Doctor Who: The Angel's Take Manhattan

Well this is it, the episode we was all looking forward to (and dreading at the same time) 'The Angel's Take Manhattan'. I must admit that before watching the episode for the first time I was a tad skeptical. I mean, how on earth are they going to re-introduce River Song and The Weeping Angels and STILL have time left to give the Pond's a proper send-off in the time space of just 45 minutes? Thankfully, Amy & Rory's exit was absolutely fantastic and while the episode does suffer from Steven Moffat's trademarked mile-a-minute approach to storytelling and The Weeping Angel's slightly lacklustre appearance, this was definitely Doctor Who on top form. And yes, I am sad to see Amy & Rory go (especially Rory). 

Ahhh....happy memories...

The episode starts with a rather lengthy intro-sequence that takes up a good 10 minutes of the story. While it doesn't really need to be there it perfectly recreates a Noire atmosphere and re-introduces the Weeping Angel's with style. The reveal at the end was gobsmakingly brilliant but because the rest of the episode fails to dwell on it or even acknowledge it later on it's effect quickly diminishes. If viewed as a self-contained short movie featuring the Weeping Angel's or even as a prequel to the episode I would understand why they filmed it, but does it really need to take up a full ten minutes worth of screen time? If you take the entire segment out the episode what does it add exactly? If you ask me the whole reason this episode was set in 1930's New York was because Steven Moffat wrote this segment beforehand and wanted to include it in an episode of the show. If you take out the New York setting from the episode and changed it to...ooooh I dunno London 2012 then nothing in the story changes. NOTHING AT ALL. Well okay, visually the episode would be worse. New York look's fantastic, both in the past and present and once again demonstrates New Who's panache for trying to diversify the setting and locales as much as possible. 
So with the out-of-place intro aside, what about the rest of the episode? Well we're treated to a few nice views of modern day New York, some nice banter between the three leads (the last time we'll see any of them together just chilling out) and then all of a sudden Rory is sent back in time by a Weeping Angel to 1930's New York, appearing conveniently right next to his daughter Melody/River Song. I love the way the book is used to convey exposition, even if it is a trick often deployed by Moffat in his timey-wimey stories. What makes it even cooler is the fact that the book is ACTUALLY going to be published in the UK as a tie-in to the episode, so we will ACTUALLY be able read the book! Oh, I do love the Doctor Who merchandising team sometimes. Anyway the book is used to great effect in the episode, and reading the chapter titles to find Rory was genius.  

This isn't going to last...

