Should we be able to see the Weeping Angels move?

[The Wormhole]

I think the story would have worked just fine without the Vashta Nerada 'using the voice of the dead' thing.

Well, I did like the last conversation the Doctor had with the Vashta Nerada, simply because seeing the Doctor getting into a staring match with a skull and winning is truly a badass moment.

I recently learned that one of the upcoming Doctor Who books will center around the Weeping Angels. I might pick it up just to see whether the stone ladies manage to be as creepy on the page as on the screen.

This is the only site where I could find a plot description of that book, which by the way is titled Touched by an Angel and is written by Jonathan Morris. The back cover description:

In 2003, Rebecca Whitaker died in a road accident. Her husband Mark is still grieving. Then he receives a battered envelope, posted eight years ago, containing a set of instructions and a letter with a simple message: "You can save her." Later that night, while picking up a takeaway, Mark glances at a security monitor - to see himself, standing in the restaurant in grainy black and white. And behind him there''s a stone statue of an angel. Covering its eyes, as though weeping... except, when Mark turns, there''s nothing there. As Mark is given the chance to save Rebecca, it''s up to the Doctor, Amy, and Rory to save the world. Because this time the Weeping Angels are using history itself as a weapon... A thrilling, all-new adventure featuring the Doctor, Amy, and Rory, as played by Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and Arthur Darvill in the spectacular hit series from BBC Television.

 

[Hennessy Badger]

^ I love the title!

Thanks for the description. I'll definitely be picking that up when it comes out.

 

[Bacl]

I can't for the life of me understand why they made a two-parter around the weeping angels and then said they no longer kill you by sending you back in time?? Why bother using them then? That was their thing that they did! Not their only thing, but a pretty damn big unique interesting cool thing.

That'd be like having the Borg back after Best of Both worlds and just casually dropping, "Oh, they don't assimilate anymore. They just kill you. But hey, they're still cyborgs! And now we can talk with any of them like they're individuals!"

Groan.

 

[Turbo]

I got the impression that the Angels were simply too weak to kill people by sending them back in time, or that this was a different "breed" of Angels which either didn't do it that way or hadn't evolved that ability yet.

 

[The Wormhole]

I can't for the life of me understand why they made a two-parter around the weeping angels and then said they no longer kill you by sending you back in time?? Why bother using them then? That was their thing that they did! Not their only thing, but a pretty damn big unique interesting cool thing.

That'd be like having the Borg back after Best of Both worlds and just casually dropping, "Oh, they don't assimilate anymore. They just kill you. But hey, they're still cyborgs! And now we can talk with any of them like they're individuals!"

Groan.

That analogy doesn't entirely work. While The Best of Both Worlds was the second appearance of the Borg, it was actually the first time they introduced assimilation. Just watch Q Who, not once is assimilation mentioned. In fact, they even say the Borg were only interested in technology, not people. Assimilation was introduced to make them more interesting as a recurring villain.

In fact, you could say The Best of Both Worlds is for the Borg what The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone is for the Weeping Angels.

 

[RoJoHen]

I can't for the life of me understand why they made a two-parter around the weeping angels and then said they no longer kill you by sending you back in time?? Why bother using them then? That was their thing that they did! Not their only thing, but a pretty damn big unique interesting cool thing.

That'd be like having the Borg back after Best of Both worlds and just casually dropping, "Oh, they don't assimilate anymore. They just kill you. But hey, they're still cyborgs! And now we can talk with any of them like they're individuals!"

Groan.

That analogy doesn't entirely work. While The Best of Both Worlds was the second appearance of the Borg, it was actually the first time they introduced assimilation. Just watch Q Who, not once is assimilation mentioned. In fact, they even say the Borg were only interested in technology, not people. Assimilation was introduced to make them more interesting as a recurring villain.

In fact, you could say The Best of Both Worlds is for the Borg what The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone is for the Weeping Angels.

Eh, barely. BOBW merely expanded upon what we already knew about the Borg. The Doctor Who two-parter treated the Angels like a completely different race.

 

[The Wormhole]

I can't for the life of me understand why they made a two-parter around the weeping angels and then said they no longer kill you by sending you back in time?? Why bother using them then? That was their thing that they did! Not their only thing, but a pretty damn big unique interesting cool thing.

That'd be like having the Borg back after Best of Both worlds and just casually dropping, "Oh, they don't assimilate anymore. They just kill you. But hey, they're still cyborgs! And now we can talk with any of them like they're individuals!"

Groan.

That analogy doesn't entirely work. While The Best of Both Worlds was the second appearance of the Borg, it was actually the first time they introduced assimilation. Just watch Q Who, not once is assimilation mentioned. In fact, they even say the Borg were only interested in technology, not people. Assimilation was introduced to make them more interesting as a recurring villain.

In fact, you could say The Best of Both Worlds is for the Borg what The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone is for the Weeping Angels.

Eh, barely. BOBW merely expanded upon what we already knew about the Borg. The Doctor Who two-parter treated the Angels like a completely different race.

In some ways the Borg of Q Who are different from the Borg of other Treks. After all, in Q Who:

-No assimilation.
-No interest in people, only in technology.
-No central leader.
-Ship has no bridge or command centre.
-Borg are said to be genderless.
-Borg supposedly do reproduce.

All of this was contradicted by later Treks.

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, let's ignore everything Voyager did for the sake of this argument.

If the Angels continue to be a recurring villain in nuWho, they may very well continue to undergo lots and lots of changes too.

