Doctor Who: The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone
I'm treating these two episodes as one; it seems fair. Spoilers follow
This is where the new series kicked in properly for me. This is Moffat's writing at its best; bringing in subtle and non-subtle references to previous material, while still making things new and interesting, and making the story in the episodes stand out perfectly while also making it an integral part of the overall arc. Indeed, according to some theories, he's really outdoing himself on this - see Cavalorn's comments for some more detail.
The angels were very, very good. The soldier-clerics were also excellent. And I am really, really glad to see River Song back in action, and every bit as effective as she was before. I was also happy to see that there was a clear interaction between River and Amy.
My wife, Nina, has a theory that River may actually be a future version of Amy. It would be interesting to see regenerations from someone other than the Doctor and the Master - although she'd need to be a Time Lord for that, right? At present, there are three Time Lords loose in New Who's continuity - the Doctor, the Master (for certain values of loose), and Jenny, the Doctor's Daughter from the episode of the same name. I believe I recall hearing that having Jenny survive the end of that episode was Moffat's idea as well, so I reckon we can expect to see her return at some point on his watch.
And then there's the kick back into the main continuity of the series, with both the crack AND the memory issues coming up. I was half-expecting the crack to not really be expanded on until the end of the series, so it's a nice surprise to see it coming back to prominence this early.
The trailer for next week's episode also looked excellent; there is is of course an echo of Mickey in Amy's fiance's involvement, and I look forward to seeing how Moffat handles that.
Posted by Drew Shiel at May 3, 2010 7:56 PM
