Dr Who – Flux IV – Village of the Angels

Following an excellent cliffhanger – and it knows it, because it uses it twice – we are hopefully thrust into a sturdy, claustrophobic nightmare starring everyone’s favourite weeping angels; beings, that, in case you don’t know, can’t move if you’re looking at them, because they are ‘quantum locked’. Plus, if they touch you, you don’t “die”, per se, you are just drawn horribly into your past (leaving your quantum signature for the angels to feast on). So you, as Doc 10 said, “live to death.” Unless your get touched again, because you then turn to ash and die horribly, screaming in agony. LOL LOL.

Well we are quickly introduced to our guest actors, and its nice to see Kevin McNally return to Who, since he starred in The Twin Dilemma way back when. The girl he’s questioning using his lie detector is the one we saw briefly in Ep 1 of this Fluxxing arc, so we’ll get some resolution from that subplot.

And speaking of said ‘plot’. Um; i got a lost a bit with some…well, as with the last one: It suffered from, ‘we don’t really have a plot here’, what we do have is some interesting ideas. I guess the idea is that it was all an elaborate trap for the Doctor.

What i’d like is to try and explain why it bugged me so. It should’ve been amazing, but there are so many little things that REALLY get to me when i start thinking deep down about it. (PEDANTRY WARNING). Like…well, the angels. In Blink, their debut, it was a few of them, and it was, literally, scary as f***. But now – hang on, so they can’t move when observed… so you can’t blink… but everytime Yaz, the Doc or Dan are confronted by them, they all walk backwards and try not to blink. Yes…but wouldn’t it make more sense for one of you to walk forwards and guide them, blinking all they want, and then swap round? Why do ALL THREE of you need to stare at it? And if they are locked when they look at each other, then how do any more than two or three angels get anywhere at all?

HOWEVER. My major gripe. We could never have learned anything of the plot or the machinations of the angels or anything at all, were it not for massive, MASSIVE information dumps and exposition from the Doctor. Every time something major happened, the Doc explained it to us. She tells us what the angels want. she tells us whats going on whenever things get complicated. So theres no sense of satisfaction, no feeling that a plot is unfolding around us.

So sadly the actual dynamic of this episode becomes another build up into the naming of a new enemy, The Division, which somehow ties into the memories the Doctor had stolen from her – i got a little bit excited, because yes that hints at perhaps we will have this lingering plot resolved (i say lingering because its conclusion will tread a rather dangerous line between utter bollocks and genuinely surprising. There won’t be a meh. It will either screw with 60 years canon and push me to chibnallicide, or it will be ‘yeah i accept that. happy now. cheers.’)

Oh and we learn a little bit more about the Passenger things and blue-face makes an appearance, although i’m not entirely sure that scene was required. Hopefully it will be a pay-off later, when Vinder the Unsullied finds his lost love and his unborn child.

The cliffhanger will no doubt greatly affect the new generation of fans which Dr Who is wonderfully growing, and i’ll never begrudge it that.

ADDITIONAL: i’m adding here my thoughts on the MP stating boys have lost their role model because Jodie became the Doctor. This is rot and codswallop. As a boy maybe the Doctor was a role model, but to infer that i didn’t turn to a life of crime because of this is ridiculity. I mean. James Bond was a womanising assassin. Han Solo was a smuggler. If anybody i learnt my honour, truth and justice from another male role model of my childhood.

Yes, thats right. Lion-O.