The Time of Angels (TV story)
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The Time of Angels was the fourth episode of the fifth series of BBC Wales Doctor Who. It was the first part of a two-part story. It saw the return of the enigmatic woman of the Doctor's future, River Song, and the terrifying Weeping Angels. Throughout the episode, hints are given about River's relationship with the Doctor in his personal future. It also showed the purpose the Church will serve in the 51st century.
This is the first time in the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who that the Weeping Angels appeared. This episode also saw them display new and frightening powers.
Synopsis
The enigmatic River Song hurtles back into the Eleventh Doctor's life, but she's not the only familiar face returning — the Weeping Angels are back! Following River's calling card, the Doctor is recruited to help track down the last of the Angels, which has escaped from the Byzantium starliner and into the terrifying Maze of the Dead.
Plot
A man our continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there is one thing you never, ever put in a trap."
"Me!" The Doctor then shoots the gravity globe with Octavian's sidearm, plunging them into total darkness...
Cast
- The Doctor - Matt Smith
- Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
- River Song - Alex Kingston
- Alistair - Simon Dutton
- Security Guard - Mike Skinner
- Octavian - Iain Glen
- Christian - Mark Springer
- Angelo - Troy Glasgow
- Bob - David Atkins
- Marco - Darren Morfitt
Crew
| Executive Producers Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger and Beth Willis |
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| Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources. |
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Reza Karim and Jill Reeves were interviewed on the accompanying Doctor Who Confidential, credited as "Prosthetics Supervisors". Likewise, Ailsa Berk is clearly seen providing choreography for the Weeping Angels in Confidential. However, none of these people were listed in the end credits of The Time of Angels as originally broadcast on BBC One. |
References
Individuals
- Berger was in charge of laying the explosives.
- The Doctor's on Virginia Woolf's bowling team.
- Amy guesses that River Song is the Doctor's wife in the future. River doesn't tell the truth to keep the established timeline from being polluted.
- Everyone in the service of the Church is given a Sacred Name.
Species
- The Doctor states that humans are like rabbits, spreading out across the universe.
- Over hundreds of years Weeping Angels lose their form.
- The Aplans are a two-headed species.
- The Doctor had dinner with the Aplans' chief architect.
- The Aplans are said to have died out over 400 years before the Byzantium crashed on Alfava Metraxis.
- The Delerium Archive is the final resting place of the Headless Monks.
- There are over 6 billion human colonists on Alfava Metraxis.
- In the book the Doctor reads about the Weeping Angels, it states "that which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel".
- One of the Clerics talks about chasing lava snakes.
- River says the Angel was retrieved from the ruins of Razbahan.
TARDIS
- The TARDIS is capable of creating and extending an air corridor.
- River Song says the TARDIS has brakes.
- According to River Song, the TARDIS isn't supposed to make the classic materialisation/dematerialisation noise; she says it's because the Doctor always leaves the brakes on, which he counters by saying he likes the sound the TARDIS makes.
- The TARDIS can operate like a spaceship, following the Byzantium through space before jumping through time to reach the crash site.
- The TARDIS has blue stabilizer buttons the Doctor seemed unaware of; however, he then says that they are "boring".
Languages
- River leaves the Doctor a message in Old High Gallifreyan on a home box: "Hello, sweetie".
Locations
- The Weeping Angel was discovered in the ruins of Razbahan at the end of the 50th century.
Planets
- Alfava Metraxis is seventh planet of the Dundra system, which is located in the Garn belt.
- Alfava Metraxis has an oxygen rich atmosphere and toxins in its soft-band. Its days last for 11 hours.
- Alfava Metraxis was terraformed nearly 200 years before the crash of the Byzantium.
Religion
- The soldiers who accompany River Song are from the Church.
- The Angels' use of the phrase, "Come and see", is a reference to the Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Revelation, specifically the Angel of Death.
Technology
- A home box is like a flight recorder; if a ship crashed it would fly to the spacecraft's planet of origin.
- The projection of a Weeping Angel is able to deadlock seal the landing pod, despite the pod not having the capability.
- Perception filters are referred to again.
- The new sonic screwdriver is as ineffective against deadlock seals as its predecessors.
Spacecraft
- The Byzantium is a spacecraft carrying a Weeping Angel. It crash lands when its warp engines suffer a phase shift.
Story notes
- This was the first episode of Series 5 to be shot, and therefore the first episode featuring Matt Smith and Karen Gillan.[1]
- This is Amy's first meeting with River Song, who, unknown to her, is actually her daughter.
- Amy Pond thinks her hand has turned to stone. Actress Karen Gillan had previously appeared in TV: The Fires of Pompeii as a member of the Sibylline Sisterhood, a cult of soothsayers whose flesh was beginning to turn to stone under the influence of the Pyroviles.
- This is the third appearance of the Weeping Angels if one counts non-TV appearances; they have previously featured in TV: Blink and in Captain Jack's Monster Files. (See WC: A Ghost Story for Christmas)
- The Doctor ripping the strap off the ceiling of one of the small ships was originally an accident; the producers liked the idea so much that they filmed Matt Smith doing it again.
- At one point in the episode, Bob shot one of the statues because he thought it looked at him. All the statues turned out to be Weeping Angels, so the statue probably did look at Bob.
- In this story, River Song is a doctor. She seems surprised when the Doctor lets slip that she will one day be a professor. In conversation with Father Octavian, she mentions that she was imprisoned for a crime, and the Doctor wouldn't help them if he knew who she was. It was revealed shortly before the episode aired that the crime was murdering "the best man she ever knew." She was convicted of the murder of the Doctor (See TV: The Wedding of River Song). [2]
[[Video:Graham gets exterminated for spoiling Doctor Who - The Graham Norton Show preview - BBC One|thumb|right|Graham Norton's response to the furor caused by the appearance of his cartoon avatar during the episode's cliffhanger.]]
