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purplecatI observed that our NuWho Rewatch seemed to have ground to something of a halt and made inquiries. It turned out it was the Weeping Angels again. NLSS Child had spotted they were in the next episode and had recognised it as a scary episode she had seen at a friends house. As a result a time had to be found when both parts could be watching in quick succession and when suitable quantities of popcorn could be provided to sooth the nerves.
River calls the Doctor in to help her church militant friends/minders recover an Angel that has been long dormant. The spacecraft they are pursuing crash lands on top of a statue filled "Maze of the Dead" through which they must journey to reach the crash and the Angel. Halfway there they begin to realise that the statues are, in fact, yet more angels.
To be honest the most notable thing about this episode is the things that were to reoccur, such as the church militant, River's imprisonment, and her habit of leaving messages for the Doctor on historical artefacts, and the things that were, apparently, to be quietly abandoned - the various new powers the angels seem to have gained. In fact, beyond the fact that they only move when you are not looking at them, these angels are almost entirely different creatures to those encountered in Blink, behaving in very different ways. NLSS Child immediately (and loudly) picked up on the fact that they could move when looking at each other, but not a single person gets sent back through time by the angels in this episode. It is also a shame, I think, that the director chose to show the angels moving when the camera is upon them but the eyes of the characters are not. I think part of Blink effectiveness can be attributed to the fact that the angels are never seen to move by the audience. There is a hand wave, that these are an evolved form of the angels but it feels pretty thin.
I think it is a disappointing reappearance for the angels, but the first episode of the story nevertheless manages to be pretty scary. The ascent through the maze; the voices of the dead soldiers on the radio; the moving image of the angel on the camera. The second episode is more disjointed. I think the story is trying to switch back into the fairytale motif, with the forest in the spaceship, including Amy (dressed inevitably in red as women always are in these kinds of situations) having to make her way unaided through the trees. The arc plot intrudes in a fairly major way, sucking soldiers into the crack and the attempt to link it to the angels plot doesn't quite work, I don't think.
This isn't quite the sort of "big dumb two parter" I have been inclined to go on about in the Davies years. However it has a lot of the hallmarks of those stories. Its interest in spectacle, or at least providing a driver for specific visual sequences, has caused some rather questionable decisions to be made about the monsters' powers and it is, basically, one extended chase sequence. Moffat's more integrated approach to arc plotting and the fact that its spectacle is mostly about spooky visual devices than running, shouting and explosions gives it more of a sense of substance, but at the end of the day I think it has more in common with Davies' early season two-parters than is immediately apparent.
River calls the Doctor in to help her church militant friends/minders recover an Angel that has been long dormant. The spacecraft they are pursuing crash lands on top of a statue filled "Maze of the Dead" through which they must journey to reach the crash and the Angel. Halfway there they begin to realise that the statues are, in fact, yet more angels.
To be honest the most notable thing about this episode is the things that were to reoccur, such as the church militant, River's imprisonment, and her habit of leaving messages for the Doctor on historical artefacts, and the things that were, apparently, to be quietly abandoned - the various new powers the angels seem to have gained. In fact, beyond the fact that they only move when you are not looking at them, these angels are almost entirely different creatures to those encountered in Blink, behaving in very different ways. NLSS Child immediately (and loudly) picked up on the fact that they could move when looking at each other, but not a single person gets sent back through time by the angels in this episode. It is also a shame, I think, that the director chose to show the angels moving when the camera is upon them but the eyes of the characters are not. I think part of Blink effectiveness can be attributed to the fact that the angels are never seen to move by the audience. There is a hand wave, that these are an evolved form of the angels but it feels pretty thin.
I think it is a disappointing reappearance for the angels, but the first episode of the story nevertheless manages to be pretty scary. The ascent through the maze; the voices of the dead soldiers on the radio; the moving image of the angel on the camera. The second episode is more disjointed. I think the story is trying to switch back into the fairytale motif, with the forest in the spaceship, including Amy (dressed inevitably in red as women always are in these kinds of situations) having to make her way unaided through the trees. The arc plot intrudes in a fairly major way, sucking soldiers into the crack and the attempt to link it to the angels plot doesn't quite work, I don't think.
This isn't quite the sort of "big dumb two parter" I have been inclined to go on about in the Davies years. However it has a lot of the hallmarks of those stories. Its interest in spectacle, or at least providing a driver for specific visual sequences, has caused some rather questionable decisions to be made about the monsters' powers and it is, basically, one extended chase sequence. Moffat's more integrated approach to arc plotting and the fact that its spectacle is mostly about spooky visual devices than running, shouting and explosions gives it more of a sense of substance, but at the end of the day I think it has more in common with Davies' early season two-parters than is immediately apparent.