The Angels Take Manhattan
Sep. 29th, 2012 09:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcWow. That was just ... wow.
I don't know if I should be writing this now, I'm still emotionally drained. First Rory was going to sacrifice himself, then Amy went with him, then they survived, then...
But before all that we got the Doctor reading his book. (Actually before that we got Weeping Statue of Liberty, a concept I expected to come up, but not in the pre-credits.) The Doctor's fondness of Melody Malone (yowza!) and his embarrassment over this was nicely played, and distracted attention from who she was (which, in retrospect, was obvious; she was using her real name and everything!)
I'm still not clear on exactly how married the Doctor and River are, but they certainly seem to enjoy acting like it. And her attempt to convince the Doctor that a) she wasn't hurt and b) she'd changed history from the book was nicely played.
(Strictly speaking though, it surely doesn't matter if she breaks her wrist or not; the timeline was fixed when she had the conversation with the Doctor, since that was the bit Amy read.)
If I was to criticise the episode at this point, it would be that between the Doctor freaking over the end of River's book, and her advice to Amy about how he hates endings, it was rather beating you over the head with "Last Pond story, isn't that sad?" long before we got to the bit where we actually lose the Ponds and it's sad. We know.
Rory, meanwhile, gets displaced in space not time. The idea of the Angels having a time-energy farm full of people who'd been sent back in time was an interesting one. It wasn't explored to the extent where I could see how it actually worked (if they keep sending people back in time, how come the two victims we see have only gone back one lifetime, same as normal?) but it was an interesting idea.
Rory's idea to create a paradox by killing himself was clever, and I loved his "When don't I?" when Amy asked if he thought he'd just come back to life. And he's right ... and then the Angels send him back in time anyway.
A lovely touch is that the Doctor either can't or won't get Amy's decision to follow him, the final refutation of "I love you more than you love me", but River does. And then it takes about ten minutes for the Doctor to realise that, while he's lost his friends, she's lost her parents.
(Or has she? Can the vortex manipulator still nip through paradox-space traffic even though it's now completely jammed from the TARDIS's point of view?)
So it's a sad ending because Amy and Rory are dead, but not a tragic one because they died in their 80s after a long life together. And then the Doctor finally goes back for Amelia Pond, which was nice.
Clever bit: Amy's afterword is presumably "The Final Farewell of Amelia Pond"; the chapter that the Doctor freaked out over. Although ... the Doctor says he can never return to New York, then the TARDIS is clearly in flight, and then ... he goes back to New York? That's a bit of a plot hole, isn't it?
Like I said, bit of a roller coaster, emotionally drained. I'm almost glad there wasn't a proper Next Time for the Christmas episode, because I honestly don't think I could have reacted to anything further.
I don't know if I should be writing this now, I'm still emotionally drained. First Rory was going to sacrifice himself, then Amy went with him, then they survived, then...
But before all that we got the Doctor reading his book. (Actually before that we got Weeping Statue of Liberty, a concept I expected to come up, but not in the pre-credits.) The Doctor's fondness of Melody Malone (yowza!) and his embarrassment over this was nicely played, and distracted attention from who she was (which, in retrospect, was obvious; she was using her real name and everything!)
I'm still not clear on exactly how married the Doctor and River are, but they certainly seem to enjoy acting like it. And her attempt to convince the Doctor that a) she wasn't hurt and b) she'd changed history from the book was nicely played.
(Strictly speaking though, it surely doesn't matter if she breaks her wrist or not; the timeline was fixed when she had the conversation with the Doctor, since that was the bit Amy read.)
If I was to criticise the episode at this point, it would be that between the Doctor freaking over the end of River's book, and her advice to Amy about how he hates endings, it was rather beating you over the head with "Last Pond story, isn't that sad?" long before we got to the bit where we actually lose the Ponds and it's sad. We know.
Rory, meanwhile, gets displaced in space not time. The idea of the Angels having a time-energy farm full of people who'd been sent back in time was an interesting one. It wasn't explored to the extent where I could see how it actually worked (if they keep sending people back in time, how come the two victims we see have only gone back one lifetime, same as normal?) but it was an interesting idea.
Rory's idea to create a paradox by killing himself was clever, and I loved his "When don't I?" when Amy asked if he thought he'd just come back to life. And he's right ... and then the Angels send him back in time anyway.
A lovely touch is that the Doctor either can't or won't get Amy's decision to follow him, the final refutation of "I love you more than you love me", but River does. And then it takes about ten minutes for the Doctor to realise that, while he's lost his friends, she's lost her parents.
(Or has she? Can the vortex manipulator still nip through paradox-space traffic even though it's now completely jammed from the TARDIS's point of view?)
So it's a sad ending because Amy and Rory are dead, but not a tragic one because they died in their 80s after a long life together. And then the Doctor finally goes back for Amelia Pond, which was nice.
Clever bit: Amy's afterword is presumably "The Final Farewell of Amelia Pond"; the chapter that the Doctor freaked out over. Although ... the Doctor says he can never return to New York, then the TARDIS is clearly in flight, and then ... he goes back to New York? That's a bit of a plot hole, isn't it?
Like I said, bit of a roller coaster, emotionally drained. I'm almost glad there wasn't a proper Next Time for the Christmas episode, because I honestly don't think I could have reacted to anything further.
