Doctor Who S05E04: "The Time Of Angels" [Spoilers]

[Gramzamber]

Eh I've never found the Weeping Angels to be the least bit scary, at all. So the episode comes across as dull for me.
I keep thinking "So they're stone. Smash them with a hammer while they're frozen!". Yeah I suppose they're not really stone but some super-ultra-dense-blackhole-oblivion-timey-wimey stone or whatever.

Also I didn't like the look of the "clerics" at all. They look like somebody kidnapped the British contingent of Stargate Command. If there is such a thing.
Oh and they're all men. Come on it's thousands of years into the future, vary it up a little!

[Srelex]

Also I didn't like the look of the "clerics" at all. They look like somebody kidnapped the British contingent of Stargate Command. If there is such a thing.
Oh and they're all men. Come on it's thousands of years into the future, vary it up a little!

I thought they were the future Swiss Guard or something, so maybe it's doctrine. Probably also why they're wearing modern getup.

[Gramzamber]

Also I didn't like the look of the "clerics" at all. They look like somebody kidnapped the British contingent of Stargate Command. If there is such a thing.
Oh and they're all men. Come on it's thousands of years into the future, vary it up a little!

I thought they were the future Swiss Guard or something, so maybe it's doctrine. Probably also why they're wearing modern getup.

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense in the setting, rather it just comes across as mundane to me.
For one thing when I hear "church soldiers in spaaaace" I want to see battle armour emblazoned with religious heraldry and people shouting fire and brimstone.
In other words yes, I keep thinking WH40k.

[Big Orange]

I'm not really bothered that the religious paramilitary group are somewhat similar to 20th/21st century infantrymen, since like the goons guarding Ood Operations they're not a real military, with their equiment and training geared around fighting creatures and space pirates, etc. But they're a little too much like the British Army, at one point I thought I was watching Primeval. To be fair they've got production restraints and it's easy to get hold of contemporary military stuff, but they could've altered up the camouflage, making them greyish-blue or give them more futuristic badges/insignia and gave them East German military helmets to wear.

And yet another boo at the BBC incorrectly thinking they're FOX Network and assume we're fucking idiots who are unable to look up the programme scheduling!

It's bad enough that the BBC have ruined the end credits in the last four years:

[Admiral Valdemar]

The wrath of the Whoverse geek community will be clamping down on the Beeb over that IPP stunt.

[Big Orange]

With the Angels coming back, it was a good and logical idea to up the ante and make the Weeping Angels a potential major force (without making it silly, like with the Daleks in S4). The Weeping Angels are a evil force concentrated more around "magic", as opposed to "science" with the Daleks. It seems like those armed monks were simply killed, instead of sent to the past, and that lone Angel's tactics are more like the tactics used by SCP-173.

[NecronLord]

It would have been interesting if they'd say, thrown in a Tritovore or two even in background scenes, to show some 'converts' to that military church outfit.

[mr friendly guy]

Gave it a 4. The weeping angels done right can be scary even after we already know how they work. The last line with Matt Smith talking about the trap is awesome.

[Teleros]

Rated it 3/5 here. The Weeping Angels were well done the first time, but more =/= scarier.

[Gramzamber]

I liked "Blink" more due to the writing of the episode and the characters. I've never quite understood the popularity of the Angels themselves, and the whole lights on/off thing comes across as an annoying attempt at cheap shock value.

One thing I did like in this episode was Amy alternating blinks when looking at the Angel. Common sense! I mean, it's what I'd do. Otherwise when told not to blink I'd blink.

[PREDATOR490]

4/5

I liked it, finally something more serious and new.

The only thing that bugged me was the start with River flying the TARDIS. Apparantly, the noise and shaking is because the Doctor flies it like shit either intentionally or not knowing what he is doing. Either way it just made the Doctor look pathetic driving the TARDIS like that for no reason than because he likes being flung all over the place. The real question is wether or not this is going to follow through to the natural conclusion.
As of this episode is the Doctor going to go back to flying the TARDIS like shit or will we have less shaking / landing noise ?

