Doctor Who 7x05 - The Angels Take Manhattan

[keep_counting]

Yet another point-giving, rambling, and very incoherent review.



THE GOOD:

- The whole domesticity that is the Doctor and the Ponds outing in the park. +10

- The Statue of Liberty is an Angel. +20

- And +10 for playing 'Legal Alien'. It made me giggle

- 'It would be almost impossible!' - 'Loving the 'almost'' +5 for one of River's best lines

- Amy's glasses. +20. I wish I would look as attractive in glasses - especially because I'm half-blind and so need them.

- 'Yowza!' +10

- 'The Roman in the Cellar'. This amused me. +5. And +10 for Amy coming up with the whole 'looking at chapter titles'

- Amy and Rory. Going down together. +10

- 'And you really think you'll come back?' - 'When don't I?' THANK-YOU SHOW FOR MAKING ME LAUGH AND TEARING OUT MY HEART AT THE SAME TIME. +10

- Also thanks for finally using paradoxes right. It only took you three seasons Moffat. +5

- +5 for someone finally having enough sense to just CHAIN UP one of the Angels. Like, put it in a cage or something. Not even the Angels can move through walls, as evidenced by a LOCKED DOOR keeping them out.

- +10 for making the baby-angels REALLY CREEPY

- 'Well, I always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. I guess she got impatient.' Rory, you got to be so funny and cute this episode! +10

- I felt like Moffat held back with the timey-wimeyness this episode: it could have gotten much more cluttered and stupid than some of it was, and I really appreciate that we didn't get a repeat of some of his earlier missteps. Some of it was far-fetched (and we'll get to that later) but the core of the plot - the angels, the paradox - did make sense (as much as DW ever does). +5

- The Doctor reading aloud and Amy's attitude towards that. They're a family here, guys, and it pleases me a lot. +10

- Melody Mallone! I can get on board with that. +10

(points: 165)



THE BAD:

- Let's just start right of the bat, because there are a lot of things I don't like in this episode. Here we go:

- Amy, calling out to Melody in those last moments and then asking her to please take care of the Doctor, and saying nothing more than that. Seriously, Amy, say a proper goodbye to your daughter that doesn't revolve around the Doctor. -20

- I have to take away -5 for having the Statue of Liberty be an Angel, and then hardly using it at all. Then again, people would have probably noticed a giant statue walking around if it had been used more.

- 'Just you wait 'till my husband gets home' yeah, because River can't take care of herself, clearly. -10

- The whole Doctor/River dynamic is just so... screwed up. And on one hand, I like that Moffat actually isn't ignoring this fact: the way they talk to each other is not sweet-cheeks at all, they're very harsh and River has the attitude of someone who really resents the fact that she's in love with this mad man, and the Doctor's generally just all-over the place when it comes to her. On the other hand, I sometimes get the feeling that Moffat wants this because he thinks its an attractive prospect? Which its really not. They're messed up and kinda not good for each other, but they also need each other, especially now. I'm not going to take away points for this, it's just... observations. I don't know that I want more of this dynamic because it feels like its getting nowhere: especially because we know how River's story ends.

- Why the sudden inability to walk past a frozen Angel? If you keep your eyes on it, you can walk right past it - even touch it - without anything happening. No reason to run for the roof, really. -1 only, because it was such a small detail and that staircase was kinda narrow.

- The Angels are just not scary anymore. Yeah, the babies in the cellar kind of were, but nothing beyond that. -10 for having a whole city full of Angels, and hardly using them at all

- The Doctor running in slow-motion through the park. WHAT EVEN WAS THAT. LOL I'M SORRY. Matt looks awkward running at a normal pace, in slow-motion it was RIDICOLOUS BABY GIRAFFE WITH AN ADDED LIMB. I was all teary-eyed after Amy's goodbye and then WHAM. Lololol. -10 for killing the mood

- I don't understand why the Doctor can't go back and see them. I get that New York in that period is now Time Locked or whatever (not that Moffat thinks that counts for Skaro, but then again, no canon matters but Moffat's canon -.-), but can't they just take a trip OUTSIDE of New York? I refuse to believe that the whole of Earth is Locked in this period. -20 for taking away the Ponds forever, and not giving a good enough reason imo.

