![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
I really need a Doctor Who icon.
I just rewatched last night's Doctor Who and I have thoughts! Warning: THIS IS KIND OF LONG. And also references previous Moffat eps, although I've tried not to be too spoilery in case there are people who haven't seen them yet.
Okay, I was kind of disappointed. Partly that's because I go into Moffat-written episodes expecting amazing stand-alones whereas now he's dealing with the series arc, which is obviously different and I need to adjust my frame of mind. But also, I just think he kind of fucked up the Weeping Angels!
I feel like he changed a LOT about them, and in pretty much all cases it led to them being less awesome. The whole thing with Amy turning into a Weeping Angel because she looked in their eyes - fine, except, in Blink people stared at their eyes a whole lot, and nothing happened to them. (I guess we weren't explicitly told that they looked in their eyes, but come on, that's where you naturally look when you look at a face. And Larry stared at an Angel for at least as long as Amy did.) So that felt like something Moffat had made up in order to have Amy close her eyes, but I also thought the whole 'walk like you can see' thing was pretty stupid. I always felt like the Angels being quantum-locked was something that just automatically happened, so making it into something they could be confused about seemed kind of lame. And also, NO WAY WAS AMY WALKING LIKE SHE COULD SEE. So to have the Angels be fooled by that seemed doubly stupid.
Also! Showing them slowly moving, while they were stone. What? I thought the point was that they're not actually stone, they only turn to stone as a defence mechanism when they're observed. And stone can't move.
Sorry, this is turning into kind of a long rant and I'm not nearly done yet. I didn't hate the episode! I'm just being extra critical because usually Steven Moffat is so awesome.
So, another thing I didn't like was Angel Bob. Moffat did a similar thing with the Vashta Nerada in Forest of the Dead, giving the silent enemy a voice, but while I thought it was awesome there I don't think it worked here at all. The reason it was so great with the Vashta Nerada is that it worked in two ways: it humanised them (not that they're human, but you know what I mean), which led to the episode's resolution, but it also gave them more power, because they could disguise themselves. Whereas with the Weeping Angels, they only used Bob's voice to taunt the Doctor a bit and give a bit of exposition. And it made them a lot less scary. I thought they were more effective when they were unknowable.
I also liked them better when they killed people nicely. Snapping people's necks is so pedestrian.
One of the things I usually love about Moffat's episodes is the sheer "WTF is going on?" factor - Blink and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead both did this so well - and I felt like that was largely absent in this episode. It was all very straightforward, so there wasn't any of the tension that comes from confusion. I thought the part in Time of the Angels with Amy and the recording was great, but I thought that any tension in Flesh and Stone was dissipated pretty quickly and easily. It was all, OH NO AMY'S TURNNG INTO AN ANGEL... but she just has to close her eyes. OH NO THE ANGELS ARE GOING TO GET HER... but River conveniently gets the teleport working off-screen. It just felt a bit anticlimactic.
(Thinking about it, maybe one of the reasons I didn't much like this ep was that Amy didn't get to do anything awesome.)
Most of all though, I think what this episode really lacked was the emotional weight of some of his previous episodes. The part that came closest was Father Octavian's death, but it didn't really compare to, say, the end of Girl in the Fireplace or especially Forest of the Dead, which killed me with the CAL reveal and what happened in the end with River. (One thing Flesh and Stone got right was continuity. Handcuffs!) The reason Moffat's so awesome usually is that he can combine fantastic plots with poignant character moments, and I guess I felt like this episode was lacking in both.
WOW, THIS WAS REALLY LONG AND NEGATIVE. At least that opening shot where they were upside down was really cool?
Okay, I was kind of disappointed. Partly that's because I go into Moffat-written episodes expecting amazing stand-alones whereas now he's dealing with the series arc, which is obviously different and I need to adjust my frame of mind. But also, I just think he kind of fucked up the Weeping Angels!
I feel like he changed a LOT about them, and in pretty much all cases it led to them being less awesome. The whole thing with Amy turning into a Weeping Angel because she looked in their eyes - fine, except, in Blink people stared at their eyes a whole lot, and nothing happened to them. (I guess we weren't explicitly told that they looked in their eyes, but come on, that's where you naturally look when you look at a face. And Larry stared at an Angel for at least as long as Amy did.) So that felt like something Moffat had made up in order to have Amy close her eyes, but I also thought the whole 'walk like you can see' thing was pretty stupid. I always felt like the Angels being quantum-locked was something that just automatically happened, so making it into something they could be confused about seemed kind of lame. And also, NO WAY WAS AMY WALKING LIKE SHE COULD SEE. So to have the Angels be fooled by that seemed doubly stupid.
Also! Showing them slowly moving, while they were stone. What? I thought the point was that they're not actually stone, they only turn to stone as a defence mechanism when they're observed. And stone can't move.
Sorry, this is turning into kind of a long rant and I'm not nearly done yet. I didn't hate the episode! I'm just being extra critical because usually Steven Moffat is so awesome.
So, another thing I didn't like was Angel Bob. Moffat did a similar thing with the Vashta Nerada in Forest of the Dead, giving the silent enemy a voice, but while I thought it was awesome there I don't think it worked here at all. The reason it was so great with the Vashta Nerada is that it worked in two ways: it humanised them (not that they're human, but you know what I mean), which led to the episode's resolution, but it also gave them more power, because they could disguise themselves. Whereas with the Weeping Angels, they only used Bob's voice to taunt the Doctor a bit and give a bit of exposition. And it made them a lot less scary. I thought they were more effective when they were unknowable.
I also liked them better when they killed people nicely. Snapping people's necks is so pedestrian.
One of the things I usually love about Moffat's episodes is the sheer "WTF is going on?" factor - Blink and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead both did this so well - and I felt like that was largely absent in this episode. It was all very straightforward, so there wasn't any of the tension that comes from confusion. I thought the part in Time of the Angels with Amy and the recording was great, but I thought that any tension in Flesh and Stone was dissipated pretty quickly and easily. It was all, OH NO AMY'S TURNNG INTO AN ANGEL... but she just has to close her eyes. OH NO THE ANGELS ARE GOING TO GET HER... but River conveniently gets the teleport working off-screen. It just felt a bit anticlimactic.
(Thinking about it, maybe one of the reasons I didn't much like this ep was that Amy didn't get to do anything awesome.)
Most of all though, I think what this episode really lacked was the emotional weight of some of his previous episodes. The part that came closest was Father Octavian's death, but it didn't really compare to, say, the end of Girl in the Fireplace or especially Forest of the Dead, which killed me with the CAL reveal and what happened in the end with River. (One thing Flesh and Stone got right was continuity. Handcuffs!) The reason Moffat's so awesome usually is that he can combine fantastic plots with poignant character moments, and I guess I felt like this episode was lacking in both.
WOW, THIS WAS REALLY LONG AND NEGATIVE. At least that opening shot where they were upside down was really cool?