The Angels Take Manhattan

There’s some great ideas in this one. But it’s a classic Moffat soup of too many jumbled up ideas with a lack of singular focus. The key concept of a hotel where Weeping Angels are generating time energy by sending people back in time within their rooms, making them live out their lives in this liminal space is spine tingling. You could make a whole story out of this.

You’ve then got New York. The production team are clearly uncomfortable filming somewhere where there is a bit of time pressure. They are then adding into the mix 1920s American pastiche, and trying to wring as much visual value out of the “New York!” visit as possible. The Statue of Liberty is in there for some reason. They are then trying to fold River Song in, but clearly Alex Kingston is not actually present in New York, just Cardiff so she’s not there in a scene and then suddenly she is. The story is a bit of a mess, and it looks a bit messy.

One final critique - Murray Gold’s music, especially the “oohing” while Amy and Rory are jumping off the ledge is too much. The execs needed to reign him in on this one.

But it’s not “quality free”; it wraps up Amy and The Doctor’s story nicely. Rory gets a big starring role. The cherubs are an incredible premise. If only Moffat could have taken the best of his ideas and fleshed them out there would be so much more to this. Maybe they felt that because of The God Complex that the whole “hotel thing” had already been done and that they couldn’t lean on it too hard.

This was the best episode of the first half for me. I definitely think that it could've been a two parter because it zapped along but I loved the noir feel and thought it was a great farewell for the Ponds.