The Angels Take Manhattan Review

With The Angels Take Manhattan came the finale of the 2012 run of Doctor Who. But what did I make of the mid-series finale? Time to find out...

Overview

Moffat's best episode yet with a great mix of sadness, horror and excitement. The return of the angels saw them at their best and most deadliest yet and also the return of River Song meant we got more great dialogue between her and the Doctor.

Continuity (and plot holes)

The Angels Take Manhattan was a mixed bag when it came to Continuity. Below are the continuity points.

• The Eleventh Hour was referenced as the final scene led back to the Pond's first episode
• The Series 6 arc was mentioned between the Doctor and River
• The episode happens in River's timeline somewhere between being pardoned from jail to The Library
• Companions aging while the Doctor doesn't is mentioned again twice, with the first being the Doctor noticing line's on Amy's forehead and also with the Pond's being sent back in time so by the Doctor's time they are dead

Now for the plot holes...

• With all the people that were trapped in Winter Quay, it seems hard to believe that in all that time nobody tried to escape/commited suicide
• Also in Winter Quay, how did the people stay alive? I doubt the angels came round and fed and gave them water every day
• The Statue of Liberty can't be a Weeping Angel as it's not made of stone but sheets of copper over a steel framework...
• It seems weird that River doesn't want to travel with the Doctor as she loves him!

Story Arc

Excellent use of Story Arc in this episode with the 'Doctor Who?' theme subtly yet wonderfully mentioned by River and obviously the big Pond exit arc came to a close in this episode with Rory getting zapped by an angel and Amy sacrificing herself to the Angels just so she can be with her husband

Story

Maybe not so simple but definitely wonderfully thought out. Basically Rory gets zapped back in time, the Doctor and Amy find out where he is using River's book which tells of the Angel story but they read ahead and Amy learns a vital lesson, her last from the Doctor... From there on, its basically a race against time to save Rory and in the end they do, only for him and Amy to be cruelly snatched away from the Doctor (and us!) by the angels. Beautiful, sad but brilliant!

Problems

Despite the plot holes above, I loved this episode to the core and it has to be one of my favourite episodes of Doctor Who ever with it tying with Asylum of the Daleks (which coincidently is from Series 7 also plus also penned by Moffat!). So basically can't think of any problems apart from the few plot holes which are forgiven for a fantastic story and brilliant send off for the Ponds.

A Pond Farewell

The departure of the Pond's was heartbreaking yet I didn't shed a tear which was what I was expecting, maybe because they died twice in the space of five minutes... I'm still making my mind up about whether I think they should have died from the jump of the roof or the Graveyard snatch, but Amy's final scene was brilliant and a great performance from Karen. Finally, people say they are upset that Rory didn't get a farewell with the Doctor scene, but when the angels took him away so unexpectedly, I think that added to the shock.

River's Return

The return of River Song saw great scenes between her and the Doctor including another one of Moffat's great quotes:

The Doctor: “How’s prison?” 

River Song: “Oh, I was pardoned ages ago, and it’s ‘Professor Song’ to you now.”The Doctor: “’Pardoned‘?” 

River Song: “Turns out the person I killed never existed in the first place. Apparently there’s no record of him. It’s almost as if someone’s gone around deleting himself from every database in the universe.” 

The Doctor: "You said I got ‘too big.'"

River Song: “And now, no one’s ever heard of you. Didn’t you used to be somebody?” 

The Doctor: “Weren’t you the woman who killed the Doctor?” 

River Song: “‘Doctor’ who?”

Conclusion

Monsters - 5/5 - The Weeping Angels really do scare!

Story - 5/5 - Slightly complicated but what can you expect from an exit/Weeping Angel story. Still, absolutely fantastic!

Doctor - 5/5 - Another faultless performance from Matt Smith showing the pain of letting go of his best friends

Companion - 5/5 - Karen Gillan's greatest performance EVER with her final scene a stroke of acting genius! Arthur Darvill pulling of another great performance still managing to pull of comedy moments when he knows he's about to die!

Arc - 5/5 - A great reference to 'Doctor Who?' as mentioned above and also the finale to the Pond's tenure on Doctor Who wrote/directed/acted beautifully

Continuity - 4.5/5 - The continuity can't be faulted it's just the few plot holes that let this episode down a little

The Angels Take Manhattan (overall) - 29.5/30 - Fantastic

So with Series 7: Part 1 over, there will no more reviews from me until the final week of 2012, with the 2012 Christmas Special coming under the spotlight. So will it fare well with past Christmas Specials and also companion introduction stories (sort of, if you count Jenna's appearance in Asylum of the Daleks)? Only time will tell...

Next Time - 2012 Christmas Special

Overall Mark Comments

30 - Outstanding

25 - 29.5 - Fantastic

20 - 24.5 - Great

15 - 19.5 - OK, nothing special

10 - 14.5 - Bad, very poor

5 - 9.5 - Shocking, turned off after 10 minutes

1.5 - 4.5 - Worst thing to be shown on TV ever

0 - 1 - Doctor Who is over