From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated
From Address: jphalt{at}aol.com
Subject: The Time of Angels: my review

THE TIME OF ANGELS

2 episodes: The Time of Angels, Flesh and Stone. Approx. 84 minutes.
Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: Adam Smith. Produced by:
Tracie Simpson.


THE PLOT

The Doctor has brought a less-than-enthusiastic Amy to a space museum,
in order for him to gloat over everything the museum got wrong about
its various exhibits, and also to "keep score" of his own
accomplishments. He is brought up short by one of the exhibits - a
"home box," a Gallifreyan relic which has been used to send the Doctor
a message through space and time.

The message brings him to the exact time/space coordinates of River
Song (Alex Kingston) - the Doctor's second meeting with her, but
earlier for her than Silence in the Library. River is working with a
team of soldier/monks, led by the dutiful Father Octavian (Iain Glen),
securing the wreckage of a crashed space liner. Captive on that ship
was a Weeping Angel, an incredibly powerful alien force with a built-
in defense mechanism: Any time anyone is looking at it, the Angel
appears to be an immobile statue.

The Doctor agrees to help the soldier/monks put the Weeping Angel out
of commission in order for them to secure the crashed ship. Then he
makes a shocking discovery, one that changes the entire shape of the
mission!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Peter Davison's been my second-favorite Doctor for a very
long time. Matt Smith has the potential to push him down to third
place, if characterization and performance continue to grow. And
that's despite a very uneven introductory set of stories! With a good
story, it's hardly surprising that he does quite a bit more. The
Eleventh Doctor's anger is particularly interesting. I alluded to it
in my review of The Beast Below, and it seems to be holding that this
incarnation of the Doctor gets angry more easily than previous
incarnations - and his anger is darker and more focused. I hope
something is done with that trait, because there's a lot of potential
there.

Amy: Her highly observant nature was one of the few positive
accomplishments of the previous two episodes, and she retains that
quality here. Faced with the approaching image of the Angel, in a
situation in which the Doctor cannot save her, she puts together the
stray pieces of what she knows extremely quickly and finds a way to
save herself.

River Song: She and the Doctor are still meeting in the wrong order.
For her, this is ealier than their encounter in Silence in the
Library, but still later than many of her other encounters with him.
She refers to him as "Sweetie," which combines with her familiarity
with him to make Amy conclude that she's the Doctor's future wife...
though part of me suspects this may just be the mischievous Dr. Song
yanking the Doctor's chain. We also get a tantalizing hint of
something River is going to do in the Doctor's future (her past) -
something horrible, it seems, though I suspect this alluded-to
incident will look very different when we've seen the other side of
it.


THOUGHTS

Now, that's more like it!

The Time of Angels is good stuff. It's genuinely creepy and
atmospheric, making good use of three interesting settings: one of the
series' more well-done catacombs, a gleaming corridor connected to a
room in a spaceship, and a fairy-tale dark forest. It says something
for how cleverly structured the story is, that all three of these
disparate settings are clearly connected to each other in ways that
make sense in context.

It's a story that acts as a sequel to Moffat's classic Blink, as well
as being both sequel and prequel to his less classic, but still good,
Silence in the Library. It's better than Library but not as good as
Blink - which still leaves it substantially better than most Who
stories, and it is by far the best story of this season thus far.

One thing that distinguishes The Time of Angels from, say, Victory of
the Daleks is the presence of characters. The guest characters
actually have believable personalities, rather than simply existing as
cardboard cutouts to propel the plot along. From the scared Bob, whose
fear is praised by the Doctor to put the brakes on a dressing-down by
Father Octavian, to Octavian himself, these characters feel
convincing.

Iain Glen is particularly strong as Octavian, and the episode has the
sense to give him a moment in which he snatches the moral highground
away from the Doctor. When his men begin dying, and the Doctor seizes
on his reaction to that to call him an idiot, Octavian has a withering
reply that rings quite true about the Doctor's nature. "I will explain
that to their families after you've flown off in your little box." In
that moment, he goes from being the latest in the series' long line of
toy soldiers, albeit better-acted than most, into being somebody worth
investing in. It's far from the only good moment he gets, as well.

The first episode is better than the second, but that's standard
enough. The catacombs are the most atmospheric of the three settings.
With the fairly large number of soldiers to provide a proper body
count, all searching a dark and eerie setting for an awesomely
dangerous creature, it's highly reminiscent of James Cameron's Aliens.
That's meant as a compliment, by the way.

Also good is the reveal near the end of Part One, which builds to a
terrific cliffhanger. And if the second episode doesn't quite match
the intensity of the first, neither does it let the story down in any
way. If anything, it raises the stakes on the storyarc, by marking the
point at which The Crack goes moves from a recurring background image
into the foreground.

The Doctor becomes aware that this crack in time and space is
Something Very Bad, and that it's explicitly linked to Amy and her
wedding day. Effectively, the end of this story also marks the end of
the season's First Act. The characters are set, the basic situation of
The Crack has been exposed, and now it's ready to move onto the next
phase.

Though I'll be taking a short break before the next episode, lest I
become Who'd out, I am looking forward to seeing where all of this is
going. Because I suspect it's going to end up being quite
interesting.


Rating: 9/10.

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