S07E05 - "The Angels Take Manhattan" - Discussion Thread

[EvilSpaceAlien]

I really enjoyed this episode, and it was possibly the high point of the season for me. It was a good send off for the Ponds, and I actually enjoyed the Angels in this ep compared to their previous outing in Flesh and Stone, where I felt that they had lost some of their scare factor, something which came back a little bit in this with the use of the baby angels. There were a few things that were a bit wonky, like the whole Statue of Liberty being a weeping angel who managed to move across the water with footsteps which created earthquake like tremors, without anyone in NYC noticing. But then again, who watches Doctor Who for realism? Besides, I could let that little thing go since I really enjoyed the episode otherwise.

 

[SciphonicStranger]

This was the best episode of the season IMO. Now the long wait until Christmas.

 

[Tropicana]

Great episode, sad and truly emotional end to Amy and Rory.

Will miss Amy for sure!

 

[Joelist]

I'm not so sure I would call it sad - Amy and Rory live out their lives together in the past and are happy.

I liked the fact that this episode had a somewhat more complex plot and was pretty intelligently written. One could tell that River in this case was aware of how it would all ultimately play out (that was why she told Amy that letting the Angel touch her was correct to do) and in that respect she was having to be really careful about what she said and did. The interesting question of course is how she knew - maybe she was "reading ahead"? In this respect the story resembled slightly the ST:TNG installment "Time's Arrow", where Guinan knew how everything would develop but couldn't say anything.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Nice episode except for the whole "fixed point in time" excuse as to why the Doctor couldn't just go back and get them. Seems like they've completely erased "Blink" from continuity.

If the TARDIS can never go back to Manhattan in their timeline to get them then he could meet them elsewhere. Or use River's vortex manipulator since she, obviously, does go back and gives Amy her manuscript to publish.

Sure, I get it, it was a sendoff to get rid of Amy & Rory without killing them and giving the audience a bitter-sweet happily-ever-after sort of ending. It's just that the story they came up with to do so was outright stupid.

I have a great dislike for such blatant disregard of the viewers' intelligence.

 

[Tropicana]

I thought it was sad cos previously Rory's dad told the Doctor to bring them home safe.

 

[Bluce Ree]

I thought it was sad cos previously Rory's dad told the Doctor to bring them home safe.

I agree, it was bitter-sweet and an overall good story but the manner in which that bitter-sweet moment was contrived is where I have the problem.

 

[Joelist]

It wasn't that stupid. What the Doctor said was he could not take the TARDIS back into that time/space area because the activities of the angels plus the paradox had already damaged the fabric of space/time there and as such sending a timeship in there would cause worse damage. As to the manuscript, all River need do is go back to the proper time and mail it to Amy with a suggestion that she write an afterword. Plus, I think River already knew how to get it to Amy because it was pretty clear near the end that this actually happened in her past so she knew what was going to happen (that was why she knew that Amy would be safe letting the Angel attack her).

I kind of liked the whole angle of the Doctor being caught in a predestination paradox and River having to let events play out.

 

[Bluce Ree]

It wasn't that stupid. What the Doctor said was he could not take the TARDIS back into that time/space area because the activities of the angels plus the paradox had already damaged the fabric of space/time there and as such sending a timeship in there would cause worse damage. As to the manuscript, all River need do is go back to the proper time and mail it to Amy with a suggestion that she write an afterword. Plus, I think River already knew how to get it to Amy because it was pretty clear near the end that this actually happened in her past so she knew what was going to happen (that was why she knew that Amy would be safe letting the Angel attack her).

I kind of liked the whole angle of the Doctor being caught in a predestination paradox and River having to let events play out.

Yeah, I don't buy that. He could have picked them up a week, a month, a year later or in some other area away from their landing point. Rory had already established a timeline, being the only one on the tombstone, so Amy's action would have created another time-smashing paradox by that logic. In any case, if the Doctor was so adamant about preserving THAT particular timeline, he could still visit, take them for a ride, and bring them back there as he's been doing all this time. The Doctor has gone back and forth in time plenty, displacing historical characters and inconsequential characters from their timeline and disturbing the timeline but that's ok because the storyline called for it.

Sorry, dude, but that's just contrived nonsense for the purpose of creating a bitter-sweet ending. It's just more of "If the story requires it, push the square peg through the round hole and hope nobody notices or cares". Sometimes they try to preserve continuity and the laws of that universe and, other times, they just throw the book out the window to fit a story. They could have gotten rid of Rory and Amy in an endless number of ways. Getting them stuck in some other time period when the main character is a Timelord (read "Lord of Time") who creates paradoxes like most people change their underwear was a stupid move.

