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

[Kruezerman]

Because he is already dead of old age in that timeline. They cant change that now. The Gravestone places him dead THERE at 86 years of age. The Doctor cant alter it, it would create another paradox. How would they know to go get him without the gravestone, but there would be no grave if they went and got him.

Except that all they and we know is there's a stone with their names on it. There's zero proof that they're under it. And even if there was, that just means they'd need to hold the funeral there.

It's no more a definite finality than the Doctor's gravestone in Revelation Of The Daleks was.

That's a good idea. It'd be interesting how this plays out. The ending disappointed me.

 

[RoJoHen]

So the next episode won't be until the Christmas Special, correct? Do we know much about that yet? I would love for it to be a Doctor/River episode.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

That's an interesting theory, Psion. It might also go to explaining the lack of mention of the events of The Miracle. On the other hand, if they pull that, it would lead to the inevitable comparison to the dream season of Dallas.

According to Moffat:

the final shot in Saturday's The Angels Take Manhattan is a punchline I have been waiting to tell for two and a half years.

My goodness what does that mean?! Psion is freaking me out now. I mean it's a lovely ending but "punchline" seems to indicate more than that.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I don't think it's supposed to be a dream (I'm not entirely sure it would even make sense). But it makes sense that Amy's fascination with the Raggedy Man comes from more than one encounter.

 

[The Wormhole]

So the next episode won't be until the Christmas Special, correct? Do we know much about that yet? I would love for it to be a Doctor/River episode.

Spoiler: Some might consider this a spoiler.

It's set in Victorian times and the Doctor teams up with Madame Vastra and Jenny to fight an alien villain played by Richard E Grant. Oh, and I thnk I heard something about a new companion named Clara...

 

[Mr. Adventure]

That's an interesting theory, Psion. It might also go to explaining the lack of mention of the events of The Miracle. On the other hand, if they pull that, it would lead to the inevitable comparison to the dream season of Dallas.

According to Moffat:

the final shot in Saturday's The Angels Take Manhattan is a punchline I have been waiting to tell for two and a half years.

My goodness what does that mean?! Psion is freaking me out now. I mean it's a lovely ending but "punchline" seems to indicate more than that.

If nothing else, the Moff's propensity for clever twisty stuff makes the viewers second-guess everything.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

So the next episode won't be until the Christmas Special, correct? Do we know much about that yet? I would love for it to be a Doctor/River episode.

Spoiler: Some might consider this a spoiler.

It's set in Victorian times and the Doctor teams up with Madame Vastra and Jenny to fight an alien villain played by Richard E Grant. Oh, and I thnk I heard something about a new companion named Clara...

WHAT! I watched the "next xmas" preview but I didn't see that.

I am very happy.

 

[The Wormhole]

It wasn't in the trailer, but the spoilers are out there.

 

[Australis]

Hey anytone have any thoughts about this, very first shot from Angels:

Is that what I think it is?

 

[Ghost Bones]

Hey anytone have any thoughts about this, very first shot from Angels:

Is that what I think it is?

What is it? Have you spotted Waldo?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

A ship? UP in the SKY?

 

[PorthosShadow]

A ship? UP in the SKY?

The Cloverfield monster, maybe?

 

[TyberiusDeAngelo]

Can someone please help me better understand this: At the end of the episode when The Doctor goes back to see little Amelia waiting in the yard, doest that mean she had always known The Doctor was indeed coming back and she was just playing upset he left for all those years? I was confused about that bit.

 

[The Wormhole]

Hey anytone have any thoughts about this, very first shot from Angels:

Is that what I think it is?

Based on your comments in the other thread, you believe the two towers in this shot are the World Trade Centre. How we know it's not.

-The Twin Towers were practically identical, though one was shorter. Those two buildings are very different. One looks gray, the other blue. The left one has a completely different roof than the right, the Twin Towers had identical roofs.

-This shot would have been taken when the production crew were in New York earlier this year, which would make it kind of impossible to get any kind of image of the WTC.

EDIT: Just checked in from the other thread. Apparentally, that's the new Freedom Tower under costruction where the WTC was.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Except that all they and we know is there's a stone with their names on it. There's zero proof that they're under it. And even if there was, that just means they'd need to hold the funeral there.

It's no more a definite finality than the Doctor's gravestone in Revelation Of The Daleks was.

To be fair, it's been shown since the beginning of the new series (and it was hinted before that) that the Doctor has some kind of "time sense" that makes him perceive paradoxes, time shifts and other phenomenons. That's good enough for me: he saw the names on the stone, and he recognized that as a fixed point in time, and Bob's your uncle.

 

[JRoss]

Great until the end of the end. The angel popping up at the last seemed too contrived and Amy's end was a lot like Sally Sparrow's friend's end.

