Picture from the B.B.C.
Liverpool Sound And Vision Rating *****
Cast: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Alex Kingston, Mike McShane, Rob David, Ozzie Yue, Bentley Kalu.
The hype surrounding the final episode of the mini-like series of the seventh new outing of Doctor Who has had the plethora of fan sites working themselves into frenzy since it was announced that one of the best companions, the red-haired and forthright Amy Pond, was going to leave at some point during the current season. The reason is simple, not every-one leaves the Tardis in good circumstances; sometimes they don’t come back at all.
The seventh season of the re-vamped series has seen a darker edge to the Doctor’s persona. A series that has seen the Doctor already condemn a man to death in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and point a gun, much against the ethics of the man, at another alien in A Town Called Mercy. Now Steven Moffat has ramped up the loneliness and darkness of Matt Smith’s tenure in The Angels Take Manhattan by bringing back one of the Doctor’s most incredibly devised enemies since the programme was brought back.
Since The Angels were first brought into the canon of superb villains in the outstanding episode of Blink, they have become one of the most insidious creatures in the Whoniverse, their very nature, the way they have behave has seen them grow in stature to the point where the moment you see the beacon of hope that is The Statue of Liberty with teeth snarling behind Rory you realise that the potential of the Angels has been reached. They will easily sit in the top five lists of great Doctor Who enemies for many, many years and for that Steven Moffat must and will be congratulated.
The addition of Alex Kingston’s returning character, the outrageously brilliant River Song, was a welcome supplement to the team and the banter between the two quality actors of Ms. Kingston and Matt Smith has been a joy over the last couple of years and her scenes with Mike McShane were as good as possibly be conceived. Mike McShane has been missing off British television for a while and it was a tremendous touch to see him back and being as imposing as life actually is.
In one of the final scenes of The Angels Take Manhattan, there could be seen the selfish streak of the Doctor, the unwillingness to let Amy Pond leave him and attempt to find her husband Rory was akin to the child knowing he is going to lose his mother as she chooses her husband over the son. This had already been alluded to at the start of the episode where Amy playfully suggested they could get a babysitter to look after him. This is how the life of the Doctor has become a semi-domesticated way of life. Amy and Rory Williams had become in effect the Doctor’s parents, a pseudo family that he had not had since the days of Tegan, Nyssa and Vislor Turlough. Now the family is gone and that makes the Doctor a dangerous man to know.
There could be no better send off for Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill than being allowed the dignity of living out their lives, even if it is away from their son-in-law. People die all the time in the world of Doctor Who, very rarely do they get a chance to live again.
Ian D. Hall