Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Time of Angels

Hello sweeties, there's only one way to sum up this episode: Best opening EVER! River Song could easily hold her own with James Bond, perhaps even beat him... I want to float to a TARDIS backwards while blowing a kiss after sending a message in a dead language thousands of years into the future! But let's get to the episode itself, because, truthfully, River Song would just adore taking over this post. So River discovers a Weeping Angel and with the help of The Doctor and a bevy of troops, plan to take it out. Seeing as this is a two part, most of it is a build up to a cliffhanger of everyone in peril and the Doctor thinking of a way to save the day, of course a catch phrase thrown in, this is a Steven Moffat episode after all ("Are You My Mummy?" "Donna Noble Has Left The Library, Donna Noble Has Been Saved"). So in all fairness, this review can only be a partial review, because I won't know till the resolution how I feel about how this plays out. Because in the abstract, bringing back the angels, expanding on their mythology is really cool and scary. But at the same time, their one appearance in the scariest episode ever made them unique and interesting, and the idea of any statue could really be one, like the Vashta Nerada, is cool. But right there we're hitting on the problem I had with the episode. This really seemed like a refashioning of River Song's other arc. We have people, trapped in a place where the darkness is lethal and then the baddies start using the walkie talkies to communicate. Angel Bob, you're too much like other Dave... I'm sorry. But still, Moffat is able to get some amazing humor and horror working side by side. Amy being trapped with the image of an Angel... were it turns out the image is really the same thing, and then when her eye starts leaking sand... creepy. I also love the play River and The Doctor have of a married old couple, and I love that River is as enigmatic as ever and that this ship crash was mentioned in their previous adventure, even if it was River's last. Also I'm sorry, but Matt Smith doing the sound of the TARDIS, I forgive him for not being David Tennant just for that, as well as biting Amy to prove she wasn't stone, you're officially a Doctor, I shouldn't have doubted. But as for final judgement.... turn in next week...

As a funny aside, if you watched this in England, this episode caused controversy because of a Graham Norton cartoon promoting "Over the Rainbow" interrupting the big cliffhanger. Over 3000 calls and countless emails, really countless, I couldn't be bothered to find out. But Graham had a great comeback on his show, a sort of apology, as only Graham can do!


1 comments:

Oh. My. Gosh. That Graham Norton thing was HILARIOUS.

I'm totally with you on the episode - both in the great opening, Matt Smith making the TARDIS sound, and "alien saliva," as well as the Other Dave similarity. Even with you on the using the Weeping Angels again not necessarily being a good thing. But I loves me my River Song, as you know.

Post a Comment

Newer Post Older Post Home