Performances Completely Sell "Let's Kill Hitler!"

The Good: Great acting, Decent plot progression
The Bad: Light on character development
The Basics: "Let's Kill Hitler" might make the character of River Song an explicit tie-in to earlier incarnations of the character and reveal some of her backstory well, but it does not extensively progress the Doctor Who characters.


Explaining who River Song from "Forest Of The Dead" (reviewed here!) was always going to be a massive task. After all, creating a character who has future interactions with The Doctor creates a potential mess of continuity issues. The purpose of much of the sixth season of Doctor Who is to give answers to who and what River Song actually is. River Song, who has been established before now as a criminal in the future who is working off a prison sentence and given that the season began with allies of The Doctor witnessing his death in the future, the identity of his killer has remained a mystery. By "Let's Kill Hitler," the smart money is on the idea that River Song is manipulated into killing The Doctor somehow.

"Let's Kill Hitler" is a direct follow-up to "A Good Man Goes To War" (reviewed here!) and it is impossible to discuss it without some references to the prior episode. After all, "A Good Man Goes To War" found Amy giving birth to Melody Pond and River Song arriving to reveal that she is the adult version of Melody Pond. "Let's Kill Hitler" ties together the backstory of River Song with the ongoing mystery of the sixth season brilliantly.

Opening months later with The Doctor responding to Amy and Rory's creating explicit messages to the pair in the form of crop circles, the trio is visited by Mel. Mel is an old friend of Amy and Rory's who takes The Doctor hostage and demands to be taken back to Nazi Germany to kill Hitler. In Berlin, 1938, a crew of time operatives replace a prominent Nazi using their time ship filled with miniaturized people. When the TARDIS crashes in Hitler's office, in the ensuing conflict, Mels is shot. Mels regenerates into River Song!

After briefly exploring her new body, River Song makes multiple attempts to kill The Doctor. When she kisses The Doctor, Melody declares that the deed is done. With 32 minutes before The Doctor dies from the poison from the Judas Tree, Amy, Rory and the temporal police hunt down River Song. When the Justice Department wounds River Song, The Doctor learns that River is the one who killed him in the future. The Doctor also learns about The Silence and the prophecy about The Doctor is revealed. To stop the Justice Department, Amy turns the shipboard antibodies against the crew. With the Justice Department ship incapacitated, The Doctor turns to River Song for help in saving her parents.

"Let's Kill Hitler" includes an extensive backstory for Mels and the whole concept would have worked vastly better if Mels had been a character previously established. Instead, viewers are supposed to believe that Mels was left on the streets in the 1960s in "The Impossible Astronaut" where she regenerated, but then did not significantly age before meeting Amy in the late 1990s or early 2000s?! One supposes the only real answer is that there are multiple unseen regenerations of Melody Pond before she becomes Mel, which is somewhat unsatisfying given that it is not made explicit in the episode. In fact, in the episode that is explicitly contradicted as Mels mentions that her last regeneration left her has a toddler on the streets of New York!

Beyond that, "Let's Kill Hitler" finally makes it explicit that River Song is a conditioned assassin designed to assassinate The Doctor. The previously-seen astronaut suit-wearing girl was conditioned to kill The Doctor and now Melody Pond works to achieve that mission. That explanation is surprisingly satisfying even if the mechanics of it are not.

Alex Kingston breaks out as River Song in "Let's Kill Hitler." River is exceptionally well-written in the episode and Kingston rises to the occasion beautifully. Kingston finds the perfect balance of humor and danger in her acting. Kingston has the incredible ability to emote quite a bit with her eyes and she plays the role of the newly-regenerated Melody Pond in a way that allows her to make great use of those talents. Even the confusion that Kingston plays near the episode's climax is delightfully-delivered.

Similarly, Karen Gillan does a decent job of giving a very physical performance for the various incarnations of Amy Pond in "Let's Kill Hitler." When the Justice Department vehicle turns into Amy Pond, Gillan has to play cold and more mechanical and the contrast between the usual expressiveness of Amy and her alternate version is a good bit of acting.

Even Matt Smith does an excellent job with performing in "Let's Kill Hitler." Smith has a physical role in "Let's Kill Hitler" that allows him to effectively juggle invoking laughter and evoking empathy from the viewer. As The Doctor nears death, Smith's performance actually allows the viewer to invest in the impossible; that "Let's Kill Hitler" could see the end of Matt Smith's version of The Doctor!

The special effects and pacing of "Let's Kill Hitler" allow the episode to be incredibly entertaining and hold up over multiple viewings. "Let's Kill Hitler" is a rare example of an episode that ties together a number of key elements that are established in Doctor Who in a satisfying way. It might be simplistic and only minimally develop the characters, but it works!

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Richard Dillane, please check out my reviews of:
Argo
The Dark Knight
Rome - Season 2

8.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2018 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"A Good Man Goes To War" Assembles A Pretty Vast Doctor Who Team!

The Good: Good acting, Decent special effects, Moments of character
The Bad: Very basic plot, Plot-heavy with minimal character development
The Basics: "A Good Man Goes To War" finally begins to give explicit answers for what has been going on with Amy Pond when Melody Pond is born and abducted by a futuristic military organization.


Having come in comparatively late to the Doctor Who phenomenon, there are a number of elements that I have been eagerly watching for as I make my way through the series. Having seen Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax in "Deep Breath" (reviewed here!), I have been attentively watching for their origin story in Doctor Who. Indeed, when the Earth-based Silurians were explored in "Cold Blood" (reviewed here!), I eagerly watched for clues as to how Vastra would have been on the surface of Earth while the rest of her people slept for a couple hundred more years. It's not there (though there is a throwaway line in the two-parter about the "others" which might be enough to imply a splinter cell of Silurians who were active while the rest of the populace slept) and neither is there a true introduction or meeting between The Doctor and Vastra. Instead, Vastra appears at the outset of "A Good Man Goes To War" and is thrown into the mix with River Song and Rory in a way that is supposed to immediately give the viewer the credibility and weight of Vastra as someone akin in The Doctor's life to a Companion. But, lacking any prior context, the appearance of Vastra, Strax, and Jenny fighting at The Doctor's side at the outset of "A Good Man Goes To War," the appearance of a sudden, new Doctor Who super team is painfully abrupt.