While it might be new for a new series, I doubt they are going to carry through. I'm also thinking River is going to end up being a new companion at some point which might be interesting.

Amy Pond: Really like the character, shes quite fun and they have successfully managed to project her as something more than her looks. Its going to be a shame to see her leave the series. Hopefully it will be at least 2 seasons but I'm doubtful Karen Gillian will stick around that long.

[Captain Seafort]

Amy Pond: Really like the character, shes quite fun and they have successfully managed to project her as something more than her looks. Its going to be a shame to see her leave the series. Hopefully it will be at least 2 seasons but I'm doubtful Karen Gillian will stick around that long.

Maybe not, but it would be good to go back to the old revolving door of companions, rather than the boringly predictable "show up in first episode, have adventures, leave in last episode" of the last few years.

[Shroom Man 777]

God damn that was good! Man, Moffat! Now he gets to play with his two favoritest creations, the Angels and Robot Rivers! Man! God-damn!

I hope this shuts Thanas up about disappointments and blah-blahs!

[Teebs]

I definitely enjoyed that episode. It lacked the shitty elements of the last one and was quite creepy. I was a bit dubious about the new more powerful weeping angels, but I thought they actually worked quite well. The revelation about the double heads was very well done, I hadn't caught that at all.

I liked the general interactions with River Song, but not the bit about flying the Tardis. The stabilisers were ok, I think it fits with the Doctor's current personality that he'd quite like being flung about, but the noise/brakes issue was just stupid.

Amy Pond seems to be becoming an excellent companion.

[Shroom Man 777]

I loved that bit where AMY got stuck with her stone-hand, and was just so no-nonsensely telling the Doctor to leave her behind since if he stayed, then he'd be killing those other guys. That was really, really, damn good of her. This, and the last "very kind and very old" bits of Space Britain, really make her out to be a completely sweet character. Not as soppy as Rose, and definitely not as shouty as Donna, though not quite as clever as Martha, but very different and very good - incorporating their best elements - in a very understated way. Like the new Doctor, he's got a lot of the quirks from Ten and Nine, is quite a goof and a showoff, but he's also very understated - much like his very tweedy outfit. I like it.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Who voted 1/5? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Thanas?

[El Moose Monstero]

I was not convinced, to be honest. I enjoyed it mostly, but something didn't feel quite right with it. I'd probably give it a 3, because whilst it was an improvement on the dalek episode, if you compare it with the best of similar episodes in the past 4 series (Blink, Impossible Planet, the Empty Child), I don't think it measures up.

I enjoy the banter between the Doctor and Amy, and I do like the fact that they have Amy actually being an old school assistant, instead of Rose doing the crush schtick, Martha doing whatever she did, as I've blanked her out, and Donna ranting about being a 'temp'. Amy does actually feel like she's a part of the team and is providing a level of thinking that the Doctor might miss. They need to tread a fine line with that, and not make the Doctor deliberately blind or stupid in places, but I like this direction. I would like to see more direct interaction between the Doctor and Amy (not in that way, you pervs), actual character interaction. I also enjoyed the fact that they Spoiler

look like they're going to be dealing with the finale stuff at least in part next week, so it isn't a case of just randomly name dropping throughout the series

.

The idea is fantastic. Lets face it, hunting a creature that looks like a statue that moves when you aren't looking and can even project itself through things and take possession of things which look like it or reflect it whilst being stuck in a maze of statues is the stuff which horror films are made of. It's Alien, basically. A creature of darkness hiding in darkness which can kill you in ways beyond belief. They could have made the entire thing as dark and tense as Blink was, without even needing all the statues to come alive, it could have possessed the normal statues one by one, jumping in and out of them, so every statue *could* have been the angel, without needing all of them *to* be angels. We could have had characters jittering and jumping, we could have had perhaps cliched suspicion based on things they were half translating from the book or found written on the walls, or on half remembered legends etc. "Oh my god, you're becoming an angel! Die!" etc. Potential to be absolutely awesome.