- During its airing in some parts of England, an animated advert for the talent show Over the Rainbow began playing over the cliffhanger. This sparked complaints to the BBC, who later apologised. The advert contained an animated Graham Norton, who later joked about it on his own show – saying he finally secured a role on Doctor Who. However, his voice had already been overheard during the first episode of the revived series, Rose, when an error in broadcasting began playing the audio of a trailer featuring Norton for another of his talent shows, Strictly Dance Fever. In referring to his "appearance" in "Time of Angels," Norton then played a version of the cartoon banner, with a Dalek exterminating his cartoon self; coincidentally, the same show also featured an appearance by Karen Gillan and they spoke further about the error.
- This is the first episode of Series 5 not to feature one of the Cracks, but one does show up in the next episode. This is likely because it is the first of a two-part story.
- One question commonly asked by fans regarding TV: Blink was why Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale did not try closing one eye at a time to keep the Weeping Angels at bay. When the Angel is attacking Amy, she tries this, but remarks on how difficult it actually is.
- The episode ran short in its original cut because high tides at the beach location forced the abandonment of about three scripted pages — including the scene which had been used to audition Karen Gillan for the part of Amy Pond. In its place, Steven Moffat inserted the scene where River flies the TARDIS, filmed as a pick-up. (DCOM: The Time of Angels)
Ratings
- 6.8 million viewers [source needed]
Filming locations
- The beach scenes on Alfava Metraxis were filmed at Southerndown beach, Vale of Glamorgan. This was also where scenes in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday and Journey's End were filmed.[3]
Rumours
- A teaser from Digital Spy implied a data ghost device would appear in this episode.[1]
- This proved partially true. The same suits which have the devices were spotted in the episode, but were not used.
Production errors
- When the Doctor is talking to Angel Bob over the radio, he doesn't have a torch in his hand. In the next shot, running past Amy, he is shown with one.If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.
- The warning on the dropship door reads "CAUTION: Trip Hazzard". The word is properly spelled "Hazard".
- When River is in space, the TARDIS has white windows. The scene cuts to a close up of the Doctor, and the windows are black. Also, the St John's Ambulance badge is missing from the door. Steven Moffat admits on the DVD commentary that it is the "David Tennant police box", but falls short of laying blame at the feet of any particular production member.
- Steven Moffat notes in the in-vision commentary that there are massive continuity errors throughout the episode with respect to the length of Matt Smith's hair. Indeed, careful examination reveals that Smith's hair has several different lengths, sometimes within the same scene.
- Before River is sucked out of the Byzantium, unlike the other two, the guard on the left has no pipes on his side of the corridor to hold on to, yet when River is sucked out, he can be seen hanging onto something.
- At the end when the Doctor is seen shooting the gravity globe, he does not actually move his finger, but the pistol still shoots.
Continuity
- The Doctor points out historical inaccuracies in the museum. Susan Foreman did this with one of her history text books. (TV: An Unearthly Child)
- The same suits River Song and her crew wore when she became an archaeologist can be seen in this episode in the pod where Amy encounters her first Weeping Angel. (TV: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead).
- The Doctor refers to previous events involving the Weeping Angels. (TV: Blink)
- River Song previously appeared in TV: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead.
- The Doctor previously used the TARDIS to chase a crashing spaceship in TV: The Empty Child.
- A gravity globe was previously used in TV: The Impossible Planet.
- Amy refers to visiting a spaceship (TV: The Beast Below) and Winston Churchill's Cabinet War Rooms. Victory of the Daleks)
- High Gallifreyan was previously seen in TV: The Five Doctors; the Doctor declares he is one of the few who understands the language.
- The scene where the Doctor refuses to do an environment check is reminiscent of TV: The Power of the Daleks, where a post-regeneration Second Doctor absentmindedly starts to wander out of the TARDIS. When his companions protest that he hasn't checked for oxygen on the planet, the Doctor rattles off the temperature, radiation, and oxygen density and detects a likelihood of mercury deposits.
- Similar to the Fourth Doctor with Romana I, the Doctor is annoyed by someone claiming to be better at piloting the TARDIS than he is. (TV: The Ribos Operation)
- Amy notes that the Doctor never lets people call him "sir". (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem, Planet of the Dead, et al)
- After flicking quickly through the book on the Weeping Angels, the Doctor remarks, "Not bad, bit boring in the middle." He did a similar thing with a book in a Parisian cafe in TV: City of Death and with The Lovely Bones in TV: Rose. He also proved capable of speed-reading a book in his eighth incarnation in AUDIO: Invaders from Mars.
- The Doctor tells River that he is not a taxi service. The Fifth Doctor told Adric the same thing in TV: Earthshock and later tells Rory in TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship.
- The Book of the Weeping Angels later appears in the Doctor's study in his TARDIS. (GAME: TARDIS)
- River Song again uses the hallucinogenic lipstick in The Pandorica Opens.
- River mentions that she learnt to fly the TARDIS from "the best" and notes that "It's a shame [the Doctor was] busy that day". River learnt to pilot the TARDIS from the TARDIS itself shortly after her regeneration. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
Home video releases
BBC Video - Doctor Who Series Five - Volume Two was released on Monday 5 July 2010 (UK Only) on DVD and Blu-ray, featuring The Time of Angels, Flesh and Stone and The Vampires of Venice. [4]
External links
Footnotes