If you feel like you've come in on the middle of a review, welcome to "A Good Man Goes To War," where The Doctor and a whole team of Companions and previously-unseen allies are suddenly a part of a significant conflict. The conflict came as a result of the events at the climax of "The Almost People" (reviewed here!) and given the reversal coming at the end of the episode made it prohibitive to discuss it in the review of that, we open "A Good Man Goes To War" with a sidebar of how improbable it was that we got here at all. Throughout the current season of Doctor Who, there have been hints about The Silence, Amy Pond is reading as both pregnant and not-pregnant at the same time, we've seen memory-erasing creatures that are part of The Silence, and Amy Pond has had hallucinations of a mysterious woman with an eye patch who appears in incongruent places. At the climax of "The Almost People," it is revealed that Amy Pond has not, in fact, been aboard the TARDIS for some time; she was replaced with a ganger "flesh" version of Amy at some point in the past and in cutting the psychic link to her very pregnant self, The Doctor destroyed the duplicate version of Amy. That is where "A Good Man Goes To War" begins, with the momentum of one Amy liquefying into goo and the actual Amy Pond beginning to go into labor in captivity somewhere else.

But here's the things; how did we get to this point? The Doctor was studying the strange readings that indicated Amy Pond was both pregnant and not pregnant at the same time and he took the TARDIS to the time and place of the nascent version of the flesh for "The Almost People" in order to confirm his suspicion about Amy. When one steps back from this, to look at it objectively, it is a painful leap of scientific analysis to get from point A to point B. The Doctor has a theory - the Amy Pond has been replaced, apparently - but in a universe and 900+ years of experience with robots, alternate universes, Sontaran duplicates, mind control, TARDIS equipment malfunction, etc., he manages to narrow his suspicions down to The Flesh, a replicating technology that he admits he has insufficient experience with (hence the trip to the time and place of "The Almost People"). To the viewer, in the time frame of the sixth season, this is incredibly unsatisfying as The Doctor makes no clear explorations of any alternate theories; he guesses correctly on his first try that Amy has been replaced by the thing he knows virtually nothing about. Really?!

And so, after an increasingly unlikely guess proves The Doctor's theory and he is able to remedy the deception by cutting the link between Amy Pond and ganger Amy, the viewer is thrust into "A Good Man Goes To War!"

Opening at Demon's Run, Amy Pond has had her baby and she is surrounded by military personnel led by the mysterious woman in the eye patch. Amy pledges her baby, Melody, that the baby's father is coming for them. Thousands of light years away from the facility, the Cybermen are under attack and Rory extorts them for information on where Amy is. Elsewhere on Demon's Run, a space station, Lorna Bucket recalls her brief experience with The Doctor while the Headless Monks get a new member and The Doctor's allies are called from various points in time and space. When Rory goes to pick up Dr. River Song, she is unwilling to join them on the mission. Madame Kovarian, the woman with the eye patch, visits Dorium Maldovar, who reveals that he knows where her forces are holed up and that there is a prophecy involving The Doctor going to war at Demon's Run.

The war at Demon's Run is an extraction mission where The Doctor arrives with his allies to stymie the military forces and rescue Amy Pond. But after an initial success at thwarting the military, Colonel Manton marshals his forces and The Doctor has to call in his reinforcements. But Kovarian is playing a deep game and when putting together the pieces of Amy Pond being on the TARDIS while having a signal beamed through time and space from Demon's Run makes Amy and Rory suspicious of why Kovarian wants Melody Pond at all. In studying Melody, The Doctor and his allies realize Melody Pond is human and time lord. Kovarian reveals that Melody Pond was created as a weapon to be used against The Doctor as the military forces converge upon The Doctor's allies at Demon's Run!

"A Good Man Goes To War" is packed with new creatures and characters in a way that makes viewers feel like they have missed something. Madame Vastra is introduced in 1888 with Jenny after having defeated Jack The Ripper . . . before declaring she has an old debt to The Doctor and leaving with him. Strax is picked up in the 4300s (how did he end up in the 1800s with Vastra and Jenny for "Deep Breath" then?!) and between the plethora of new characters and the wide range of settings and alien creatures there, "A Good Man Goes To War" feels initially jumbled and packed. Throwing in Lorna Bucket, a military officer who met The Doctor somewhere in his time stream, the episode starts to feel deliberately cluttered. Given how very many ancillary characters there are throughout the Doctor Who narrative at this point, that Steven Moffat did not use any of the already-present background characters for Bucket's role is needlessly complicated.

As a result, the hype surrounding the Headless Monks, an entirely new race, feels like filler. The point of the Headless Monks within "A Good Man Goes To War" is to work for the big rebeal of The Doctor into the narrative. But, rewatching The Doctor's allies gathering, amidst sudden creature menace from The Headless Monks and a massive military presence at Demon's Run, the ultimate entrance of The Doctor seems far more obvious than it is clever - it's like Steven Moffat frontloads the first act with red herrings and then expects viewers to be surprised when The Doctor exposes one of the many red herrings for what it is.

"A Good Man Goes To War" illustrates an interesting dark side to The Doctor which is a definite transition for the character and actually makes for a natural foreshadowing of the Peter Capaldi version of The Doctor. Capaldi's Doctor hates soldiers . . . but Matt Smith's Doctor uses soldiers. While Vastra declares that Demon's Run has been taken without any blood spilled, but she neglects the Spitfires shooting up Demon's Run, the destruction of the Cybermen fleet and the conflicts between the military and the Headless Monks. The Doctor has no problem using others to kill on his behalf in "A Good Man Goes To War" and that is a troubling character twist.

Outside being light on character development, "A Good Man Goes To War" is not bad, though it has a very simplistic plot. This is a confrontation episode where the participants do not know the motivations of the other side and the episode belabors putting together the pieces already in play. "A Good Man Goes To War" is built to a reversal that is emotionally virtually identical to the reversal in the prior episode, especially in terms of mood.

The performances in "A Good Man Goes To War" are good, especially for Matt Smith. Smith makes a pretty powerful emotional transformation in the course of "A Good Man Goes To War" as he begins as his familiar cocksure, almost goofy version of The Doctor. But as the episode progresses, The Doctor loses everything and Smith plays him as shocked and hurt and frazzled and Smith makes the transition incredibly well.

The climax of "A Good Man Goes To War" is frustrating, though, as The Doctor leaves the narrative before the big reveal is made explicit. His leaving is pointedly awkward as he takes the TARDIS with him, leaving someone else to get various allies back to their correct places and times . . . without the TARDIS. Similarly, the TARDIS translation matrix is explicitly called upon . . . after the TARDIS disappears, which seems very strange.

But, "A Good Man Goes To War" is a generally good set-up episode that is a remarkably satisfying initial answer to many of the season's mysteries. And it leads into "Let's Kill Hitler" perfectly!

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Simon Fisher-Becker, please check out my reviews of:
Les Miserables
"The Pandorica Opens" - Doctor Who
Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone

7/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Proper Introduction To The Silence Comes On The "Day Of The Moon!"

The Good: Good performances, Engaging plot progression, Special effects, Concept of the episode's resolution
The Bad: Insular plot with limited character development, Final scene
The Basics: "Day Of The Moon" resolves the Earth's occupation by The Silence in 1969 while leaving a lot for Amy Pond to do!


