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

[StCoop]

Personally, from what I've seen on this forum alone, the vast majority of people who piss and moan about the show are the ones who clearly and painfully weren't paying any attention whatsoever to what was actually going on. And even when the actual story of what was going on is pointed out to them, it flies right past their heads just so they can keep ranting and raving like loons.

The typical response of the Moffat Fan. "You're all too stupid to understand his Genius."

So how did the Statue Of Liberty wander around Manhattan without anyone noticing, or it being constantly stopped by people looking at it? Use only information contained in the episode itself while answering.

How does not being able to visit New York in 1938 stop the Doctor rescuing Amy and Rory in any one of a dozen other ways? Actually make it two dozen since River must be able to visit them whenever she wants in order to drop off her book manuscript. Use only information contained in the episode itself while answering.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I was disappointed with Rory's departure and the abruptness of it. I realize that Moffat's era has been thus far about Amy and Rory has always been something of an afterthought, but I've honestly preferred Rory as a character to Amy and the lack of a good-bye moment for Rory sits uneasily with me.

I think I would have liked to see the Doctor go back and visit Rory as a little boy, in parallel to the Amelia flashback, to say good-bye.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

My DW viewing friends and I think otherwise. One particular friend pretty much nailed it when she said that all too often it feels like Moffat only writes one draft with all the usual inconsistencies of a first draft, but never bothers to do a rewrite. So, his episodes all are bursting with potential, but rarely use it to its fullest.

Personally, from what I've seen on this forum alone, the vast majority of people who piss and moan about the show are the ones who clearly and painfully weren't paying any attention whatsoever to what was actually going on. And even when the actual story of what was going on is pointed out to them, it flies right past their heads just so they can keep ranting and raving like loons.

Yeah, right.

Okay, here's my favorite example of Moffat inconsistencies, and as chance will have it, it's about the Angels:

The threat of the Angels in "Blink" is resolved by having the Angels face each other and therefore never be able to move again. This means they cannot move when they are seen, not ever. Ergo, they must feel when they are seen, since you feel it wether you can move or not. It is not a conscious decision not to move, but a physical reaction of their bodies.
In the "The Time of Angels" two-parter, Amy had to fool the Angels into believing she could still see them, although she couldn't. If them not being able to move is a physical reaction rather than a conscious decision, they should not have been fooled by that.

As rules on the Angels go, Moffat only had one single episode to consider, which he wrote himself, and the fact he had to remember was the resolving thing about that prior episode. And he still managed to contradict this fact. I'm writing fiction myself, and I gotta tell you, you gotta be either incredibly stupid or incredibly lazy to make such a mistake. As we all know, Moffat is not stupid, he's actually pretty smart.

And that makes it even more frustrating. The knowledge that he could do better.

Say what you want about RTD, but at least he never contradicted himself.

And speaking of self-delusion...

"The Doctor really is the last of the Timelords!" <The Master shows up> "Well, okay, maybe not the last, but it's just those two!" <Gallifrey shows up in orbit> "Well, my fanboys will continue to say I never contradict myself!" <The Daleks wave from the sidelines> "Fuck."

He contradicted the Doctor, not himself. The Doctor didn't know about the Master surviving, or Rassilon's scheme to bring Gallifrey back from the past, when he made his statements of being the last.

The Daleks may always have been brought back through some kinda miracle, but at least RTD had always an explanation for that. The explanations may have been pretty far out, but he never went as far as "Winston Churchill had the Daleks rebuild."

 

[StCoop]

And here's another good question.

How could the Doctor go back and visit young Amy from "The Eleventh Hour" when the timeline those scenes took place in doesn't exist any more. There never was an Amelia sitting on her suitcase in her garden once she got her parents back. That was kind of the whole point of the end of "The Pandorica Opens".

Anyone remember who wrote that episode?

 

[Captain Crow]

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.

^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?

Unfortunately, that's not how the scene comes across. Darvill's glance to the side looks more like he's looking at a bird flying past or a squirrel skittering around in the distance rather than the gravestone he's passing. His weird low IQ line delivery during the "look my name" bit doesn't help either. The scence probably would have played better if the gravestone had been in front of him the whole time with him only noticing the name on it when everyone else was getting into the TARDIS and his displacement was done offscreen.

More or less something like this;

Doctor: Let's go to a pub in the TARDIS.

[The Doctor and River go into tha TARDIS with Amy starting to following behind them as Rory notices the name on the grave stone in front of him]

Rory: Hey, this guy had the same name as me.

