7X05 The Angels Take Manhattan (Grading/Discussion) (SPOILERS!)

[Timelord_Victorious]

Why the Angels are not moving once no more characters are looking at them sometimes just shows that they are innately sort of meta characters themselves. The audience in front of the TV counts as an observer. YOU are still watching them until the camera cuts away of course.

If not for that mean an-image-of-an-angel-becomes-an-angel-trick this would be a way to imprison them effectively.
Point a videocamera at them and leave it running. At the end of the day watch the whole day in fast forward. Even though no real person was watching it at the time, you are now and the Angel shouldn't be able to move because of that.

[Orac Zen]

teacake wrote:

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But they didn't die.They went into the past and lived into their 80's.

...and then they died. Having lived the majority of their lives in another country (presumably), in their past, without their families and friends, their daughter (rarely as they ever mentioned her) or the Doctor.

For me, that isn't an entirely positive scenario. They had each other (which I really like - I'd envisioned one or the other dying and the other living miserably ever after so this was something of a plus), but they lost pretty much everything else. And regardless of timey wimey wibbly wobbly stuff, they're effectively gone for good. The Doctor made it clear he'd never see them again and I'd be surprised if that didn't apply to River as well (never mind everyone else). So...yeah. Not happy, Jan. But as ever, to each their own.

[davejames]

StCoop wrote:

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So you can't go back to New York in 1938? Go to London and send them some plane tickets.

Or leave a message for them in an earlier year. Or send someone else to pick them up...

Although I guess it's possible that even interacting or communicating with them in some way could be dangerous and could upset the timeline.

So the Doctor can just dish out regeneration energy to heal people whenever he likes? Aren't there a couple of thousand times in the past fifty years of stories when that might have come in handy?

Well this could be an ability that just recently developed in him, or that he just recently honed. Or maybe it's because River once had the same Timelord energy herself, so she's more conducive to it.

[ROBE]

Remember their was an image of the Statue of Liberty in the lift that the victim rides up in, it could be a projected image of the real Liberty?

[Mister Fandango]

davejames wrote:

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Or leave a message for them in an earlier year. Or send someone else to pick them up...

Although I guess it's possible that even interacting or communicating with them in some way could be dangerous and could upset the timeline.

That's exactly it. I really don't know how so many people aren't getting this, considering the Doctor was ranting about it the entire episode. It's why he got so upset about Amy reading ahead, why he was angry that River broke her wrist, and why he was devastated when he realized what room he was in where Rory died. He also went and flat-out told us that causing another paradox would be disastrous...

I mean, what more did they have to do to make you (the collective you, not you personally, davejames) understand this? They already beat you over the head with it.

[ROBE]

He was able to give 10 years of his life to the TARDIS in the Cybus Universe.
Maybe it only works for TARDIS and Timelords?
Also he may have knocked 10 years or more from this current life.

[davejames]

ROBE wrote:

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Remember their was an image of the Statue of Liberty in the lift that the victim rides up in, it could be a projected image of the real Liberty?

Yeah, but as we saw before, when the angels are a projected image they appear more like a ghost or hologram.

I'm almost certain that Moffat intended the Statue of Liberty in this episode to be the actual Statue of Liberty.

[ROBE]

Maybe it can teleport and then walk around the building?

[YellowSubmarine]

Loved it. The setting in stone is probably my favourite example of time travel rules done wonderfully, and the most sinister bit in the entire episode. The concept felt as realistic as hell, yet truly frightening, which made it all the better. And it's the way I always imagined time travel dynamics, although I guess one might call it too simplistic.

Oh, and it's my favourite appearance of the Statue of Liberty since Cloverfield.

Excellent sound work as well.

[doubleohfive]

Just finished watching. Certainly an emotional moment there at the end when Rory and Amy take that leap, and the Doctor trying to convince Amy not to blink... but I'm not sure how I feel about it all.

I definitely think it was more style over substance for the episode, and a lot of it was filler to get to the final five minutes, which is something I have an issue with when it comes to Moffat's later offerings here; Too, I'm not sure I buy all the logic in the episode.

It's kind of like when Spike was incinerated in the series finale of Buffy The Vampire Slayer -- we all basically knew he'd be back on Angel the next season, so it didn't really carry much weight or have me on the edge of my seat. And while the Doctor says he'll "never be able to see them again," I think that's just code for "...unless we come up with a nifty idea!" (which is of course the purview of every writer)... still, I don't know that I see the need for the Ponds' exit to have been manufactured the way it was.

Another major issue obviously centers on Rory being so much of a lesser companion in the eyes of the writers, very obviously marginalized throughout his tenure. Yes, he was on for most of Amy's run, but just like last week, this episode wrapped up Amy's story. "This is the story of Amelia Pond, and this is how it ends." -- as if the Doctor shouldn't also go back and see Rory, or tell Rory's dad what happened or as if Rory doesn't even deserve a send-off after the last 32 episodes.