Doctor Who mysteries are some of the most erratic on television. The executive producers of Doctor Who have tried season-long arcs, but inevitably they have bottle episodes that are only semi-serialized. As a result, most Doctor Who mysteries are contained within an episode or two, with threads that connect to other episodes in a season. "Day Of The Moon" is a second part of a Doctor Who mystery and the irony of it is that it completely resolves one plotline - that of an alien invasion in 1969 - while completely leaving the mystery of the little girl from the prior episode unresolved.

It is impossible to discuss "Day Of The Moon" without some references as to where "The Impossible Astronaut" (reviewed here!) left off. After all, the entire mission in "Day Of The Moon" occurs after The Doctor has been killed and his Companions are reunited wth an earlier version of him. Just after revealing to The Doctor that she is pregnant, Amy Pond shot at the astronaut who appeared to be a little girl. "Day Of The Moon" involves tracking down the origins of the little girl and has The Doctor's team trying to learn about The Silence.

Three months after Amy shot at the Impossible Astronaut, Amy is running through Utah, away from Canton Delaware and his g-men. After Canton shoots her, he returns to Area 51 where The Doctor is being held prisoner. Delaware then hunts down River Song in New York City and then Rory at the Hoover Dam. The Doctor is being blocked into a prison that will keep out The Silence and once it is completed, Delaware reveals that he has saved The Doctor's companions, The TARDIS and they have all learned what they can about the occupying force of The Silence on the Earth.

After implanting a device in each of their hands, The Doctor tasks his Companions and Delaware with finding the little girl who was abducted to become the astronaut. Amy and Delaware visit a children's home where the manager believes it is not yet 1967 and he has no children in his charge. Amy finds a whole hive of the creatures that erase memory. After Amy is abducted, The Doctor, River and Rory begin to learn about The Silence and figure out what the purpose is of the space suit the little girl was in. Delaware gets a video of one of The Silence declaring that all humans should shoot them on sight, which inspires The Doctor to alter history and deputize humanity to turn humanity against the occupying force on Earth. After locating Amy Pond, The Doctor brings the TARDIS to rescue Amy from The Silence.

"Day Of The Moon" marks the first experience Amy Pond has with the apparent hallucination that comes up through the entire season. There is a woman with an eye patch who Amy briefly sees and hears and her appearance is instantly evocative of Rose's flashes throughout the fourth season of Doctor Who (reviewed here!). Moffat starts playing a season-long arc that Davies had done only two years prior on Doctor Who in "Day Of The Moon." The season-long arc for the sixth season of Doctor Who involves a disparity between Amy Pond being pregnant or not and the clues given in "Day Of The Moon" play off information that comes up later in the season.

River Song's arc in "Day Of The Moon" is intriguing. River continues to exhibit absolute trust in The Doctor and she works with Rory quite well. While some of that might simply be that Alex Kingston was not yet aware of the backstory connections between Rory and River, "Day Of The Moon" allows Rory to reach out to River and for her to actually lean upon him. The assignment The Doctor has River and the Companions on comes as Song is reeling in shock from The Doctor's death. River becomes a leader in "Day Of The Moon" and Kingston makes her into both a credible scientist and leader.

Amy Pond is a pretty classic "damsel in distress" in "Day Of The Moon" and Karen Gillan does the whole "see something terrifying and scream" thing fine. "Day Of The Moon" finally begins to add depth to the relationship between Rory and The Doctor in scenes after Amy is captured. Rory has been a supporting character who was so distant from The Doctor's attention that he initially seemed like a cheap re-casting of Micky and The Doctor knows virtually nothing about him. While Rory has been a champion for Amy, he and The Doctor have not actually bonded . . . until now.

The technological device that The Doctor suddenly produces in "Day Of The Moon" is cool and easy for viewers to invest in. What is far less believable is the technology being used in Area 51 to seal in The Doctor. "Day Of The Moon" did a poor job of illustrating how technologically advanced The Silence members were to make it credible that they would have the materials that Delaware could find to seal in The Doctor and his Companions. That said, the special effects and the make-up effects used the characterize The Silence are pretty incredible.

"Day Of The Moon" spends a lot of time examining the nature of The Silence and the mechanisms by which they controlled the mysterious little girl. Unfortunately, the episode comes to an abrupt end before the nature, identity and character of the little girl can be truly explored. The reason that is worth mentioning is that there is an incredibly unsatisfying resolution to "Day Of The Moon" from the fact that The Doctor explicitly mentions they can actually look into the little girl and why the Silence wanted her or they can just go off on some random adventures . . . and the little girl is shown six months later completely alone, so viewers know that The Doctor, Rory and Amy are headed off to do random things as opposed to follow up on the major loose end connecting the alien occupation of Earth to The Doctor's death.

But, a tremendously bad end does not stop "Day Of The Moon" from being unworth watching. "Day Of The Moon" effectively delivers on the promise of setting up a season-long mystery; it is not the episode's fault that it is abandoned in a ridiculous way at the end.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with President Richard Nixon in alternate realities, be sure to visit my reviews of:
X-Men: Days Of Future Past
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
Watchmen
Forrest Gump

8/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Enter The Silence And "The Impossible Astronaut!"

The Good: Incredible new villain, Intriguing mystery, Decent character moments, Good performances all around
The Bad: Establishing so many characters that it does not use The Doctor overly well.
The Basics: "The Impossible Astronaut" begins the next big Doctor Who mystery by introducing The Silence and putting into play an astronaut who kills The Doctor while his friends watch!


When it comes to serialized television, the benefit of long arcs is that one can seed ideas in early seasons and then play them out later for maximum dramatic effect. Long arcs allow for complicated characters and concepts which can be incredibly well-developed. What becomes increasingly obvious to fans of serialized television is when those ideas are mapped out before an idea is even pitched to a production company and when the story is crapped together piecemeal after something is already established. The "mythology" of The X-Files (reviewed here!) is an excellent example of something cobbled together poorly; while Doctor Who has season-long arcs that are well-constructed, the overall arc of the series is not terribly well-constructed. To his credit, Steven Moffat seemed to have a lot of well-developed ideas on how he was going to pull off River Song when he created her in "Silence In The Library" (reviewed here!). "The Impossible Astronaut" begins the process of explicitly spelling out River Song's backstory.

And "The Impossible Astronaut" is a pretty good beginning to that backstory. More than that, "The Impossible Astronaut" begins to lay the framework for a mystery surrounding who exactly the assassin and astronaut were and how they fit into the larger Doctor Who mythos. Interestingly, "The Impossible Astronaut" is a start to the story that is one of the rare starts that is so entertaining on its own that it is not disappointing for its lack of resolution.