[Amy turns around]

Amy: Rory come on...

[Rory is now gone with an Angel pointing at where he was]

It's still a contrived way to get rid of Rory but, at least it would have played out a bit smoother than the odd moment of him wandering to look at a gravestone in the opposite direction for no reason that we got.

 

[Starkers]

He can, and he does, as far as I'm concerned.

My DW viewing friends and I think otherwise. One particular friend pretty much nailed it when she said that all too often it feels like Moffat only writes one draft with all the usual inconsistencies of a first draft, but never bothers to do a rewrite. So, his episodes all are bursting with potential, but rarely use it to its fullest.

That's Christopher Bidmead's argument against Moffat's work as well -- it feels like a first draft. To be fair, Moffat's work isn't always a first draft; the next Christmas script went through six drafts and several blown deadlines. But Moffat has said he wants his Doctor Who work to feel like a first draft -- breathless, passionate, running from moment to moment, with no hint as to what's around the next plot twist.

Despite the logic problem of the ending that you can sail a supercarrier through, "Manhattan" didn't feel like a first draft to me. It wasn't as tight as "The Girl in the Fireplace" or "A Study in Pink," but it also wasn't as dangly as Moffat's sixth season work.

I thought Bidmead said that about RTD? Or maybe he just uses it for all modern Who writers? One wonders how many iterations the Logopolis script went through yet still included a scene where the Doctor planned to flood the Tardis in order to flush the Master out, still one of the most ludicrous moments in Who ever!

I'd agree that Angels was one of Moffat's tighter scripts.

My DW viewing friends and I think otherwise. One particular friend pretty much nailed it when she said that all too often it feels like Moffat only writes one draft with all the usual inconsistencies of a first draft, but never bothers to do a rewrite. So, his episodes all are bursting with potential, but rarely use it to its fullest.

Personally, from what I've seen on this forum alone, the vast majority of people who piss and moan about the show are the ones who clearly and painfully weren't paying any attention whatsoever to what was actually going on. And even when the actual story of what was going on is pointed out to them, it flies right past their heads just so they can keep ranting and raving like loons.

Say what you want about RTD, but at least he never contradicted himself.

And speaking of self-delusion...

"The Doctor really is the last of the Timelords!" <The Master shows up> "Well, okay, maybe not the last, but it's just those two!" <Gallifrey shows up in orbit> "Well, my fanboys will continue to say I never contradict myself!" <The Daleks wave from the sidelines> "Fuck."

Or even more appropriately, the whole Rose/alt universe saga. The universes are closed we can never, EVER see each other again...oops yes we can, or the whole Donna "If she remembers her head will explode" malarkey.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

How could the Doctor go back and visit young Amy from "The Eleventh Hour" when the timeline those scenes took place in doesn't exist any more. There never was an Amelia sitting on her suitcase in her garden once she got her parents back. That was kind of the whole point of the end of "The Pandorica Opens".

More importantly, we see in "The Big Bang" that she didn't wait outside all night, as in the time rewind the Doctor went outside, picked her up off the suitcase, put her to bed, and told her a story. In the rebooted universe, she spent the night snug in her bed.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

And here's another good question.

How could the Doctor go back and visit young Amy from "The Eleventh Hour" when the timeline those scenes took place in doesn't exist any more. There never was an Amelia sitting on her suitcase in her garden once she got her parents back. That was kind of the whole point of the end of "The Pandorica Opens".

Anyone remember who wrote that episode?

Wasn't it said that the Pandorica contained the universe "as it was" inside it? So the gambit in that episode relied on there being enough of the original universe, that still exists in the Pandorica, to completely restore said original universe as it was, albeit with Amy "remembering" her parents back into reality at the same time.

The events in the first episode must have happened otherwise why would Amelia's mother mention that they sent her to countless psychiatrists about her obsession with the "Raggedy Doctor", if the Doctor had never visited her in the first place to become obsessed with?

 

[Iamnotspock]

That's Christopher Bidmead's argument against Moffat's work as well -- it feels like a first draft. To be fair, Moffat's work isn't always a first draft; the next Christmas script went through six drafts and several blown deadlines. But Moffat has said he wants his Doctor Who work to feel like a first draft -- breathless, passionate, running from moment to moment, with no hint as to what's around the next plot twist.

