[Contains Spoilers]
“Flesh and Stone”, the second part of the two-part story by Steven Moffat featuring his Weeping Angels wasn’t all I was hoping it would be. I do believe this is the first time that I wasn’t excited about a Steven Moffat two-parter. Some setups from the first part just didn’t pan out, and while we did finally get some Weeping Angel action, it wasn’t enough to save the episode. And the ending, that was just wrong. But I am really starting to like Matt Smith’s interpretation of the Doctor with this incarnation.
First, let’s get the not-so-good stuff out of the way. I was really hoping for more from the whole “eyes are not a window, but a door” set-up from the first part, but it just turned out to be a way to torture Amy and get the Doctor really mad, because Amy is being tortured. Another I really didn’t like was the retconning of the Angels to make this “eyes are a door” thing work. Amy wasn’t supposed to look in the eyes of an Angel, or else it gets stuck in there visual cortex, giving the angel the power to take her over and kill her. So, what about Sally Sparrow and all the times she stared at an Angel? Are they just going to say it was never in the eyes? Right…cause that’s not the first place you’re drawn too, espcially with pupil-less eyes. I know torturing the companion is right for writers on Doctor Who, it just didn’t pan out this time for me.
The Angels started on the move, and started to look more like their old selves, but it wasn’t until at least the middle, maybe more into the third act before they really started acting like the angels from Blink. Their best moment was when Amy had to walk past them and make them think she could see. The moments of the camera hitting the Angel, then away, then back to the angel, then away, and then the angel’s head moved, that was what I wanted to see more of. That’s what makes the Weeping Angels scary, the fact that you never know when they are going to move. There were some flashing lights with them moving in the darkness as well, but forest scenes were the best.
Even though we’ve seen glimpses of the Doctor’s temper in “The Beast Below”, this episode shows just how angry he can get. It’s not the “I’m superior to you, so why are you all so stupid?!” kind of anger as the 6th Doctor portrayed. It’s more of a rage that runs underneath and then bubbles to the surface. It’s his most human quality in this regeneration. He gets angry, not when people are doing stupid things (he expects that I think from humans), but when he is stuck in a situation that he can’t immediately find an answer to. In this episode, it’s trying to save Amy from the Weeping Angels. The more impossible it seems, the more angry he gets. I think this is a very interesting aspect to the Doctor we haven’t seen. We’ve seen him as crotchety, as in the 1st and 5th Doctors, the 3rd and 6th were more superiority complexes, but for the 11th, there are some real anger management issues that may need to be addressed.
And the end of this episode, was just so unnecessary. I had more respect for Amy before she tried to jump the Doctor’s bones. While she’s not as bad as Rose or Martha, and I can see where Moffat is coming from in writing the scene, I just really didn’t care for it. I’d really like for the Doctor and Amy to stay as platonic friends, and not become a one-night stand just because Amy had a bad day or is on a time-traveling bachelorette party. Good reaction from the Doctor though.
Next episode is a location shot on Venice, with a new monster to face. While vampires aren’t new, hopefully this version will be.