Opening with Rory and Amy finding clues that The Doctor is "waving" at them from the past through inserting himself into events and ridiculous situations to which they might pay attention, The Doctor gets Amy, Rory, and River Song in Utah. The Doctor wants to stop running and when the quartet has a meal out on the edge of a lake, Amy sees an alien (but then forgets she sees it) and they are joined by Canton Delaware . . . moments before The Doctor is killed by an astronaut who comes out of the lake.

Going back to a diner after burning the Doctor's body, the trio finds an earlier version of The Doctor who was similarly summoned to that time and place. The Doctor refuses to simply go along on the mission to 1969, until Amy Pond swears she can trust him on fish sticks and custard. The Doctor arrives, after River effectively cloaks the TARDIS, inside the Oval Office, where Nixon is briefing a younger version of Canton Delaware III on calls he is getting claiming aliens are around her. While they are in the Oval Office, Amy sees the creature again, but as soon as her line of sight with it is broken, she forgets. The Doctor and his companions begin a search for the little girl calling Nixon and in Cape Canaveral, they discover an alien laboratory and stolen NASA technology. Rory and River Song discover a network of tunnels underneath the entire planet, filled with the aliens who cause people to forget their existence.

"The Impossible Astronaut" introduces the previously-alluded to Silence on-screen for the first time. In "The Impossible Astronaut," The Silence appears as an alien that exists in one's memory only when they are in eye contact with it. The entity erases itself from the memory of its victims the moment they are no longer looking at it and director Toby Haynes plays the technique out wonderfully in "The Impossible Astronaut" to make it clear. Before any characters evaluate the alien invaders on Earth in 1969, Amy Pond encounters them multiple times and Haynes shows their effects.

The plot of "The Impossible Astronaut" finds the right blend of funny and creepy to instantly engage the viewer. The Silence creatures are terrifying and the addition of River Song makes for a compelling character dynamic. While it helps to advance the plot, the use of a version of The Doctor who is 1103 and one who is only a year older than Amy and Rory recall (908), creates - albeit briefly - a lost history of The Doctor and River Song. When The Doctor and River sync up their journals, they appear to have had a great many of their adventures together. It confirms what viewers would suspect by watching "The Husbands Of River Song" (reviewed here!), which put a cap on The Doctor's adventures with River and eliminated any interaction between River and any future Doctors.

"The Impossible Astronaut" has a lot of set-up work to do and the return of The Doctor is one that features an erratic use of the character. The Doctor who is present in almost the entire episode is not the one who moves along the plot; the dead 1103 year-old Doctor is the character who guides the plot. The Doctor is fun in his later years, but when the 908 year-old version of The Doctor starts to follow the trail of clues left by his older self, he oscillates radically between being incredibly serious and as goofy as one might expect from Matt Smith's first season as The Doctor.

The character issue that resonates with those who consider the character of The Doctor in "The Impossible Astronaut" is one that stretches credibility some. The viewer is expected to believe that in the few months that Amy Pond was The Doctor's companion for the fifth season of Doctor Who (reviewed here!) he bonded with her in such a way that he would enlist her help in fighting the Silence. Given that the mission in "The Impossible Astronaut" involves going back to 1969, there is no clear reason in the episode why The Doctor - who had been out of Amy and Rory's life for two months and several decades from the plot - would have used them for the mission instead of either getting a new Companion in 1969 or using someone from his past he trusted.

Of course, for the entire plot surrounding the truth of the Astronaut and the mysterious little girl to work, Amy Pond has to be involved in the mission. Alex Kingston steals her scenes in "The Impossible Astronaut" and her facial expressions heighten the fear in the middle of the episode. When River Song goes into the creepy basement, Kingston emotes being afraid perfectly through her eyes and she makes the viewer completely forget that River Song cannot possibly die in the episode.

"The Impossible Astronaut" is a promising beginning to the sixth season of Doctor Who and it establishes enough tenants for a mystery involving an alien invasion in 1969 to make "Day Of The Moon" irresistible - when watching "The Impossible Astronaut" leave enough time to watch its sequel immediately afterward!

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other Doctor Who season premieres, please visit my reviews of:
"Rose"
"The Christmas Invasion"
"The Eleventh Hour"

9/10

See how this episode stacks up against other episodes and seasons of Doctor Who by visiting my Doctor Who Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from best to worst!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Kill The Doctor! Doctor Who Season Six Is A Generally Solid Narrative!

The Good: Moments of character, Some engaging plots, Good performances
The Bad: Divergent plot episodes, Moments of ridiculousness
The Basics: The seasonlong arc of the sixth season of Doctor Who works surprisingly well to create a mystery surrounding the death of The Doctor and the genesis of River Song!


When I consider a full season of television, I try to look at how the season gels as a whole. Television shows tend to run as either episodic or serialized and as little as I generally enjoy episodic television, it has the advantage for seasons of having a concept that is very simple to execute. I like sophisticated storytelling. The disadvantage of serialized television is that when a season diverges from its primary story, it has the potential to derail the entire season. While there are incredible improvements in Matt Smith's second season (and the second season of Doctor Who where Steven Moffat was calling the shots), the non-serialized elements of the sixth season of Doctor Who undermine the overall quality of the season and the narrative.

Doctor Who has the potential to be a freewheeling adventure through time and space that can have a spontaneity to it that makes it exciting to tune into. So, when Doctor Who foregoes the shocking and different for each episode by creating a serialized arc, the show has the potential to plumb new emotional depths and develop the characters within the narrative. Doctor Who Season Six fumbles when it tries to juggle between the strong serialized elements and the random episodic episodes that break up the momentum and character development of the primary narrative.

Opening in 2011 with the Doctor's greatest allies being invited to Lake Silencio, Utah by what appears to be an older version of The Doctor, Amy, Rory, River and a new-to-the-mix operative, the Companions are horrified when The Doctor is killed. Leaving the site of The Doctor's death, the Companions meet a younger version of The Doctor and discover that he has no idea what is coming. The Doctor and his allies soon discover that there is an alien invasion going on on Earth, generated by The Silence - entities who disappear from memory when they disappear from site. The Silence want to kill The Doctor and after The Doctor and his allies thwart the new alien menace, The Doctor and his Companions continue on their adventures with The Doctor ignorant of his eventual death.

The random adventures of The Doctor, Amy and Rory find The Doctor troubled by the fact that the TARDIS is simultaneously reading Amy as pregnant and not pregnant. When Amy turns up missing, The Doctor and Rory scour time and space to find her. Amy has been captured by a religious order in the future working for The Silence and they steal Amy and Rory's baby. The child turns up later, as the most unexpected person in their life, and when she tries to kill The Doctor, it takes time judges to resolve the matter. But The Doctor has learned of his impending death and he falls into a funk, so he makes an effort to thwart his own end, which has the potential to destroy time itself.