 

[shavedape]

So it's agreed: This episode sucked donkey balls yet we're glad they got rid of the annoying Ponds finally. Not a perfect win/win for our side but we'll take it, right? :tongue-new:

 

[Joelist]

Not really. I think it was better written than Bluce does.

 

[Joelist]

Yeah, I don't buy that. He could have picked them up a week, a month, a year later or in some other area away from their landing point. Rory had already established a timeline, being the only one on the tombstone, so Amy's action would have created another time-smashing paradox by that logic. In any case, if the Doctor was so adamant about preserving THAT particular timeline, he could still visit, take them for a ride, and bring them back there as he's been doing all this time. The Doctor has gone back and forth in time plenty, displacing historical characters and inconsequential characters from their timeline and disturbing the timeline but that's ok because the storyline called for it.

Sorry, dude, but that's just contrived nonsense for the purpose of creating a bitter-sweet ending. It's just more of "If the story requires it, push the square peg through the round hole and hope nobody notices or cares". Sometimes they try to preserve continuity and the laws of that universe and, other times, they just throw the book out the window to fit a story. They could have gotten rid of Rory and Amy in an endless number of ways. Getting them stuck in some other time period when the main character is a Timelord (read "Lord of Time") who creates paradoxes like most people change their underwear was a stupid move.

All that changed when Amy went back was her name appeared on the headstone in the cemetery, so nothing happened to change the whole predestination paradox angle - River told Amy she could safely let the angel do its thing because River already lived this (remember she is Professor song now and also out of jail so this is later than anything we have seen except Silence in the Library) and knows exactly how it all plays out.

As to going back, again the Doctor didn't say that it would violate a law of time or create a paradox but rather that between the angels messing with time on a large scale back there and what Amy and Rory did the fabric was damaged badly enough that further trips to that place/time could cause catastrophe. And this Doctor has been more cautious than his predecessors about doing dangerous things with time (goes back to The Waters of Mars when he tried to alter a fixed point and caused a disaster).

On a larger level I think Moffat has finished his "reset" of the show that he began last season. Note River's line about someone going around the universe and systematically removing references to the Doctor from databases, stores of knowledge and the like. Last season the Doctor realized his excessive fame was creating big problems for space/time and that to preserve things the legend of the Doctor had to go. For us the viewer this means the show is being reset to roughly the Patrick Troughton era - the Doctor is there but not a god, legend or other such. I like this as the "lonely god" EMO stuff that Russell T Davies gave us was a mess.

 

[Joelist]

Sorry. It looks like half my post disappeared. Will handle later.

 

[Joelist]

Okay, on to the missing part.

Actually Timelord is not a connotation of :lord of time" - it is simply the name of the Doctor's race. They got the name (per classic Who) because they saw themselves as guardians of time due to their time travel capabilities. And Doctor Who has by the by been pretty good about not having the Doctor create paradoxes in time. They haven't been 100% on it but in general pretty good (less so in the Russell T Davies era).

This of course goes to the basic problem with any Science Fiction show that has a powerful "miracle" technology like time travel. Taken to its logical conclusion you can completely remove any sense of peril or drama because the tech has the ability to solve all issues. Time travel of course allows this because all you need do is go to the right point in time and you can alter history so everything develops just as you want. To combat this, writers add stuff like "fixed point" or damage to a "fabric of time" so that some things can be made unalterable. In this respect Bluce is correct however the same charge can be made against other Science Fiction franchises as well.

For example, the Star Trek transporter device. Given what we have been told about the device and what it does (converts matter to energy and energy to matter according to a computer schematic it stored when matter was converted to energy) this device could have a number of fascinating uses...

a) Ensure no one ever ages - just use Doctor Crusher's transporter trace trick from the TNG episode where the main characters were reverted to children and you can easily keep everyone at biological 18 (or whatever age is desired). And perfect heath by the same logic.

b) Take a transporter trace of people right before they go on away missions. If the redshirt gets killed just put the right amount of matter into the transporter and...BINGO...Mr. Redshirt is back exactly as he was when you took the trace.

c) Run short of shuttlecraft? No problem - convert any matter into them. Starships? Same approach.

Yes the examples get silly, but it is another example of how "miracle" tech can create merry hobb for writers.

I may not have cared for the "soapiness", but one thing that NuBSG had going for it was its tech did not create these types of issues.

