly observant nature is one of the few consistent traits developed in the episodes since her introduction, and she retains that quality here. Faced with the approaching image of the Angel, in a situation in which the Doctor cannot save her, she puts together the stray pieces of what she knows very quickly and finds a way to save herself.
River Song: She and the Doctor are still meeting in the wrong order. For her, this is ealier than their encounter in Silence in the Library, but still later than many of her other encounters with him. She refers to him as "Sweetie," which combines with her familiarity with him to make Amy conclude that she's the Doctor's future wife... though I suspect this may just be the mischievous Dr. Song yanking the Doctor's chain. We also get a tantalizing hint of something River is going to do in the Doctor's future (her past) - something horrible, it seems, though I suspect this alluded-to incident will look very different when we've seen the other side of it.
THOUGHTS
Now, that's more like it!
The Time of Angels is good stuff. It's genuinely creepy and atmospheric, making good use of three interesting settings: one of the series' more well-done catacombs, a gleaming corridor connected to a room in a spaceship, and a fairy-tale dark forest. It says something for how cleverly structured the story is, that all three of these disparate settings are clearly connected to each other in ways that make sense in context.
It's a story that acts as a sequel to Moffat's classic Blink, as well as being both sequel and prequel to his less classic, but still good, Silence in the Library. It's better than Library but not as good as Blink. That still marks it as being substantially better than most stories, and it is by far the best story of the season thus far.
One thing that distinguishes The Time of Angels from, say, Victory of the Daleks is the presence of characters. The guest characters actually have believable personalities, rather than simply existing as cardboard cutouts to propel the plot along. From the scared Bob, whose fear is praised by the Doctor to put the brakes on a dressing-down by Father Octavian, to Octavian himself, these characters feel convincing.
Iain Glen is particularly strong as Octavian, and the episode has the sense to give him a moment in which he snatches the moral highground away from the Doctor. When his men begin dying, and the Doctor seizes on his reaction to that to call him an idiot, Octavian witheringly retorts that he "will explain that to (the dead men's) will explain that to (the dead men's) families after you've flown off in your little box." In that moment, he goes from being the latest in the series' long line of toy soldiers into being somebody worth investing in. It's far from the only good moment he gets, as well.
The first episode is better than the second, but that's standard enough. The catacombs are the most atmospheric of the settings. With the fairly large number of soldiers to provide a proper body count, all searching a dark and eerie setting for an awesomely dangerous creature, it's highly reminiscent of James Cameron's Aliens. I do mean that as a compliment, by the way.
If the second episode doesn't quite match the intensity of the first, neither does it let the story down in any way. If anything, it raises the stakes on the storyarc, marking the point at which The Crack moves from a recurring background image into the foreground. The Doctor becomes aware that this crack in time and space is Something Very Bad, something that is explicitly linked to Amy and her wedding day.
Effectively, the end of this story marks the end of the season's First Act. The characters are set, the basic situation has been exposed, and now it's ready to move onto the next phase.
Rating: 9/10.
Previous Story: Victory of the Daleks
Next Story: Vampires of Venice
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