When Doctor Who Season Six is focused on The Doctor, Amy Pond's mysterious pregnancy, the extended backstory of River Song and the impending murder of The Doctor. But, when the season makes divergences for a pirate episode, a chance to give Neil Gaiman a Doctor Who episode, creepy dolls and a hotel where terrors come to life, the season takes a real dive. The character arcs that are developing through the way The Doctor is concerned about Amy and the way Amy and Rory continue to develop their relationship and struggle with their child being abducted are wonderful. That momentum is killed when The Doctor takes on the Cybermen with Craig or Rory yet again is forced to confront the fact that Amy has deep feelings for The Doctor.

The sixth season of Doctor Who puts The Doctor's impending death on the backburner for an unfortunate amount of time and when it gets around to resolving it, it merely sets up another prophecy to put The Doctor in eventual peril.

Emotionally, the peak of the sixth season of Doctor Who is "The Girl Who Waited," which is a solid Amy and Rory episode, that finally shakes up the familiar dynamic of the Companions and The Doctor. "The Girl Who Waited" is also a chance for both Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan to explore more of their characters' emotional depth. Gillan especially rises to the occasion doing far more with her performance than the make-up does for her suddenly aged character.

Alex Kingston makes several guest starring roles that make River Song a vital character and her chemistry with Matt Smith is exceptional.

Matt Smith grows and develops as The Doctor in the sixth season of Doctor Who! Smith stops playing The Doctor as simple and goofy for the bulk of Doctor Who Season 6. Smith is able to portray the serious side of The Doctor extraordinarily well. He has the ability to play intense and vengeful, with eyes that actually radiate emotion and the moments he plays snarky or ironic, he pulls off as well. But the shock of Matt Smith's performance coming on the heels of his very goofy first season portrayals of The Doctor is intense and well-executed, which renews one's faith in the idea that Steven Moffat might know just what to do with his talented performers.

Ultimately, the sixth season of Doctor Who is a little more erratic than it is supposed to be; but it is intense and smart when it keeps focused on the clever main narrative.

For more information on this season, be sure to check out the episodes encompassed in it. They are individually reviewed at:
"A Christmas Carol"
"The Impossible Astronaut"
"Day Of The Moon"
"The Curse Of The Black Spot"
"The Doctor's Wife"
"The Rebel Flesh"
"The Almost People"
"A Good Man Goes To War"
"Let's Kill Hitler"
"Night Terrors"
"The Girl Who Waited"
"The God Complex"
"Closing Time"
"The Wedding Of River Song"

6.5/10

For other movie and television reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Burdened By The Preposterous, "The Big Bang" Explodes With Mixed Credibility!

The Good: Decent performances, Concept of theme
The Bad: Light on character development, Vast amounts of plot exposition to simply explain what the hell happened in the prior episode and what is happening within the episode
The Basics: Steven Moffat tries desperately to dig Doctor Who out of the hole he dug for it with "The Big Bang," an episode that truly only works if one shuts off all rationality.


Doctor Who had a pretty formidable body of season finales under its belt before Steven Moffat took over as executive producer and had to form his own story end. "The Big Bang" was the first episode where Moffat had to create a story end and something that would encourage viewers tune in to the next season of Doctor Who. "The Big Bang" picks up immediately after "The Pandorica Opens" (reviewed here!) and it is a season finale that begins with a formidable weight against it. In order to truly discuss and evaluate "The Big Bang," it is impossible to not mention several key plot points from "The Pandorica Opens" that would be considered spoilers (were the material still fresh and new!).

When I write that "The Big Bang" opens from a disadvantageous position, it is because much of "The Pandorica Opens" is utter nonsense, both within the context of Doctor Who and in terms of basic physics and science. "The Pandorica Opens" found the many enemies of The Doctor, having realized that The Doctor and the TARDIS are responsible for cracks in the fabric of the universe that will lead to the destruction of the universe allying with one another to create a trap for The Doctor that he would be unable to resist. The Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen, Judoon and other races work together to create the Pandorica in order to trap The Doctor and attempt to forestall the end of the universe. One of the few truly brilliant moments Steven Moffat created in "The Pandorica Opens" is the revelation that all of The Doctor's traditional enemies have come together to save the universe from The Doctor; The Doctor is, it appears, the villain and universe destroyer.

But while that moment is cleverly written and revealed well through the direction of Toby Haynes, it falls apart completely under any real scrutiny. First, the idea that all of the disparate enemies of The Doctor could and would work together for a common purpose is troublesome - "Doomsday" (reviewed here!) illustrated that the Cybermen and Daleks could not overcome their initial programming to stop shooting at one another and there is no reason to credibly believe that either race would not continue being so arrogant as to believe that they could stop The Doctor without any other race's help. So, first, "The Pandorica Opens" is predicated on the idea that one of The Doctor's enemies correctly identified the cracks in the universe as the work of The Doctor and then managed to talk the others into working with them to stop The Doctor. Which leads to the second problem; the trap constructed by using the memories of Amy Pond is vastly more creative than anything any race The Doctor has ever fought has illustrated in the past. Moreover, the only reason to devise a trap based on the Companion's memories is to make it relatable to the human audience of Doctor Who; the various enemies of The Doctor hinge everything on creating a plan that could intrigue Amy Pond, but she is a passenger through "The Pandorica Opens," merely following along as clues from other people put her in the right time and place. The reason this is a ridiculous idea is two-fold; The Doctor did not follow clues from Amy Pond's memories to locate the right time and place to be (he followed co-ordinates given to him by River Song!) and the enemies of The Doctor are hinging everything on a scenario that would interest Amy Pond on the belief that Amy Pond would be The Doctor's Companion at the time. The problem with creating an end of the universe type event and setting it in a non-linear narrative is an exponentially complex storytelling problem. The bulk of the episode occurs in approximately 200 A.D., so the presence of the various alien races around Earth means that at least one of them has time-travel abilities. While the Daleks have their "emergency temporal shifts," none of the other races depicted in "The Pandorica Opens" were present near Earth in this time period and - because I am not a classic Doctor Who scholar, I don't know if - the Cybermen might not even have been created yet. That said, with the Daleks identifying The Doctor as the cause of the time cracks and having time travel abilities, it seems like if they wanted to prevent the end of the universe, they would use this as the opportunity to visit Gallifrey and erase The Doctor from existence before any of this nonsense.

So, "The Pandorica Opens" is fraught with conceptual problems and on a plot front, its climax finds The Doctor being stuck in the Pandorica, Amy shot by the Rory robot, and River Song attempting to exit the TARDIS as it explodes. The Doctor claims that when the TARDIS explodes, it will put out the stars (not exactly sure how that works) but the last shot of "The Pandorica Opens" certainly implies that The Doctor was right and the end of the universe has come. So, "The Big Bang" opens immediately burdened by the question, "What do you do when the universe has ended?"

The answer, of course, is one has to find a way to save the universe. But, from a storytelling perspective, it's hard to sell the idea of saving the universe after it is already destroyed. "The Big Bang" is burdened by trying to make it credible that Earth somehow survives in a universe that never existed. And it's an impossible sell.