 

[Bluce Ree]

All that changed when Amy went back was her name appeared on the headstone in the cemetery, so nothing happened to change the whole predestination paradox angle - River told Amy she could safely let the angel do its thing because River already lived this (remember she is Professor song now and also out of jail so this is later than anything we have seen except Silence in the Library) and knows exactly how it all plays out.

Now we're just moving the goal posts. Having followed Doctor Who for over 30 years, I can say that I feel the whole "OMG! The TARDIS can NEVER go back there EVER again!" is totally contrived and flies in the face of any sci-fi fan who pays attention to detail. It's a nice story, granted, but some of these details are hard for me to overcome because I've been following the show for so long.

As to going back, again the Doctor didn't say that it would violate a law of time or create a paradox but rather that between the angels messing with time on a large scale back there and what Amy and Rory did the fabric was damaged badly enough that further trips to that place/time could cause catastrophe. And this Doctor has been more cautious than his predecessors about doing dangerous things with time (goes back to The Waters of Mars when he tried to alter a fixed point and caused a disaster).

On a larger level I think Moffat has finished his "reset" of the show that he began last season. Note River's line about someone going around the universe and systematically removing references to the Doctor from databases, stores of knowledge and the like. Last season the Doctor realized his excessive fame was creating big problems for space/time and that to preserve things the legend of the Doctor had to go. For us the viewer this means the show is being reset to roughly the Patrick Troughton era - the Doctor is there but not a god, legend or other such. I like this as the "lonely god" EMO stuff that Russell T Davies gave us was a mess.

I kind of like the legend thing that made some of his enemies quake in fear, especially the Daleks. The first time the Daleks realize who they were addressing during Eccleston's Doctor was epic, IMO, especially these two lines:

Dalek - "But you have no army, no weapons, no plan, no hope."
Doctor - "Exactly! And that scares the hell out of you doesnt it?"

The second epic moment was at the end of Matt Smith's first episode, "Eleventh Hour", watching the Atraxi flee, scared out of their wits.

I've been watching Doctor Who since Tom Baker, from when I was a little kid, and have also watched all of Jon Pertwee's series. To someone like who has watched the show and the character grow and evolve over the years, I see his legendary status as something he's earned. To have a reboot mid-series just for the sake of undoing that status seems unfair. Besides, the universe is endless. I doubt he's known absolutely everywhere by absolutely every race in every corner of the universe.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Okay, on to the missing part.

Actually Timelord is not a connotation of :lord of time" - it is simply the name of the Doctor's race.

Not really. Time Lord implies mastery of time and they acquired the name because of it. It's actually written as "Time Lord".

Not everyone native to Gallifrey is a Time Lord. Check out "The Deadly Assassin" for more info. From what I understood after watching that episode and "The Sound of Drums", Time Lords are more of an order than a race even though they're always referred to as a race.

They got the name (per classic Who) because they saw themselves as guardians of time due to their time travel capabilities. And Doctor Who has by the by been pretty good about not having the Doctor create paradoxes in time. They haven't been 100% on it but in general pretty good (less so in the Russell T Davies era).

It goes a little deeper than that. They were originally known as a wise race. They acquired the name Time Lords because of their non-linear perception of time, which eventually led to its mastery.

The Doctor has been pretty terrible with the timeline. That is what made him a renegade and also led to his being exiled to Earth during Pertwee's era. Every time he interferes, he alters the timeline. Remember the Pandorica and the obsessive need by all those races to remove him from time? They weren't all his enemies, either.

This of course goes to the basic problem with any Science Fiction show that has a powerful "miracle" technology like time travel. Taken to its logical conclusion you can completely remove any sense of peril or drama because the tech has the ability to solve all issues. Time travel of course allows this because all you need do is go to the right point in time and you can alter history so everything develops just as you want. To combat this, writers add stuff like "fixed point" or damage to a "fabric of time" so that some things can be made unalterable. In this respect Bluce is correct however the same charge can be made against other Science Fiction franchises as well.

For example, the Star Trek transporter device. Given what we have been told about the device and what it does (converts matter to energy and energy to matter according to a computer schematic it stored when matter was converted to energy) this device could have a number of fascinating uses...

a) Ensure no one ever ages - just use Doctor Crusher's transporter trace trick from the TNG episode where the main characters were reverted to children and you can easily keep everyone at biological 18 (or whatever age is desired). And perfect heath by the same logic.

b) Take a transporter trace of people right before they go on away missions. If the redshirt gets killed just put the right amount of matter into the transporter and...BINGO...Mr. Redshirt is back exactly as he was when you took the trace.

c) Run short of shuttlecraft? No problem - convert any matter into them. Starships? Same approach.