Ironically, the presentation of Rory and Amy, now that I think about it, isn't too far removed from how the Star Trek fans doing fan films write their characters -- mostly as reactive instead of proactive. Sure, Rory's predicament was the crux for his ultimate fate but also Amy's - it wasn't anything they did or didn't do that got them in the situation, Amy's fate ultimately boiled down to Rory's fate by extension. And yeah, you can chalk it up to Amy "choosing love" over the Doctor, the same emotional and story points could have been hit in much less clumsy ways. What if the whole thing had been inadvertently caused by something the Doctor did? And instead of him running around like a manic fool trying to solve it, he could be trying to solve it to make up for his error and his asking Amy to stay and to wait would have been a real nail-biter for her (and for us.) And then in the end she still chooses Rory over the Doctor, that would have been something. As it is, she chooses Rory and they get to live their lives out, but she also gets to have the Doctor come and visit her as a child (which to our knowledge previously hadn't happened.) And while all this "I choose love!" can be done well dramatically and in a way I can believe (I'm looking at you, Jin and Sun Kwon), I just didn't really buy it in this episode beyond their leap off the roof of the Winter Quay. (EDIT: I mean, come on. I just re-watched that video from LOST and I haven't seen it since the DVDs came out two years ago, and I'm already more of a wreck at that than anything I saw tonight in "The Angels Take Manhattan.")

In many ways, the "fairy tale" arc from series 5 was perfect and could have been a great little exit for Rory and Amy, but I get why they didn't do that... after the unevenness of series 6 and the hodge-podge usage of them in these five episodes, it just seems like it wasn't altogether well thought out.

Pluses:

-River Song managed to not irritate the shit out of me in this one, and managed to also not utter her now tired tag-line "Spoilers!" like she always does.

-River revealing that she's been pardoned and thereby not sitting in prison for no reason any more. At least there's that.

-The writers managed to not have Amy say "Glasses. I wear glasses now. Glasses are cool," playing on the Doctor's bit about bow-ties from series 5 (and which fandom has whored out endlessly since)

-Mike McShane! Friar Tuck was fucking around with the Angels! THat was a nice bit of casting.

There were some great one liners in this one too, among them:

AMY: You'll die!
RORY: Don't I always?

RIVER: Ah! Wherever it is, it's within a few blocks. There's a car out front. Should we steal it?

THE DOCTOR: But to create a paradox, like that, takes almost unimaginable power. What have we got, eh? Tell me. Come on.
AMY: I won't let them take him. That's what we've got.

RORY: I always wanted to visit the Statue of Liberty. I guess she got impatient.

I've had my issues with them, and I'm sorry to see them go, but Rory and Amy deserved, I think, a better exit than this.

In summation: Filler till an overly manufactured (and if we're nitpicking, nonsensical) final five minutes. Some emotional stuff, absolutely, but almost unearned.

[Starkers]

Contrived, didn't completely make sense, basically ended how I'd imagined it would and was effectively Blink 2...

And I absofuckinglutely loved every second of it (Except maybe the Liberty bits, which were cool but made no sense on any level!)

Didn't cry but came close and dang if I didn't have shivers going down my spine during the fall, and then the end.

I guess now we'll have to wait and see whether Moffat has more courage in his convictions over Amy than RTD did over Wose.

[VDCNI]

Mister Fandango wrote:

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That's exactly it. I really don't know how so many people aren't getting this, considering the Doctor was ranting about it the entire episode. It's why he got so upset about Amy reading ahead, why he was angry that River broke her wrist, and why he was devastated when he realized what room he was in where Rory died. He also went and flat-out told us that causing another paradox would be disastrous...

I mean, what more did they have to do to make you (the collective you, not you personally, davejames) understand this? They already beat you over the head with it.

Because it's technobabble and essentially meaningless and Moffatt has gone to the time travel well too many times and every time the 'rules' seem to be different.

Probably why pretty much every other writer in Who history has kept the time travel vague and stayed away from making it the centre of the plot but Moffatt can't help himself.

[Timelord_Victorious]

Just rewatched it.

I looked for why Rory went back to the gravestone.

It wasn't so arbitrary as some people here make it out to be.

He walked past the stone and he seemed irritated by something he saw out of the corner of his eye and went back there because it kept bugging him.

I can easily imagine doing the same thing if I walked past my "own" gravestone, or even just one with my exact name on it, without realizing it right away.

[Starkers]

^Yeah I don't see why people have a problem with this. Time itself kept drawing them back to the graveyard, why is it such a stretch that time itself would draw them towards a particular gravestone?

[Lonemagpie]

And even if the TARDIS can "never visit NY again lest it bugger the timelines" even though the paradox got rid of the distortions - there are regular modes of transport to in and out of the city... Easy enough to set up an appointment elsewhere!

"Come on Rory, get those gravestones set up, then we've got to catch the boat to London, and we'll send him a postcard..."

And they never did say where the book came from.