Opening in 1996, Amelia Pond is praying for help with the crack in her wall and The Doctor does not materialize. Amy dreams of the stars, which there are none of in the night sky. That night, her house is visited by a stranger who drops off a brochure for the National Museum, with the Pandorica circled and Amelia drags her Aunt Sharon to the museum, where she follows notes directing her and is in the museum after it closes. Amelia approaches the Pandorica and it opens, revealing Amy Pond inside.

Flashing back to Roman-occupied Britain, Rory is speaking to Amy's body when The Doctor appears, gives Rory his sonic screwdriver and tells Rory to rescue him from the Pandorica. Doing so, The Doctor places Amy into the Pandorica, which will restore her to life with a DNA sample from her living self and The Doctor uses River's vortex manipulator to leap forward to 1996. The plastic Rory soldier stays with the Pandorica to keep Amy safe. Arriving in 1996, The Doctor ties up the loop by going back to visit Rory and leave the clues for Amelia Pond before a version of himself from 12 minutes in the future arrives and promptly appears to die. When The Doctor realizes that Earth's sun is the exploding TARDIS, he rescues River and comes up with a plan to restore the universe by destroying the Pandorica.

"The Big Bang" is packed with conceptual inconsistencies. The Pandorica being employed petrified the Daleks and others near it, according to The Doctor because they were erased from existence. Amy Pond needed her own DNA in order for the Pandorica to heal her. And yet, somehow it is the light from the Pandorica that is explained to heal the Dalek . . . how did that happen without Dalek DNA?

The set-up for "The Big Bang" is that the universe ends in 2010 when the TARDIS exploded because The Doctor was not in the TARDIS when River opened the doors to it. The ripple effect back in time was that the stars went out in Roman times. The explanation from The Doctor is that the Pandorica's restoration energy is responsible for resurrecting the petrified Dalek. The Pandorica was designed as a prison to keep The Doctor from destroying the universe; why would it possess something designed to resurrect its captive? In simpler terms, "The Big Bang" asks the viewer to believe that all of the Doctor's enemies came together to prevent the Universe's destruction and to do that, they would want to keep him alive. There is no logical sense to that; if The Doctor is going to destroy the universe, the easiest way to prevent that from happening would be to eliminate The Doctor, not keep him alive.

"The Big Bang" is a plot-heavy episode. For sure, the concept of the episode hinges on the idea that Amy Pond's memories could be used by the Pandorica to reboot the universe. The theme of "The Big Bang" is an intriguing one; that memory can create and the universe has a decidedly human component to it.

The Doctor has a very "hand's on" role in saving the universe in "The Big Bang." When The Doctor takes the Pandorica into the exploding TARDIS, he has a very obvious heroic quality to him and it triggers a backward trip through the season to explain a throwaway moment from "Flesh And Stone" (reviewed here!). Matt Smith sells the monologues from The Doctor surprisingly effectively and Smith's plays sadness with exquisite precision near the end of the episode.

What "The Big Bang" does very effectively is finally answer and resolve the issue of the crack in Amy Pond's wall. "The Big Bang" manages to define the crack and seal it . . . with results that are almost as tough to buy as the episode's initial set-up.

"The Big Bang" is problematic on its own and in the larger context of Doctor Who becomes an impossible series of paradoxes, not the least of which is that it is River Song who sparks Amy Pond's memories of The Doctor. Of course, at the time "The Big Bang" was created, viewers had no idea just how ridiculous that notion would be (i.e. that in a universe devoid of the Doctor, River Song would be able to attend Amy and Rory's wedding . . . when she doesn't have her vortex manipulator!), but in retrospect, "The Big Bang" becomes one of the most conceptually convoluted, absolutely ridiculous episodes of the modern Doctor Who.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Fifth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other big season finales, please check out my reviews of:
"The Parting Of The Ways" - Doctor Who
"Legendary" - DC's Legends Of Tomorrow
"The Expanse" - Star Trek: Enterprise

2.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Steven Moffat's First Big Doctor Who Payoff Begins When "The Pandorica Opens!"

The Good: Adequate performances, Moments of plot progression
The Bad: Very light on character
The Basics: "The Pandorica Opens" is a set-up episode that loosely ties together some of the past concepts from earlier in the season of Doctor Who without making a truly coherent narrative of its own.


Whenever serialized television is developed, there comes a key point when the seeding must yield to the payoff. Usually, this occurs when a season of television is written with each episode adding new threads to the overall serialized story and then in the season finale, those scattered plot points and character moments come to a head. Steven Moffat's first season of Doctor Who where he was the executive producer included very limited seeding; there was a crack in Amy Pond's wall from the very first episode that has been following Pond and The Doctor around for the whole season and River Song mentioned that she would see The Doctor next when the Pandorica opens. Beyond that, most of Moffat's debut season was generally episodic, but Moffat attempted to call back elements from all of his prior episodes as the season finale began with "The Pandorica Opens."

"The Pandorica Opens" offered a chance for various guest stars from earlier in the season to pop back up . . . with a limited sense of effectiveness. Instead of organically coming together, Moffat frontloads "The Pandorica Opens" with characters from episodes early in his first season as executive producer, plus Vincent van Gogh from "Vincent And The Doctor" (reviewed here!). The technique is presented entirely gratuitously, with no finesse, as a plot construction to bring River Song back into the Doctor Who narrative once again.

Opening in 1890 France, Vincent van Gogh is distraught, having just painted an image of the TARDIS exploding, Bracewell finds the painting in 1941 and has Winston Churchill deliver the message. Churchill's call is rerouted to 5145, where the imprisoned River Song gets it and hunts down the painting and a vortex manipulator. The Doctor and Amy Pond visit the oldest world in the universe which has a message that has been untranslated . . . until they visit, open the door to the TARDIS and get Song's "Hello Sweetie" message and co-ordinates to go to. Arriving in Roman-occupied Britain, The Doctor and Amy are reunited with River Song, who shows them van Gogh's painting, The Pandorica Opens. The Pandorica is a box, which is holding the most dangerous thing in the universe (according to a legend that The Doctor denies), which The Doctor is convinced is below Stonehenge.

Entering the Underhenge, having failed to notice the Cyberman head nearby, the trio finds the Pandorica. The Underhenge, as it turns out, is a massive transmitter, letting the universe know that the Pandorica is present and it is opening from the inside out. Earth, as it turns out, is surrounded by over 10,000 warships and The Doctor's solution is to use the Romans to fight the alien soldiers. While River Song enlists the aid of the Romans, Amy confronts The Doctor on the engagement ring she found, but gets only cryptic responses from him. When Amy is attacked by a Cyberman, she is rescued by Rory, who reappears as a Roman soldier. As River Song tries to use the TARDIS to get clues into the impending destruction of the universe, she arrives on Earth in 2010, on the date the Doctor previously saw would be the date of the end of the world. But when River Song investigates Amelia Pond's home and becomes convinced that The Doctor is in a trap, her attempt to flee with the TARDIS has disastrous results!

