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| A Smiling Angel (who knew they could get creepier?) |
This episode was intense. It began intensely suspenseful, had intensely awesome and hilarious moments, and of course intense sadness. Spoilers abound, just so you know.
The story begins in Manhattan, naturally, with... you guessed it, yet another voice over. And this voice over is yet again by an inconsequential character. The scene itself was important for setting up the Angels' hotel, but the voice over could have been dropped. If it seemed vital, they could have lost earlier voice overs so I wasn't rolling my eyes. Couldn't they have just had someone encounter the creepy collector guy and get sent to the hotel? Or incorporate the guys that capture Rory later?
All of the Angels are seriously creepy in this episode. They must have gone out searching for creepy looking statues. The laughing babies were horrifying (except for the fact that they sounded just like the Boos from Mario Bros - J). The Statue of Liberty as a Weeping Angel is likely a direct result of online commentary. With it used only lightly, it is mostly okay. I do think it highly unlikely that everyone in NYC was not looking at the Statue of Liberty so that it could move... that doesn't quite add up! It is nice that the Angels have taken over, not that they've always been there.
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| Rory with creepy Baby Angels |
After the credits we jump to modern New York and see the scene that's had pics splattered online for months. As soon as Rory leaves the group for coffee you know he's going to go missing, and the laughing babies just confirm it. It was very creepy, and leads into the real start of the story.
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| Beautiful moment of The Doctor & River |
My favorite thing in this episode is River. We're supposed to love her- lots of sad things are happening in this hour and the interaction of River and the Doctor is supposed to be our reward for making it through the episode. From the first moment we see River and realize that the Doctor has been reading about her (yowzah!), it puts a smile on your face. River is my favorite thing in Doctor Who right now, so I was just THRILLED to see her, and she lived up to all of my expectations. I can't wait to rewatch every scene she's in. When she flat out says, "Just wait till my husband gets home," I love it. And the Doctor primping! Ahhh!! I could fill a blog with quotes by her and the Doctor, but I am going to stay on task and move on. It is important to note that she isn't in jail anymore- she was pardoned since the man that she killed doesn't seem to have existed. It made me want to review River's history again - was she pardoned during Silence in the Library?
The Doctor is devastated by reading the final chapter titles of River's book, and his reaction is so honest. You see how connected he really is to Amy; we've always known that Amy is important and precious to him, but here we see - he almost doesn't know how to control that emotion. He refuses to accept the reality of the situation and moves on. He refuses to break River's wrist just because the book says so. Which bugs me a little - didn't he break a couple things while landing the TARDIS - that counts as breaking, right? Have we heard before about reading it making it fact? Is that new? I mean, we hear all the time that time can be rewritten. So you can see it, but you can't read it? It just seems like there's something wrong with this rule. I feel like if I reflect on this, or even the paradox created by Rory & Amy's jump, I'll become frustrated by the wibbly-wobblyness of it all. For now, I choose to move on.
When the family reunites in the the Angels' hotel, it's to see a moving death of Rory Williams. Amy is touching here as well. Their love is so powerful and so obvious in every second of this episode. At times it has been hard to see the depth of their love for each other; they get so into the Doctor's issues, but recently you've seen how much they are in love with one another. Real life gave them that - they had these shared experiences that no one else could relate to and they realized that they needed each other. It's impossible to imagine them without one another. I spent the episode trying to decide if they were going to kill one of them, and they were showing them so in love just to rip out our hearts. When they make it to the roof and Rory is ready to jump, I am just amazed at the talent of these actors. They make the characters so real to me, and I am so appreciative of how much of themselves they must put into their parts. Both Rory and Amy are beautiful in these moments on the roof, before jumping off. Of course, a highlight moment is when Amy asked Rory if he thought after jumping he would just come back to life. His answer, "When do I not?" was brilliant. |
| The Doctor on his own |
The whole group survives (I held my breath until River appeared on the other side of the Tardis) the jump and the death of the Angels. As a viewer, we know there are only moments left and something bad is going to happen. We're right. Rory's last moment is both sudden and heart breaking. Amy's simple choice is of course her only option. She says good-bye to River and the Doctor, and it's just inevitable. She turns away and is gone.
River and The Doctor return to the Tardis, and River seems eerily calm. The Doctor acknowledges she's just said good-bye to her parents, and she seems somewhat unconcerned. What's up with that? She then walks off to write her book, that Amy is going to publish. Does Amy publish her book in the past then? Does River go back and see them? Has she already gone back and seen them? Does she already know that they were back in time at the beginning of the episode? Being so calm, has she always known? So many River related questions!! I'm shocked.
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| Amelia Pond, the Girl Who Waited |
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| Happy moments with The Doctor, Amy, & Rory |
DFTBA and Stay Shiny!
Jana and Kristin
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