The collector Mr. Grayle is the plot device used to bring all of the characters into (roughly) the same time and place. It's a shame we didn't get more of him, his character is quite literally thrown out of the story half-way through along with his menacing bodyguards. He's immediately forgotten about however, as we're greeting to quite a chilling scene with Rory in the cellar with The Weeping Babies, complete with giggling cherub voices. The one thing I didn't like however was how they just deplaced him in space, not time. Um....why? The Weeping Angel's kind of lost their menace here, because their method of displacing people back in time can only really be seen as an annoyance, especially seen as the Doctor can time-travel. The Weeping Angel's in Series 5 two parter snapped peoples necks (rather gruesomely too, may I add) and were so seemingly unstoppable that Moffat had to literally write in a Deus Ex Machina (the crack in time) in order to get rid of them. Here, they seem a bit weak in comparison and they feel less scary because....well...they don't really do a lot for most of the episode do they? Just stand around and look scary. In fact the characters blink several times in a scene and they don't move an inch. For the next ten minutes the episode is mainly River-Doctor focused, and it was nice to see Alex Kingston just being River Song rather than the more cartoony psychopathic version of the character we saw in Let's Kill Hitler/The Wedding Of River Song. The scene on the stairway where we actually see her bloodied roken wrist was unpleasant, (I think it's the first time we've seen blood on this show in a while)  and her speech to Amy about 'never let him see you damaged' was a nice moment. I would have liked to see more of a mother-daughter interaction between the two though, especially since the events of the last series has once again been discarded and put under the rug with the exception of the Doctor being 'dead/erased from the universe'. The problem is that things happen so fast in Moffat's stories that the characters barely have time to react or consider what on earth is going on and it's implications. Some more 'quiet' scenes like this one please? In the last 20 minutes Rory enters the Weeping Angel controlled building 'Winter Quay' only to find a much older version of himself (in a scene very reminiscent of Blink). Amy and the gang arrive just in time to witness the death of old Rory, and young Rory is left feeling bewildered. From this point on the episode really hit's it stride, and the realisation that Rory is destined to be stuck in that bed forever without Amy really added peril to the whole thing. The ensuing chase to the rooftops was vintage Weeping Angel's and the second appearance of the Statue of Liberty was the icing on the cake...or was it? For something that was hyped throughout the whole episode the Angel Of Liberty was barely a cameo appearance, not to mention the fact that it's EXTREMELY implausible for the people of New York to not notice a massive BRONZE statue (I thought the Weeping Angel's were made out of stone? And how did it become a Weeping Angel in the first place? EXPLAIN MOFFAT. EXPLAAAAAIN!) stomping around the place? It appeared for three seconds, was referenced once by Rory and then forgotten about. Not even the Doctor batted an eyelid when he saw it. HELLO? It's a giant FREAKING WEEPING ANGEL!! THIS SHOULD BE HUGE!!! Ok maybe I was expecting too much (I really thought those teeth would come down and chomp on Rory) but to have such a big, grandiose idea appearing at the climax of Amy & Rory's swansong episode you'd think they would have done more with the idea? But in the grand scheme of things I suppose it didn't really matter, what DID matter was the small issue of The Ponds making a suicide pact in order to create a paradox that would destroy the Weeping Angel's. The rooftop scene is one of the best moments in NuWho, and Karen Gillian and Arthur Darvill act their asses off in it. Arthur Darvill in particular was fantastic, his character Rory started out a geeky nerd vying for Amy's attention but has truly evolved into something more over the past few years, in some ways I'd argue he's more heroic than the Doctor. While some fans felt cheated that Rory never got a proper send-off in the episode (i.e he never got to say goodbye) I disagree, because this entire scene was in a way his send-off, even though he still features for a bit after this. His love for Amy shines through, the fact that he would rather risk his life than live without her is evidence enough and later on Amy does the same thing, this time risking her life to live with Rory, so this was Rory's last moment in the spotlight, he just came first. So if you do class this as Rory's exit (which I do) then it's definitely the best out of the two. His line about constantly dying (a popular joke among DW fans: 'They KEEP killing Rory!') and asking Amy to push him was frightfully emotional. Then when Amy joins him I could barely stop breathing.

Fantastic scene. Simply brilliant.

So they both jump of the ledge, the Doctor screams 'AMMMMMY!!!!!!' (no 'ROOOORY as well? Damn Doctor, that's cold!), the music swells, you see them falling epically in slow-motion and....cut to white. Ok, I admit it, I was doing my best to hold back the tears, but this next scene was the closest I've ever been to crying at an episode Doctor Who. As it turn's out, the Paradox worked and everything is back to normal again (except we all know there's something else coming up) and the four leads all get swooped back to that graveyard in 2012 New York. The Doctor rejoices, they hug, there's some merry banter with River and then just as they are about to leave Rory spots a gravestone with his name on it. Before Amy can react Rory suddenly gets whisked back in time (again?) by a 'lone survivor' Weeping Angel, his last second of screen time was looking at Amy with a puzzled expression (THAT'S IT?) and Amy shouts for the Doctor. The Doctor notices the gravestone and does his best to convince Amy to come back into the TARDIS so they can 'figure it all out' but nope, Amy has made her mind up. Convinced it would send her back to the same time that it sent Rory to she says a hasty goodbye to her daughter, bursts into tears, faces the Doctor and says one last goodbye before being zapped back into the past by the Angel, once again reunited with her beloved, supposedly living happily ever after with Rory in 1930's New York and dying of natural causes aged 87. WOW. That was a lot to take in! Suffice to say, I was emotionally obliterated. Just the suddenness of it all coupled with the acting from all three leads made what could have been a bitter-sweet ending into something that rivalled even Rose's exit in 2006! Just hearing Matt Smith scream and pour his eyes out, unable to do anything for pretty much the entire episode sent chills down my spine. And Karen Gillian, JESUS CHRIST! She definitely saved the best to last! While none of it quite matched the leap from the building in slo-mo (it was the music that made it) it was still powerful stuff and it was the first time where Steven Moffat actually stopped trying to cram all his grandiose idea's into every second of the thing and just pulled back, allowing the characters to properly emote and give it their all in the last few seconds of screen time. The only issue I have with the last ten minutes is the reason for their permanent exit doesn't seen justified at all.
*WARNING* MAJOR RANT ALERT! *WARNING*
The Doctor says that by being zapped back in time by the Weeping Angel would mean him never being able to see them again, because it would be a 'fixed' point in time. I'm sorry, but wasn't your death last series (a considerably bigger event) a fixed point in time as well? You seemed to get out of that pretty easily! Just what is a 'fixed' point in time anyway? And if causing another paradox would rip New York apart (New York has already been too badly fracturing by the Weeping Angel's time energy) then why not come and get them a few years later when the time energy subsides a bit more? Or how about they just move location? Surely Amy and Rory wouldn't live in New York for the rest of their lives and never leave the city? Even worse, apparently River's vortex manipulator can get there just fine (so basically River can visit them, just not the Doctor?) because she has to deliver the book to Amy to get it published! Why can't River just take them back with her when she goes to see them? Why can't the Doctor go with River? And hey, wasn't young Melody/Mels/River Song still in New York at this point? Do you think they met up with her and actually raised her up properly before sending her off to past Amy and Rory (well technically future Amy & Rory but you get it) from Let's Kill Hitler? Speaking of last series, what about those photo's of Amy and baby Melody found in the orphanage? Where did they come from? Why were the Silence so interested in Amy and Rory? They seemed to hint at the couple being integral to their plans and even had foreknowledge of certain events: 'RORY WILLIAMS, THE MAN THAT DIES AGAIN AND AGAIN...DIE ONE LAST TIME AND KNOOOW SHE WILL NEVER COME BACK TO YOU!!!!!' In fact, the whole Silence Will Fall arc and  the TARDIS mysteriously exploding STILL hasn't been explained yet or even referenced to by the show and for something that seemed so integral to Amy & Rory now that they're both gone does that mean that these questions will NEVER be answered? ARRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH!!!!!!!! SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!! SO FEW ANSWERS!!!!!!!! WHY, MOFFAT, WHY????? WHY DO YOU TEASE ME US SO MUCH YET NEVER ANSWER ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!?