"The Pandorica Opens" includes the whole story of the Pandorica, so there is something odd about the episode and the magnitude of it. While the Pandorica was alluded to a prior episode, the legend of the Pandorica coming up after it has already been found feels cheap. Steven Moffat frequently plays with prophecies in his subsequent seasons of Doctor Who; that the menace of the Pandorica has not been adequately foreshadowed makes it feel like an abrupt universe destroyer. It is hard to take seriously the supposed magnitude of what is supposed to be inside the Pandorica when this is the first time it is referenced.

While the Romans may be the greatest military machine Earth has ever seen, they are technologically outmatched on every front, so the idea that the humans could be enlisted to fight any of the alien armies is utterly ridiculous and further undermines the menace of classic Doctor Who villains like the Daleks, Cybermen, Judoon and others. Having only fifty Romans is just silly.

Rory's return is glossed over in a similarly awkward way. While "The Pandorica Opens" has Rory asking key questions about his relationship with Amy, the mechanism for his return is not satisfactorily explained in "The Pandorica Opens." When Rory was last seen, he was dying and The Doctor let his body be consumed by the traveling tear in the universe. In "The Pandorica Opens," Rory's explanation is "I died and came back as a Roman." That is hardly a coherent concept for a character resurrection. The Doctor's insistence that Rory never existed plays as ridiculous given that Rory did exist, was erased, and has now managed to return. Arthur Darvill returns to Doctor Who with a beautifully sad performance as Rory deals with the fact that Amy does not remember him at all.

Karen Gillan has an understated role in "The Pandorica Opens," which makes some sense given that the episode is very plot-focused. Gillan gives one of her less-impressive performances as Amy Pond after Amy is drugged by a Cyberman (with the slowest-acting poison on television!). Gillan's final moments in "The Pandorica Opens" lack the sense of epiphany one would hope for for the magnitude of the character moment. Matt Smith does fine as The Doctor in "The Pandorica Opens," though he is saddled with a lot of exposition. Smith rises to the occasion as The Doctor when he has to solve the major problem of the massive fleet by talking his way out of the potential fight.

Ultimately, "The Pandorica Opens" feels like exactly what it is; a set-up for a second part. But in order to weave the episode together, Steven Moffat makes something that is more nonsensical than it is great or coherent.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Fifth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Tony Curran, please check out my reviews of:
"Penny And Dime" - Daredevil
Thor: The Dark World
X-Men: First Class
The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen
The Mists Of Avalon
Gladiator

4.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Weeping Angels And The End Of The Universe Chase Doctor Who Through "Flesh And Stone!"

The Good: Good characterization of River Song, Decent exploration of the crack in the universe, Moments of performance
The Bad: Matt Smith's performance undermines the entire mood of the episode, Stretched concept
The Basics: Doctor Who makes an upside-down episode with "Flesh And Stone," which awkwardly resolves the threat of the Weeping Angels and explores the natures of River Song and the crack in the universe.


There are very few shows that I have encountered that belabor a two-part episode like Doctor Who. "Flesh And Stone" is the second part of a two-parter begun in "The Time Of Angels" (reviewed here!) and, as such, it is impossible to discuss the second part without some references to where the first part ended. When I write that Doctor Who belabors the two-part episodes, "The Time Of Angels" is actually an excellent example. Objectively viewed, "The Time Of Angels" stretched a number of plot points out in order to make it a two-parter with "Flesh And Stone." Indeed, a good portion of the episode is spent with The Doctor and River Song finally working up to the realization that everyone is surrounded by Weeping Angels.

"Flesh And Stone" picks up with the menace of a Maze Of Death filled with Weeping Angels and The Doctor, River Song, Amy Pond and the religious/military force led by Father Octavian fleeing them. Amy Pond is, essentially, infected by a Weeping Angel and the entire episode is a race through the downed ship that had been carrying the lone Weeping Angel.

Picking up seconds after The Doctor fired his gun, The Doctor, River, Amy and the surviving soldiers effectively make the leap onto the hull of the crashed ship. Stuck in a corridor in the ship's outer hull, the team finds themselves pursued by the Weeping Angels and The Doctor needs to power off the lights in order to divert power to the door. The Doctor, then River, notice that Amy has begun a countdown from ten, which does not appear to correspond to anything going on around them. The Doctor wants to make an escape through the ship's oxygen factory - which is a forest connected to ship's life support.

When the Weeping Angels make contact with The Doctor, he learns that there is a Weeping Angel in Amy's eye and the crack from Amy Pond's childhood bedroom has followed them to the crashed ship. The Doctor believes that the crack is a visualization of the end of the universe and barely escapes with his team into the forest. When The Doctor, Octavian and River have to head for the command center of the ship, Amy is left in the forest with the rest of Octavian's forces. Octavian reveals the truth of River Song's relationship to The Doctor, much to his chagrin. As the people defending Amy investigate the crack in the ship, they disappear and the surviving soldiers forget all about their comrades and the Weeping Angels descend upon The Doctor. Getting to the flight deck, the Doctor and River work to save Amy from the Weeping Angels!

"Flesh And Stone" continues to play The Doctor as somewhat ridiculous. Matt Smith's incarnation of The Doctor is a generally humorous iteration of the character and in "Flesh And Stone" the silliness and lack of professionalism plays poorly. The concept of the Weeping Angel reproducing through a live host like Amy is a pretty terrifying notion. Unfortunately, The Doctor combating the frightening Weeping Angels is a clown, which undermines the horror that is the Weeping Angels. Unlike "The Time Of Angels," which continued the frightening nature of the Weeping Angels from "Blink" (reviewed here!), "Flesh And Stone" undermines their menace. In "Flesh And Stone," the Weeping Angels are transformed from a specific time-feeding entity into a pretty generic killing machine monster.

What "Flesh And Stone" does well is continue the characterization of River Song. River Song in "Flesh And Stone" is revealed by Octavian to be his prisoner. River Song, as it turns out, is a prisoner in Storm Cage Prison in the native time of the episode. Song is currently paroled, which does not entirely jive with the events of "The Time Of Angels." Song is first seen on the ship (before it crashes); it is not at all clear within the two-parter why Octavian let Dr. Song loose on the ship without his supervision. Octavian and his people know there is a Weeping Angel on the ship and they enlist Dr. Song to help them get the angel, but when they seed her onto the ship (apparently about four days earlier than the events of "Flesh And Stone"), they don't go with her to get the Weeping Angel themselves?! It reeks of contrivance.