The execution however, whilst ok, wasn't awesome. Instead we get a standard action piece instead of a tense thriller piece, and all the statues are angels. Ok, but that basically blows the tension out of the water, as now we know everything is actually trying to kill them, rather than just looking like things that could kill them. It becomes a standard 'Doctor Who running away' plot, rather than something more like Blink, with creeping around in the shadows and tense scenes with statues. Also the repeat of the 'scary bad thing steals voice to taunt and communicate' felt like he'd just amalgamated the Silence in the Library and Blink rather than actually writing something new.

It was ok. It wasn't amazing. And I really don't like River, but that's pure personal taste.

EDIT: And again, bombastic music really starting to grate. This episode totally didn't need a soundtrack, we could have had silence or very quiet strings or something in the background, just enough to get the 'echoing, alone and tense' vibe.

EDIT 2: And they really missed something by not having the time-jump stealing thing. How fucking freaky would it have been if instead of hearing that the angels snapped necks, they instead came across the corpses of their comrades who'd been projected back a 100 years or so instead of having their necks snapped. For added terror, they could even have had them find the corpses *before* the person had even been caught by the angel.

[El Moose Monstero]

Oh, christ, and then they could have had scrawlings on the wall be the paranoid ramblings of the people sent back in time, but who've gone mad being trapped in a maze of the dead on their own for 100 years. You could even have had the slightly cliched double-bluff of having one of the corpses having an item which was owned by either Amy or River, or even the Doctor, as whilst we know they're not going to die, it would still have been good tense television if acted well. Amy rounds the corner, sees a corpse with the sonic screwdriver in hand, and the doctor is nowhere to be found and not on the radio. Freeze frame! Cliff hanger!

[Shroom Man 777]

That's not at all too necessary though.

One thing that bugs me, though it's not bad or anything, is how the fuck can the Angels materialize out of their images or video recordings or something? Man, that's some fucked up ability.

[Zac Naloen]

I'm sure the shows explanation is that because they exist in the quantum world they'll show some very weird properties nothing else can do.

[Plekhanov]

Great episode which just flew by. Of course it was only a set up episode and past experience shows that writing a good set up seems to be much harder than a good pay off hopefully they can keep the standard up for the concluding half.

Like other episodes were modern-looking uniforms and weapons are somehow present thousands of years in the future, the 'Clerics' wearing present-day desert gear somewhat annoyed me, but at least this time they had the excuse of presumably being bound by tradition or something. Like the Swiss Guard. Still, they could use costumes from the Starship Troopers movie in other cases like everyone else, but eh. Anyway, were those P90s futurefied as I first saw them, or is that a genuine configuration in RL?

But anyway, good stuff.

Unless the future infantry has some kind of ultra lightweight powered armour or some such thing (which is obviously out of the budget for Who to put on screen) wouldn't you expect them to have clothing much like todays? Tough fabrics, plenty of pockets, helmets... they were certainly much more convincingly equipped than all those 'futuristic' tight fitting jump suits with no pockets that soldiers so often seemed to wear in older series.

[Admiral Valdemar]

But the future means different stuff, that's why they need lasers not projectile throwers, since they're more futuristic and thereby cooler.

Screw the uniform. They should all have comm badge sized shield projectors and wear ministerial robes.

[Srelex]

Unless the future infantry has some kind of ultra lightweight powered armour or some such thing (which is obviously out of the budget for Who to put on screen) wouldn't you expect them to have clothing much like todays? Tough fabrics, plenty of pockets, helmets... they were certainly much more convincingly equipped than all those 'futuristic' tight fitting jump suits with no pockets that soldiers so often seemed to wear in older series.

That's not what I meant. It just stretches my suspension of disbelief a bit when they have uniforms exactly the same as ours millennia in the future. Things like Aliens and Halo at least made the uniform of their Space Grunts look slightly updated. But then again, this is a show with magical statues, so I guess I shouldn't dwell on this too much.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The only thing amiss with the uniforms was the camo styling for the terrain, but that doesn't really have any bearing on the situation at hand which makes hiding impossible.

[Shroom Man 777]

Maybe props borrowed from Starship Troopers would be preferable?