....So in short I didn't really understand why their exit was so permanent, it's almost like the writer is leaving the back door open for a return.....

The episode end's with the Doctor running in slo-mo towards the final page in Melody's book, an epilogue written by Amy. He reads it teary-eyed and proceeds to re-visit young Amelia Pond (who's still waiting) in a nice callback to 'The Eleventh Hour'. The screen fades to black after a still image of young Amelia's face smiling, essentially the most fitting way to end it ever. One small niggle is the fact that we never saw Brian again, you would think the Doctor would go back to him and tell him what happened wouldn't you? It really felt like a loose-end but luckily they fixed it Mass Effect-style by releasing a touching short storyboard scene narrated by Arthur Darvill:  

Overall I thought this was a great send-off to some of NuWho's best companions, even though there were a few niggles along the way: 9,5/10. I suppose in a way their exit was the most tragic out of the new batch of companions, and it's nice to know that for once a monster was the one that ended up separating the couple from the Doctor rather than some over random element being thrown in last minute. Technically their gravestone should have read 'Killed nicely by Weeping Angel'. Well done Moffat, when it counts you truly deliver, although please stop with these overarching story lines that lead to nothing, I don't want to be let down again.

Great imagery, but makes NO sense in the context of the episode.

So what do I think of The Pond Era as a whole? Well it took me a while to warm up to them and Matt Smith, it was one of those cases where they grew on me the more time went on. Rory became the dark horse of the series, by the second half of Series Six I was convinced he was the best of the two. Amy felt a bit dodgy for most of Series Five, but her character improved over time. Series Five as a whole was a bit uneven to me, but 'Vincent And The Doctor', 'Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone', 'Amy's Choice' and 'The Pandorica Opens' are some of the best episodes of Moffat's run. Their chemistry as a group dynamic is unmatched, I could watch the characters interacting all day to be honest. It's a shame we didn't get more Doctor-Rory combos, 'Dinosaurs On A Spaceship' showed just well Arthur Darvill and Matt Smith worked off each other to brilliant comedic effect. The era hit it's highpoint with the second half of Series Six, there was just so many fun episodes and 'The Girl Who Waited' is still an instant classic. As for Series Seven Part 1 the episodes have been the most ambitious yet but with the exception of 'Dinosaurs' (which wasn't striving to be Shakespeare or anything) they all had script problems. Simply put, the writers got a bit lazy and crammed to much stuff into an already ambitious undertaking. Still, the variety in the last five eps have been incredible and the Doctor Who production Team deserves all the praise it can get. Just re-read a few of those scripts next time, OK? Oh god....that divorce plot still makes me shudder....Well I think it's finally time to the close the door on Amy & Rory (but keep it unlocked just in case), the first married couple in the TARDIS. The Girl who waited and Rory the roman lived happily ever after. THE END.