Day 761: Flesh and Stone

Flesh and Stone, as a piece of television, does one thing that feels very wrong in the context of Doctor Who and one thing that feels very right in the context of Doctor Who. Overall it's a good episode, if perhaps not quite as strong as The Time of Angels. But when it gets interesting, it tends to deviate from being reasonably poor to actually magnificent.

So, we see the Weeping Angels move in this episode. And whilst in the context of the episode it provides something that's reasonably creepy, it doesn't work in the context of the fuller series. You see, the appeal of the angels is that they are feasible monsters. They are the sorts of monsters that you could encounter in the street, or on TV, because their design is so simple and their methods of operation are such that they can be perfectly hidden from prying eyes - except of course when those eyes turn away. But the problem with this scene is that we can seen the Angels, and yet they are moving. It stops the magic of the creatures as a whole, because it removes the viewer's point of view from the overall story, making the Angels purely and completely fictional. In my opinion, it's the greatest misstep of Series 5, and not the best showing from the production team.

So why can I forgive this episode? Because it does something that the Davies era never really did. With respect to ongoing story arcs, Davies made them be mostly in the background of stories where they weren't really noticed by the main characters until the series finale. The only problem with this is that it begins to stretch the credibility of the story, particularly in Series 4 with Rose popping up on random screens just when the Doctor looks away from them. Moffat changes this, by having the Doctor openly notice the story arc 5 episodes into the 13 episode series. The Doctor sees the crack that has been making random appearances throughout the past couple of stories and acknowledges it, before trying to figure out what it means. We learn that it represents something from the end of the Universe, and that it also has the power to rewrite time. It also forms an integral part of the conclusion of the story, which all goes to show one simple thing: this story arc proves to be more of an arcing story than Davies' arcs.

The arcing story of the crack works by appearing throughout the series, each time giving more information and building upon the overall story of the series. It makes the whole of Series 5 feel connected, as if it's one giant storybook with little adventures dashed away within it. And beyond all of that it makes the story arc feel like a real story. You can believe that when the Doctor sees something wrong that he'd follow it up and not just dismiss it as a coincidence, only for it to come crashing down in a big way come the series finale. It's this attention to the overall narrative of the series that acts as one of the many reasons why Series 5 is my absolute favourite series of Doctor Who, and why it's such a joy for me to watch again.

Day 760: The Time of Angels

When Steven Moffat was first announced as the next show-runner for Doctor Who, the prevailing opinion in the fan community that I had involved myself with was that the show would end up becoming a lot scarier. It was a sensible judgement to make as 3 of his previous stories for the series had based themselves around incredibly scary concepts and monsters, and the other had a jump-scare that makes me yelp every single time. And whilst Moffat's Doctor Who is not as scary on average as some might have hoped, it still manages to provide some truly frightening episodes, such as can be seen in The Time of Angels.

The Time of Angels was the much-anticipated sequel to Blink, and manages to succeed on that front by building on the notion of what a Weeping Angel is. Every moment from when the Angel first appears on a screen to the electrifying final speech consists of Moffat building the Angels up as something more and more frightening than previously thought. He begins by telling the audience that the image of an angel will become a Weeping Angel, and expertly illustrates this by showing one coming out of a television screen. It's a wonderful concept, as it makes the entire notion of watching this episode dangerous, planting the idea that the Angels could jump out from the television screen at any moment. This idea of idea planting is further explored with Amy, where it is established that the Angels can take control of people just through looking at them. It's another example of how Moffat is making them more powerful, both in terms of the strength that they have in the episode, and the strength that they have in terms of the fear that surrounds them.

Furthermore, The Time of Angels does what could be considered unthinkable. It gives the Angels voice. In other scenarios, this would be a major misstep as it would devolve their power - a silent assassin is far more threatening than one that talks to you while they do it. But Moffat again uses this to his advantage, playing the Angels as creatures that exploit fear and will attack people for the sheer sport of it. It makes them more frightening in terms of their entire philosophy, turning them from generic monsters with some frightening twists to something truly worrying for the viewer.

And, on the whole, this story takes all of these things and works. Granted, there is one major misstep that is made in the next episode, but other than that it's still a very powerful episode.

Day 757: The Eleventh Hour

Of all the 35 series of Doctor Who, Series 5 of the revived series is my absolute favourite. It's not out of an appreciation of the technical ability of the stories, in terms of the writing, directing and acting (although that does play a crucial role in why I love this series), instead it's about the overall tone of the series, making the entire programme into something absolutely magical.

I suppose that my love of this series actually starts with the trailers. The first preview trailer was fun and exciting, promising something different to the previous 5 years that we'd had under Russell T Davies. But that was only 1 minute long with some brief shots to show us how exciting the upcoming series would be. To understand the tone of the series, look no further than the trailer above. Previous trailers that had been specially shot for the series would focus on the fact that the series is new and exciting, perhaps a little bit clever, a little bit dangerous. They were good, but none really match the sheer beauty that is this trailer. It focuses on the magic of Doctor Who, this entire idea that the process of travelling with the Doctor is beautiful and magical. The time vortex isn't presented as some terrifying wasteland in the trailer, instead it's something weird and wonderful, filled with rich purples and dark blues. And through it all we have the Doctor, this mystical figure who can take control of the situation and save the day.

This is further shown in The Eleventh Hour, the Eleventh Doctor's first story. It is, in my opinion, actually perfect, and every single scene conveys the pure magic that the Doctor is. It's an absolute joy to watch, not least because Steven Moffat keeps on introducing little pieces of wonder to keep us occupied until the big reveal of the new Doctor. We have a story that can give us scenes like the Doctor driving a fire engine, before releasing a computer virus that turns every single piece of technology to zero, just so that some alien policemen can track the viruses point of origin to his phone, which is handily in the same room as Prisoner Zero, the villain of the piece. Other stories could botch these moments slightly by shifting the attention to something else, but Moffat never really lets us forget the fact that this man who is the Doctor is actually marvellous and brilliant, and a proper magician.

Take, for instance, my favourite scene in the entire story: the scene where he writes the virus and essentially sets up the entire conclusion to the episode. Beginning with a couple of jokes, it quickly evolves into something greater. We see the Doctor drop forth technobabble to show that he's smart, but Moffat keeps the technobabble relatable. Giving proper proofs to well known scientific problems is enough to show that this man is brilliant in terms of knowledge, but there are other details dropped in there as well. There's the fact that he offhandedly mentions the fact that he was accidentally responsible for Fermat's death, bringing forth the impossible nature of this man. There's the fact that he immediately turns that section of the plot over to Jeff, ensuring that both Jeff can get a job with anywhere that he wants to, as well as keeping the momentum of the plot moving. This moment with Jeff also shows that the Doctor can be magical in other ways, not just in terms of saving the Universe, but that he can help out ordinary people just on a whim, it just so happens that there are often bigger problems to solve at the same time. This presentation of the Doctor as a magical figure in what would otherwise be regarded as a lesser scene in an episode full of big moments, helps cement this idea that this entire series is just going to be absolutely wonderful, exciting, and magical. And beyond all that, the Jeff scene ends on a perfect joke about clearing your internet history.

So that's The Eleventh Hour. A perfect little fairy tale to start the series off. But we've just begun on this fantastic voyage, and I can honestly hardly wait to watch the rest of this beautiful series one more time.