I thought Bidmead said that about RTD? Or maybe he just uses it for all modern Who writers? One wonders how many iterations the Logopolis script went through yet still included a scene where the Doctor planned to flood the Tardis in order to flush the Master out, still one of the most ludicrous moments in Who ever!

Yes, that was indeed Bidmead's argument about Russell T Davies, not Moffat. I'm inclined to agree with him (although it's a tad hypocritical!), in that generally speaking I think that label applies much more to Davies than Moffat. That said, last night felt to me in many ways the most "RTD" that Moffat has ever been; the Statue of Liberty being able to go walkabout Ghostbusters II-style without anyone noticing in the city that never sleeps, for example. That kind of "spectacle over plot logic" was very Russell IMHO.

 

[Photoman15]

Who says Amelia's parents aren't asleep in the house (at the end of Manhattan) and she heard the noise of the Tardis and is outside.....

or this is Amy's narration (from the book) and her memory of that night.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Yes, that was indeed Bidmead's argument about Russell T Davies, not Moffat.

Ah, you and Starkers are right. I had the "first draft" critique conflated in my mind with the Bidmead/Moffat feud on Twitter last year where Moffat took umbrage at Bidmead poking fun at his work.

 

[StCoop]

The events in the first episode must have happened otherwise why would Amelia's mother mention that they sent her to countless psychiatrists about her obsession with the "Raggedy Doctor", if the Doctor had never visited her in the first place to become obsessed with?

And yet it's stated in AGMGTW that the first time she and Rory stepped aboard the TARDIS in the current Universe was on their wedding night, meaning that while they remember the events of Series 5 they didn't physically happen to them.

Plus what Alan said above.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

How could the Doctor go back and visit young Amy from "The Eleventh Hour" when the timeline those scenes took place in doesn't exist any more. There never was an Amelia sitting on her suitcase in her garden once she got her parents back. That was kind of the whole point of the end of "The Pandorica Opens".

More importantly, we see in "The Big Bang" that she didn't wait outside all night, as in the time rewind the Doctor went outside, picked her up off the suitcase, put her to bed, and told her a story. In the rebooted universe, she spent the night snug in her bed.

The issue there is that in all of the proceeding scenes of the Doctor traveling backward through his own timeline, we're shown that he couldn't physically be observed by anyone in the those events, due to him traveling in the opposite direction in time to everyone else. It appeared that he also couldn't physically interact with anyone either, which makes it rather odd that he can even pick young Amelia up at the end there.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

And yet it's stated in AGMGTW that the first time she and Rory stepped aboard the TARDIS in the current Universe was on their wedding night, meaning that while they remember the events of Series 5 they didn't physically happen to them.

Yet "A Good Man Goes to War" also tells us that the incident with the Atraxi from "The Eleventh Hour" happened since the Thin/Fat Gay Married Anglican Marines talk about the Doctor calling them back to Earth and scolding them. To be fair, though, Amy and Rory don't set foot in the TARDIS in "The Eleventh Hour" so that's not exactly a discontinuity.

Now I understand why time travel gives Geordi La Forge nosebleeds.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Still thinking the "finality" doesn't work:

They don't even *have* to be buried in NYC - they just *have* to have the gravestone with that inscription placed there. That's *it* - that's all that their "utterly final" fate actually requires. They canl be back if the actors feel like it.

It's what I said about needless arc and hype - if they'd just done the episode and moved on we'd all be thinking "cool, they live out their lives in the past" but by going on about the finality of how they can never see the Doctor again, it just makes us go "but they can if..." Moffat's a great scripter, but their grasp of publicity and guiding the audience is totally borked.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The issue there is that in all of the proceeding scenes of the Doctor traveling backward through his own timeline, we're shown that he couldn't physically be observed by anyone in the those events, due to him traveling in the opposite direction in time to everyone else. It appeared that he also couldn't physically interact with anyone either, which makes it rather odd that he can even pick young Amelia up at the end there.

He physically interacted with Amy twice in the rewind. First, during "The Time of Angels" -- he holds her hands, talks to her, and kisses her on the forehead. Then, when he reaches events from "The Eleventh Hour," he picks her up and puts her in bed. Arguably there's a third time -- he shouts at Amy after events in "The Lodger" and she hears him but can't see him.

If you want an explanation, I'd venture that the closer the Doctor approached "The Eleventh Hour" in his personal timeline, the more physically present he was with the rebooted universe.

