Matt Smith is really starting to shine now … the newest installation of Doctor Who sees The Doctor and Amy in the far future of the human race where they have settled many planets and stars.
River Song (someone from The Doctors future but also someone he has encountered in the past – time travel is confusing sometimes!) makes another appearance in this story and is obviously a key/pivotal character throughout. In addition, the Weeping Angels are back – probably one of the scarier new villains from the David Tennant era – they are just as horrific now!
Brief Recap
- River Song appears to us on a spaceship doing something to a box (we later discover that it is writing in Gallifrean and is the words “Hello Sweety” which The Doctor discovers when he is “touring” the museums for his influences – no details are provided on how she knows Gallifrean!)
- The Doctor realizes that the message is for him, steals the cube and views the video record that it contains. When he does so, he hears the coordinates that he needs to have to travel in time to pick up River Song (how does she know these numbers??) and travels to rescue her just in time as she is ejected from the spaceship.
- River then proceeds to take charge of the Tardis and is obviously very familiar with its use and operation (another question not answered). In addition to this, she is able to conform the Tardis so that it does not even make its distinctive landing sound (by the way – I really hope that this is temporary as this is a change I would not really be happy seeing in the future!)
- They follow the ship which has crash-landed on a planet and are joined by a group of “religious” marines … The Doctor is informed that they are there to destroy the contents of the ship – a Weeping Angel and together River and The Doctor review a diary written by someone that is all about the Angels (I don’t think they inform us about who wrote the manual either, which is another question!)
- They review one looping video that they have of the Weeping Angel and while The Doctor and River are reading the diary, Amy notices that the Angel is moving and seems to be active … as The Doctor discovers in his reading, anything “that bears the image of the Angel becomes the Angel” and this one is now coming for Amy.
- Amy is able to stop the Angel by “freezing” the video in place at the static part thereby disrupting its image. However she looked into the eyes of the Angel which might have an impact on her (we will discover what later).
- Where the ship has crashed is actually a dead world, covered by statues which will make finding the Angel a difficult matter in itself, however The Doctor and party set out to do just that and split up into several different groups to cover more ground. One such group is immediately ambushed however and the Angel seems to be able to mimic the voices of the people that it has killed.
- As The Doctor and party progress through the maze, The Doctor gradually comes to the realization that the ship did not come to this planet by mistake, but in fact all the statues that he has seen are in fact also Angels themselves and that the only reason they look the way they do, is that they have been deprived of food for so long which is why they are so slow – however this is gradually changing with the proximity of the humans and they are “waking up”. The whole thing is a trap!
- The Doctor and the remaining humans are contacted by the Angel who has now assumed the voice & identity of another marine that he has killed. Informing The Doctor that he is soon to follow the episode ends leaving us in suspense for the 2nd part! I hate when that happens – as I’d completely gotten caught up in the episode and was really surprised that the time had passed … oh well, I’ll definitely be back!
Thoughts and Observations
Overall really good. Matt Smith is definitely settling into his role and the mania of the earlier episodes seems to be passing. The interactions between The Doctor and River Song are really well done and there are definitely a lot of questions raised by and about her that bear further exploration.
The Weeping Angels seem to be (so far) a really good villain. Definitely better than some of the other villains/characters introduced in the David Tennant era (although I would like to see the Oood again too) and while this episode isn’t as “scary” as their introduction it is still really good. Best parallel would perhaps be Alien vs. Aliens.