But if we're just comparing the first two appearances (Q Who vs. BOBW and Blink vs. Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone), the Borg had a lot less change. In Q Who, the crew made some assumptions about the Borg based on very brief contact with them before Q hurled the Enterprise back home. In Blink, the Doctor, who we trust is an expert on the subject, tells us information about the Angels that we assume to be correct because, well, the Doctor said it.

There really wasn't anything fundamentally different about the Borg. Aside from the "only interested in technology" thing, which I think was an assumption more than anything, they're more or less the same.

 

[Gepard]

^Except it wasn't an assumption. Q flat-out told Picard in no uncertain terms that "[the Borg] have no interest in your life-form" and only want our technology. If the Doctor counts as an expert in this case, surely we have to give the immortal omniscient energy being the same level of credit.

Now, I like the changes they made to the Borg and don't like what's been changed about the Angels, so I don't agree with Moffet's decision either. But I think your argument is a nonstarter.

 

[RoJoHen]

I don't trust Q as far as I can throw him.

Is that good enough of an argument?

 

[The Wormhole]

Guinan also said the Borg were only interested in technology, not people. Given homeworld was lost to the Borg, she would be speaking from experience, not making wild guesses based on current observations, she should count as a reliable source.

 

[RoJoHen]

Okay, fine, but you guys are getting distracted from the point (this is why I usually avoid this forum).

The point I was simply making was that the changes that the Borg underwent between their first and second appearances were minimal compared to the changes the Angels underwent. The Borg assimilate things. They adapt. Those things can be used to explain why there are differences between them when we first met them. So far there is nothing to reconcile the differences between the Angels.

 

[David cgc]

I realize we are just the audience and don't really exist in the Who universe, but it really bothered me in Series 5 when we actually saw the Weeping Angels start to move. The whole point of them is that if ANYONE sees them, they cease to exist. I think it would be a really cool story device if we, the audience, were included in that.

Well, we were. I remember noticing when the episode first aired, the Angels looked really smooth when they moved, as if they were stop-motion or shot at a high shutter speed. And I thought it odd that their natural form still looked like stone, when it was said that they "turned" to stone when seen, not that they just froze up. It took someone on another webpage to point out the missing link...

Than angels were moving while the camera's shutter was closed, between the frames. They looked so smooth because there was no motion blur since they were only moving in the 1/50th second slices where the camera couldn't see them, while it was, well, blinking.

Cool, huh?

I got the impression that the Angels were simply too weak to kill people by sending them back in time, or that this was a different "breed" of Angels which either didn't do it that way or hadn't evolved that ability yet.

I got the opposite impression. The Doctor said they were gouging themselves on radiation from the starliner's reactor. They were, by my understanding, so full that they either couldn't or didn't care to eat up someone's lifetime when they could simply kill them the old-fashioned way.

 

[RoJoHen]

Than angels were moving while the camera's shutter was closed, between the frames. They looked so smooth because there was no motion blur since they were only moving in the 1/50th second slices where the camera couldn't see them, while it was, well, blinking.

Cool, huh?

Interesting.

 

[Thestral]

So far there is nothing to reconcile the differences between the Angels.

What differences? Aside from the "crawl out of your eye" thing I don't recall anything significantly different - certainly no more different than the Borg changes. The "image of an Angel comes to life" actually is a case of Fridge Horror after watching Blink again and wondering where those Angels came from in the first place.

Than angels were moving while the camera's shutter was closed, between the frames. They looked so smooth because there was no motion blur since they were only moving in the 1/50th second slices where the camera couldn't see them, while it was, well, blinking.

I got the opposite impression. The Doctor said they were gouging themselves on radiation from the starliner's reactor. They were, by my understanding, so full that they either couldn't or didn't care to eat up someone's lifetime when they could simply kill them the old-fashioned way.

to both.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

I don't remember it being stated in Time of the Angels that the Angels didn't displace people in time...in fact, when Sacred Bob told The Doctor how the Angels killed the other two soldier clerics, The Doctor said 'That's not how Angels kill.' It makes sense that they were simply gorging themselves on the radiation, but I think they still had/used the time displacement ability. Isn't that what happened to Father Octavian?

 

[The Wormhole]

^^I thought the implication was Father Octavian was killed?

Anyway, fun fact. In early drafts of the script, the book the Doctor and River look over detailing the Angels was originally supposed to be written by one of the soldier-clerics who had been sent back in time by the Angels.

 

[Bacl]

Anyway, fun fact. In early drafts of the script, the book the Doctor and River look over detailing the Angels was originally supposed to be written by one of the soldier-clerics who had been sent back in time by the Angels.

That would have been much more interesting interesting.

What would have been more interesting would have been if they had talked a little more loudly about the fact the native race WHO BUILT THE CATACOMBS had two heads, and we learn the book they are reading from was written by one of the soldiers BEFORE HE GETS SENT BACk, and then...and THEN we see him sent back all the way to the time of the native race and actually see them with two heads talking to him...maybe even a few shots of him looking at two-headed statues as well.

 

[David cgc]

They could've played with things in that episode a few ways. They could've had Angel Bob be a straight-up data-ghost, instead of the icky brainstem thing he ended up being. Mentioned that the Aplans had an unexplained population explosion right before their equally unexplained extinction.

When the episode first came on, I assumed the guy standing dazed in the field at the beginning of the teaser had been displaced by an angel, which would've been cool. Of course, that might've been intentional misdirection.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

^^I thought the implication was Father Octavian was killed?

Anyway, fun fact. In early drafts of the script, the book the Doctor and River look over detailing the Angels was originally supposed to be written by one of the soldier-clerics who had been sent back in time by the Angels.

Well, we didn't see what happened to Octavian so it's not really clear. Interesting idea about the clerics, that would have been cool and more timey-wimey than the episode turned out to be.