Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Doctor Who, Series 5 - Episode 5: Flesh and Stone

SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUTS


THE PLOT

Continuing from where we left off last time, we find that the Doctor's shooting the gravity globe allowed the local gravity of the spaceship to extend to the point that by jumping upward, the party was able to "fly" toward the spaceship and away from the Weeping Angels.

Moving into the ship and further into "the oxygen factory" (i.e. forest) contained within it, everyone continues to flee into the woods as the Angels start to penetrate the ship. It is then that things become even more complicated as a crack - identical to the one in Amy's wall - begins to open up in reality and time energy begins to flood the area. Energy that threatens to erase a person from reality completely so it is as if they never existed.

And as if this weren't enough, it turns out that by looking a Weeping Angel in the eye, Amy has "captured" one in her optical nerves and - similar to the video image that slowly allowed a Weeping Angel to be born - is causing another Weeping Angel to be born inside her head. Thankfully, closing her eyes cuts off the stimulus that is feeding the angel. Unfortunately, this leaves her totally defenseless to the other Weeping Angels already in the forest, as the soldiers begin to blink out of existence, one by one, with nobody but Amy remembering that they ever existed.

Thankfully, it all works out in the end as The Doctor comes up with a cunning plan mixed with a bad joke (gravity of the situation), The Angels are all sucked into the crack (which seals it) and River Song is taken back into custody by The Church having earned a few more brownie points toward parole. We learn that her crime involved her killing a good man - "the best man I ever knew" and she cryptically tells The Doctor that he will see her next "when the Pandorica opens".

The Doctor takes Amy home at her request, some five minutes after they left. She shows him her wedding dress and explains that she is supposed to get married in the morning before trying to seduce The Doctor - an act he will have no truck with. It is then, looking at her clock, that The Doctor makes a connection between some numbers he got while scanning the crack and Amy. The numbers he got were 26062010 or 26-06-2010 or 26th of June 2010 - the day of Amy's wedding.





THE GOOD PARTS

* The story here is very well paced with a lot going on but everything moving well.

* The scene with The Doctor comforting Amy finally gave Eleven some heart... and it raised some more interesting questions. More on this below.

* The conceit of having a blind woman having to move around a group of Weeping Angels is brilliant!

* We finally get to see the statues move... and it is every bit as creepy as we could hope for.

* A few more details about River Song, which give us nothing but more questions but they are the good kind of questions that lead to fun geeky discussions. Such as who is the good man that she killed? (Okay, obviously we're MEANT to think it is The Doctor... but who is it really?)




THE PROBLEMS

* Why can't the angels hear The Doctor talking to Amy over the communicator? Are they deaf in statue form? This may explain why The Doctor explains that the statues turned to stone on reflex upon seeing Amy, because otherwise they should have known she couldn't see them when they moved in and they didn't change. Still seems a bit cheap though.

* For that matter, why don't the rules about Weeping Angels seeing one another triggering the stone reflex seem to apply anymore? The Doctor gets surrounded by angels at one point, which means those angels SHOULD have been frozen since they were on both sides of The Doctor at that point.

* The 'gravity of the situation' pun. Dear gods...





WHAT DO I THINK OF THE DOCTOR NOW?

I really liked the scene where he comforts Amy and kisses her on the forehead. But I liked it more upon the second viewing when I noticed something odd I missed the first time.

THE DOCTOR IS WEARING HIS COAT!

Earlier in the episode, one of the Weeping Angels was able to get close enough to grab his coat. He left it behind and was without it for the rest of the episode... except during the scene where he goes away with River and then seems to come back right away to comfort Amy.

The operative word being "seems".

Unless there was one big whopping continuity error while they were filming this, it looks like The Doctor - either through deliberate travel or a wrinkle in time later - came back to comfort Amy at a time when she very much needed someone but he couldn't really spare the time to do so.

Either way, that's kinda cool. And it says a lot about how The Doctor feels about Amy given that he was willing to violate one of the bigger rules of crossing your own timeline just to give her some comfort. Of course if it turns out this IS just a continuity error, all bets are off. But if I'm right, this would seem to fit my theory regarding how the regeneration shapes the personality of each incarnation. Everything we've seen paints a portrait of Eleven being a much gruffer and less expressive man than Ten but still caring deep down.

This seems to have been confirmed with the scene at the end where... oh good lord... Amy tries to have her way with The Doctor. And he is appropriately horrified by her behavior, further driving a wedge between him and his previous incarnation - the man who snogged Madame Du Pompadour, fell in love with a shopgirl from London and probably deflowered The Virgin Queen.



The Final Verdict: A strong conclusion to a relatively slow starting first part. Fast-paced and exciting, even if it does raise more questions than it answers. The Doctor is starting to grow on me and I no longer mind him so much though I still miss David Tenant in the role. And Amy continues to be awesome beyond even the dimensions that Scottish redheads in short skirts are awesome in general.

2 comments:

  1. And here I was bracing for impact. I about fell over laughing when I watched Amy decide to try and violate the doctor and the fact that she kept trying killed me. Ballsy.

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  2. It was.
    As was said in the latest episode, "We are her boys."

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