 

[Samurai8472]

If that was the case, why didn't they time travel to 1930's New Jersey at the end and just walk on over to Manhattan and get Rory? The reason they didn't is because the Doctor AND River said it would create a paradox which would "destroy New York".

Because he is already dead of old age in that timeline. They cant change that now. The Gravestone places him dead THERE at 86 years of age. The Doctor cant alter it, it would create another paradox. How would they know to go get him without the gravestone, but there would be no grave if they went and got him.

On top of the paradox already in play with them jumping, the new one would blow a hole in space time. Maybe the size of Belgium.

We're talking about a show where the doctor HAD to die but he used a robot in his place to make it looked like he died.


The Doctor could pick up Rory and replace him with a robot. The Robot would function till it reaches 86 years old.

The tesselecta crew would then leave now that their job is done.

 

[Trubinator]

Geronimo. The episode served as an excellent goodbye for Amy and was just generally done very well! Couldn't have asked for much more really.

 

[Starkers]

So that's the end of the Amelia Pond era. There was a distinctly fairy-tale quality to most of the episodes, and now I'm wondering how much of what we saw was stuff that actually happened and how much was the story the Doctor told little Amelia when he went back. Did the Doctor really travel with Amy and Rory, or was it all just a tale told to a little girl?

Throughout the fifth season, I wondered if the show was actually taking place in Amy's imagination. There was the timing glitch in "Victory of the Daleks" where Bracewell's plans for an oxygen/gravity bubble and blaster rays were implemented on Spitfires and launched into space in a mere twenty-two minutes. The story-book improbable Starwhale and its kindness towards children. That staple of children's nightmares, vampires. A history lesson in a visit with a great artist and the sad tragedy of a misunderstood monster. And through it all, that crack in time and the goofiness of the "Big Bang".

I will be very impressed if Moffat planned all this from "The Eleventh Hour". If he always intended the whole thing to loop back on that one scene with Amelia waiting and the subterfuge that led us all to believe it was just a dream.

If this is the case, who knows how much of what we've seen so far of Doctor Eleven has been real? Maybe he never came back for Amy and Rory twelve years later. Maybe he never married River Song.

The eleventh Doctor might be a different person when he's not telling tales about himself.

It's just idle speculation. I'm probably wrong. But if the Doctor seems more serious in the rest of the season; if he seems somehow more constrained by reality; if he never again mentions the Ponds or his marriage to River Song, the explanation just might have something to do with a Timelord filling a little girl's head with whimsical stories like a crazy old grandfather.

Have to say I thought there was something bigger going on in S5 as well, as well as the Spitfire stuff, there was also the speed with which a handful of people set up a village wide CCTV system in the first Silurian episode, and I did wonder if none of it was real...actually I think it was just somewhat shoddy writing/production in both cases.

 

[Trubinator]

So that's the end of the Amelia Pond era. There was a distinctly fairy-tale quality to most of the episodes, and now I'm wondering how much of what we saw was stuff that actually happened and how much was the story the Doctor told little Amelia when he went back. Did the Doctor really travel with Amy and Rory, or was it all just a tale told to a little girl?

Throughout the fifth season, I wondered if the show was actually taking place in Amy's imagination. There was the timing glitch in "Victory of the Daleks" where Bracewell's plans for an oxygen/gravity bubble and blaster rays were implemented on Spitfires and launched into space in a mere twenty-two minutes. The story-book improbable Starwhale and its kindness towards children. That staple of children's nightmares, vampires. A history lesson in a visit with a great artist and the sad tragedy of a misunderstood monster. And through it all, that crack in time and the goofiness of the "Big Bang".

I will be very impressed if Moffat planned all this from "The Eleventh Hour". If he always intended the whole thing to loop back on that one scene with Amelia waiting and the subterfuge that led us all to believe it was just a dream.

If this is the case, who knows how much of what we've seen so far of Doctor Eleven has been real? Maybe he never came back for Amy and Rory twelve years later. Maybe he never married River Song.

The eleventh Doctor might be a different person when he's not telling tales about himself.

It's just idle speculation. I'm probably wrong. But if the Doctor seems more serious in the rest of the season; if he seems somehow more constrained by reality; if he never again mentions the Ponds or his marriage to River Song, the explanation just might have something to do with a Timelord filling a little girl's head with whimsical stories like a crazy old grandfather.

Have to say I thought there was something bigger going on in S5 as well, as well as the Spitfire stuff, there was also the speed with which a handful of people set up a village wide CCTV system in the first Silurian episode, and I did wonder if none of it was real...actually I think it was just somewhat shoddy writing/production in both cases.

That would be really interesting if it were true ... and also cheap and unfulfilling. If seasons 5, 6 and 7 were all essentially stories told to Amelia, everything that happened would be meaningless and therefore unsatisfying. I don't think that's what Moffat intended and I certainly don't think the BBC would want that kind of story told to its audience.