That said, the further characterization of River Song is well done. Dr. Song is presented as professional, smart, and brilliant - on par with The Doctor. As The Doctor hatches his plan, she figures things out with him. Alex Kingston plays River Song wonderfully.

Unfortunately, the portrayal of The Doctor makes for a very fractured episode in a lot of ways. Matt Smith plays The Doctor as silly and amid the menace of the time crack and Weeping Angels, that is a poor counterpoint for the mood of "Flesh And Stone." When Smith's Doctor has a temper tantrum, the episode seems suddenly banal and dull; the inconsistency is upsetting.

At the other end of the spectrum, "Flesh And Stone" does a decent job of continuing exploring the nature of the crack in the universe that is following Amy Pond around through time and space. The rupture is clearly linked to Amy Pond and The Doctor manages to use the crack to work to defeat the Weeping Angels. But, the episode's horror is undermined by a problematic rendition of The Doctor; he is hardly the hero of "Flesh And Stone" and it holds up poorly.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Fifth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Karen Gillan, please check out my reviews of:
The Big Short
Guardians Of The Galaxy
Oculus

5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Two Favorites Return In "The Time Of Angels!"

The Good: Good performances, Interesting character moments, Mood, Effects
The Bad: Creature inconsistencies, Some predictable plot elements
The Basics: River Song and the Weeping Angels return for a tense, smart episode with "The Time Of Angels!"


When it comes to science fiction, when there are serialized elements, it is very tough for producers and storytellers to continue disparate elements of a narrative without weakening the initial thrill of the origin stories. In the case of Doctor Who, there were few creatures created by Steven Moffat that were as terrifying as the Weeping Angels in "Blink" (reviewed here!) and Moffat created one of the most intriguing lingering mysteries of the franchise with the embodiment of River Song in "Forest Of The Dead" (reviewed here!). There is something impressive and ambitious about returning both River Song and the Weeping Angels to the Doctor Who narrative at the same time. The episode in which they return is "The Time Of Angels."

"The Time Of Angels" is one of the rare episodes that lives up to the expectations one might have based on the quality of the episodes that introduced the elements it includes. As well, "The Time Of Angels" might well be the first Doctor Who episode since Matt Smith took over as The Doctor where The Doctor seems like the smart, clever, advanced character who is not sublimated to the ridiculous or the prioritization of the comic elements for the character. In "The Time Of Angels," The Doctor, River Song and Amy Pond all have interesting arcs which satisfactorily advance the first part of a story that is intriguing and freaky.

Opening with a guard, drugged by a lipstick hallucinogen, leading a chase for River Song through a ship, The Doctor and Amy Pond find themselves in an alien museum 12,000 years later. There, they find an artifact which is essentially a Gallifreyan black box, with a message for The Doctor. Stealing the artifact and hooking it up to the TARDIS computer, the pair witnesses River Song's escape from the ship, complete with her request for a rescue from The Doctor. Arriving at the right time and place, Dr. River Song enters the TARDIS and displays an ability to fly the TARDIS and bring it to a safe landing next to the ship from which she escaped.

The other ship crashed on an alien world, now terraformed by humans, atop a building. Dr. Song contacts another ship, in orbit, and the military religious leader of the ship teleports down. Father Octavian is leading a search team sent to recover an entity from the wreckage of the ship, using Dr. Song to get the Doctor on board. When River Song reconnects the downed ship's video record, The Doctor and Amy realize that Bishop Octavian's target is a Weeping Angel. While Amy begins to suffer the effects of watching the footage of the Weeping Angel, The Doctor, River Song, Octavian and his team enter the Maze Of The Dead to hunt the Weeping Angel . . . with the search quickly becoming lethal!

In order to make "The Time Of Angels" work, Steven Moffat seems to mix up his own creations and he is forced to rework the Weeping Angels in order to enhance the menace of the alien creatures. When River Song was introduced in "Silence In The Library" (reviewed here!), she and The Doctor encounter the Vashta Nerada, who use the technology of the day to communicate using the voices of dead people. The Weeping Angels from "Blink" had no such ability, yet in "The Time Of Angels" they suddenly have that ability. There is little evolutionary sense to creatures who cannot communicate with one another whenever they even attempt to look at each other developing a language. "The Time Of Angels" pays lip service to this concept by reworking the Weeping Angels to suddenly have the ability to absorb the cerebral cortex of their victims and then speaking through their voices, utilizing their memories. There is no logical mechanism for the ability or the technological leap needed to exploit the ability within "The Time Of Angels."

In a similar fashion, "The Time Of Angels" alters the nature of the Weeping Angels. In "Blink," the Weeping Angels displaced their prey in time and essentially fed on the potential energy of the life wasted by the displacement. In "The Time Of Angels," the Weeping Angels are flat-out killers, snapping the necks of their victims. The explanation within the episode is half-assed; the Weeping Angel needed a body (?!). That being the case, there would only be one Weeping Angel within the episode that needed a body, yet there are three casualties . . . Making the Weeping Angels physically dangerous makes the episode scarier, but it undermines the real terror of the enemy. In fact, within "The Time Of Angels," one of the scariest potential concepts would have allowed the Weeping Angels to seem both flawed and scary - the planet the episode takes place on was terraformed; if the Weeping Angels sent victims back in time, the humans would (presumably) die right away in agony from the inhospitable atmosphere! Come to think of it, a neat idea that would have allowed the Weeping Angels to exist undiminished would have been that after the first person was sent back and died fast, the Weeping Angels start sending people back only a few days, resulting in multiple versions of the characters working together to try to stop the Weeping Angels in the present!

But, alas, "The Time Of Angels" is not so clever in that regard and it sets up "Flesh And Stone" instead of remaining consistent to the creature design from "Blink." That said, "The Time Of Angels" works with the Weeping Angels because The Doctor and River Song are both very clever. The Weeping Angels are a fairly new race to Doctor Who and in "The Time Of Angels," the Doctor learns about them through exposition at virtually the same rate as the audience. That makes The Doctor's actions throughout the episode intuitive and smart in a way that Matt Smith's incarnation of The Doctor has not yet been allowed to be.

"The Time Of Angels" fleshes out River Song nicely and has Song and Amy Pond playing off one another well. Dr. Song is instantly cool and Alex Kingston plays her incredibly well. Iain Glen plays Octavian intriguingly so the occasionally monolithic character seem rounded and realistic.

Ultimately, "The Time Of Angels" is a tight set-up episode that brings two awesome elements of Doctor Who back together in a compelling way, living up to the potential of the episodes that introduced the Weeping Angels and River Song.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Fifth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Iain Glen, please visit my reviews of:
Game Of Thrones - Season 6
Game Of Thrones - Season 5
Game Of Thrones - Season 4
Game Of Thrones - Season 3
Game Of Thrones - Season 2
Game Of Thrones - Season 1
Kick-Ass 2

8/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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