Yes the examples get silly, but it is another example of how "miracle" tech can create merry hobb for writers.

I may not have cared for the "soapiness", but one thing that NuBSG had going for it was its tech did not create these types of issues.

Yeah, that's the problem with miracle tech. Situations often need to be contrived and usually have absolutely no basis for even being a "problem" per se when the tech exists to circumvent and easily solve the problem. I've often sat through a TNG episode wondering why they don't just use the transporter to fix their medical and technological issues.

IMO, it would take real genius writing to work within the confines of miracle tech. I would love to see time travel and transporter technology used to their full, logical potential without contriving nonsense problems but combined with some brilliant writing to create problems within that confine rather than dumbing down the tech whenever it suits the plot.

 

[Joelist]

Um...what goal posts? What I was pointing out was that we have no evidence that either Rory or Amy's going back created a different timeline. It is all part of the same time line and is the one River had already lived.

Could the TARDIS have conceivably gone back to a different location in a similar time (say six months later) and retrieved them? Probably. But that is exactly what my little missive about "miracle" technology was about. The Tardis lets us go anywhere and anywhen and as such no decisions have lasting consequences anymore because all we have to do is shift a bit in distance and/or time and they can be undone. Without some type of plot device to "permanize" choices we don't have a show, and as such I can accept the "damaged fabric" canard for what it is - a way to make the decisions of the characters have meaning.

This is a place actually where another one of Russell T Davies bad decisions comes back to bite us - the extinction of the Time Lords. In Classic Who (I started watching in Baker as well and have viewed both Pertwee and Troughton too), had the Doctor attempted to go back to get Amy and Rory the TARDIS cloister bells would have gone off and he would have been arrested by the Time Lords for violating the laws of time - and the Time Lords would have put Amy and Rory right back in the past because as it turned out that was always where they were to end up. IIRC there was a Classic Who story that actually had this element come up in dialog - the Doctor was asked about changing an event but declined as it would violate the laws of time.

In Classic Who the Time Lords served an important purpose - they were the plot device that let the show have time travel without opening things up to the issues you and I are discussing. In New Who there is no such device sitting consistently in the background so the writers are forced to devise things as they go to still make character choices meaningful.

 

[Joelist]

Bluce is correct by the way about the Time Lords - I mistakenly called them a race and they are actually the "order" within the Gallifreyan people that the Doctor is a member of. Thanks for setting that straight sir - my language was imprecise.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Um...what goal posts? What I was pointing out was that we have no evidence that either Rory or Amy's going back created a different timeline. It is all part of the same time line and is the one River had already lived.

Could the TARDIS have conceivably gone back to a different location in a similar time (say six months later) and retrieved them? Probably. But that is exactly what my little missive about "miracle" technology was about. The Tardis lets us go anywhere and anywhen and as such no decisions have lasting consequences anymore because all we have to do is shift a bit in distance and/or time and they can be undone. Without some type of plot device to "permanize" choices we don't have a show, and as such I can accept the "damaged fabric" canard for what it is - a way to make the decisions of the characters have meaning.

This is a place actually where another one of Russell T Davies bad decisions comes back to bite us - the extinction of the Time Lords. In Classic Who (I started watching in Baker as well and have viewed both Pertwee and Troughton too), had the Doctor attempted to go back to get Amy and Rory the TARDIS cloister bells would have gone off and he would have been arrested by the Time Lords for violating the laws of time - and the Time Lords would have put Amy and Rory right back in the past because as it turned out that was always where they were to end up. IIRC there was a Classic Who story that actually had this element come up in dialog - the Doctor was asked about changing an event but declined as it would violate the laws of time.

I recall two episodes from the new series. When Rose Tyler wanted to stop her dad from getting killed by a car and when the Doctor had to die. In the Rose story, they ended up fracturing reality. In the second story, the Doctor replaced himself with a robot. If his death was a fixed point in time, simply replacing himself with a robot wouldn't delete a paradox because his existence following that event continue to affect time.

In Classic Who the Time Lords served an important purpose - they were the plot device that let the show have time travel without opening things up to the issues you and I are discussing. In New Who there is no such device sitting consistently in the background so the writers are forced to devise things as they go to still make character choices meaningful.

Very good point. I hadn't considered that but it's actually quite true.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Bluce is correct by the way about the Time Lords - I mistakenly called them a race and they are actually the "order" within the Gallifreyan people that the Doctor is a member of. Thanks for setting that straight sir - my language was imprecise.

*sigh*

I just realized I'm a bigger nerd than I ever thought possible.