- Why did Rory go back and check out that particular gravestone? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT YOU TWAT JUST GET IN THE TARDIS ADJLKDJKSLJDKSLDHDSJK. -5 for tragedy

- I think that's the end of my review. Yeah, that's... you know. I'm done now. See ya in December guys, yeah?

Points for this episode: 84

Points for the season: 528

You know,

the Ponds are gone

and they lived happily together

but they'll never see the Doctor or River again

they'll never see Brian again. or Amy's parents

and we'll never see them again either

never ever

guys, the angels don't have the phonebox

they got the ponds instead

Comments

[turquoiseyes.livejournal.com]

Exactly! RTD's way of doing things even reminded me slightly of Lost and how what seemed like just a simple little thing would turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg in the end. It even ties in with the "time is a big ball..." and we'd realise that that's why we couldn't see the way point A connected with point B because there was too much of a curve between them!

Yeah, it feels like Moffat tried to imitate RTD's way of tying up things, not realising that he tied one story's ending twice(like what you said with BB and TATM). I guess he lost the count...? Or something?

Though, that makes one of the theories I've seen floating around more probable-- the theory that everything that's happened in the last five episodes was shown in the reverse order and is actually going from ending to beginning, rather than from beginning to ending. Now, if it turns out that at some point the Pond story line started being told backwards, all of this would make much more sense...Sort of.

[keep-counting.livejournal.com]

Haha, I like the idea that he lost count ;)

Well, we do know that 'The Power of Three' took place before 'A Town Called Mercy'. In 'A Town Called Mercy', the Doctor calls Rory out for leaving the charger for his phone in King Henry VIII's bedroom and when the Doctor takes them on their anniversary-trips in 'The Power of Three', we see our heroes hiding in said King's bedroom, with Rory's phone-charger lying on the floor beside them.

[londonmarie.livejournal.com]

For me with RTD one simple thing sparking this huge thing I never saw coming was awesome. RTD was all about the little details. And when you go back to watch previous episodes, you feel like an idiot you didn't see it before. RTD was able to make the little things, when the huge red button appear, spark and you see the little links/hints to it.

In a way I feel that Moffat is sometimes like a child trying to build this huge sandcastle and then he gets overwhelmed or distracted by how awesome he thinks something is that he either drops it off too soon and says accept it because I said so, or he loses the direction he was originally going to take it. An example is in TIA fans knew way before TWoRS that it was River in the spacesuit. RTD had a way of making you think one thing and then surprising you by what it actually was. With BAD WOLF, it was everywhere you knew it had to mean something, then halfway you dismiss it because the characters do and it turns out to be something huge.

[keep-counting.livejournal.com]

In a way I feel that Moffat is sometimes like a child trying to build this huge sandcastle and then he gets overwhelmed or distracted by how awesome he thinks something is that he either drops it off too soon and says accept it because I said so, or he loses the direction he was originally going to take it.
Exactly! There is so much potential in his stories - and in his characters - but he just takes it too far. RTD was much more subtle, and while his stories certainly had plotholes, he still managed to tie it into a nice loop instead of a bundle of different strings mucked together, like Moffat does.

[londonmarie.livejournal.com]

Every writer is going to have plotholes. The skill of the writer is making the viewer or even reader overlook them. And RTD would sometimes revisit those plotholes and fill them up. Like with leaving Jack behind after PotW, if you haven't seen the Children in Need special you have no clue why he didn't go back or why they couldn't go back or even if Rose really remembered Jack. At that time RTD was thinking ahead to Torchwood. Moffat's plotholes are more like land-mines.

[keep-counting.livejournal.com]

Precisely :)