 

[Starkers]

That's Christopher Bidmead's argument against Moffat's work as well -- it feels like a first draft. To be fair, Moffat's work isn't always a first draft; the next Christmas script went through six drafts and several blown deadlines. But Moffat has said he wants his Doctor Who work to feel like a first draft -- breathless, passionate, running from moment to moment, with no hint as to what's around the next plot twist.

I thought Bidmead said that about RTD? Or maybe he just uses it for all modern Who writers? One wonders how many iterations the Logopolis script went through yet still included a scene where the Doctor planned to flood the Tardis in order to flush the Master out, still one of the most ludicrous moments in Who ever!

Yes, that was indeed Bidmead's argument about Russell T Davies, not Moffat. I'm inclined to agree with him (although it's a tad hypocritical!), in that generally speaking I think that label applies much more to Davies than Moffat. That said, last night felt to me in many ways the most "RTD" that Moffat has ever been; the Statue of Liberty being able to go walkabout Ghostbusters II-style without anyone noticing in the city that never sleeps, for example. That kind of "spectacle over plot logic" was very Russell IMHO.

well I've always said the two of them aren't that different in that both place story above logic, RTD just dazzles you with bright lights and loud music while Moffat relies on sleight of hand and smoke and mirrors

The issue there is that in all of the proceeding scenes of the Doctor traveling backward through his own timeline, we're shown that he couldn't physically be observed by anyone in the those events, due to him traveling in the opposite direction in time to everyone else. It appeared that he also couldn't physically interact with anyone either, which makes it rather odd that he can even pick young Amelia up at the end there.

He physically interacted with Amy twice in the rewind. First, during "The Time of Angels" -- he holds her hands, talks to her, and kisses her on the forehead. Then, when he reaches events from "The Eleventh Hour," he picks her up and puts her in bed. Arguably there's a third time -- he shouts at Amy after events in "The Lodger" and she hears him but can't see him.

If you want an explanation, I'd venture that the closer the Doctor approached "The Eleventh Hour" in his personal timeline, the more physically present he was with the rebooted universe.

I always figured Amy heard his speech to her while she was sleeping as well, subconsciously at least.

 

[Plain Simple]

It's what I said about needless arc and hype - if they'd just done the episode and moved on we'd all be thinking "cool, they live out their lives in the past" but by going on about the finality of how they can never see the Doctor again, it just makes us go "but they can if..." Moffat's a great scripter, but their grasp of publicity and guiding the audience is totally borked.

That explains things. I haven't been following any hype or whatnot, so I just went with what the episod showed us. It was clear during the episode what they were going for, which was a definite sense of finality, so that's what I went with. And I don't think I've ever seen a time travel story, without the possibility of shooting gaps in it, so I'm not going to be bothered too much by the typical time travel wackiness.

Spoiler: I want to make a comparison with Lost here, but it might be considered a spoiler if you haven't seen that show yet, and still want to.

Perhaps Lost, season 5, came close to doing time travel without plot holes, but they didn't keep that up for the full show, I think.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

The issue there is that in all of the proceeding scenes of the Doctor traveling backward through his own timeline, we're shown that he couldn't physically be observed by anyone in the those events, due to him traveling in the opposite direction in time to everyone else. It appeared that he also couldn't physically interact with anyone either, which makes it rather odd that he can even pick young Amelia up at the end there.

He physically interacted with Amy twice in the rewind. First, during "The Time of Angels" -- he holds her hands, talks to her, and kisses her on the forehead. Then, when he reaches events from "The Eleventh Hour," he picks her up and puts her in bed. Arguably there's a third time -- he shouts at Amy after events in "The Lodger" and she hears him but can't see him.

If you want an explanation, I'd venture that the closer the Doctor approached "The Eleventh Hour" in his personal timeline, the more physically present he was with the rebooted universe.

Ah, good point, I'd forgotten about that. Still, is it possible that it's Amy's memory of events, and not how they actually happened for us the viewers, that's unfolded. Amy's parents and the Doctor were brought back because she remembered them. The events in "The Eleventh Hour" where she was left alone outside all night might be all based off of how she remembered how it happened the first time round.

 

[Admiral2]

Not that great an episode. I didn't cry at the loss of Rory and Amy either time, but I was never in love with either of them anyway, and the Weeping Statue of Liberty was just stupid. No way in hell a skyscraper sized statue changes position from Liberty Island to a couple blocks inland in Manhattan and NOBODY looks at it until it reaches its destination.