'The Time of Angels'
24/04/2010
BBC One
The day will come when ‘Whostorians" will note the weird parallels between Nu Who and New Labour. Both re-launched what were seen as naff, worn-out franchises, both to great success but at the cost of their original values. Both also saw a single figure raised to almost idolatrous heights – be it Tony Blair or Russell T. Davies – who then plummeted to earth when ego and hubris brought spectacular nemesis.
The pub bores will no doubt swill many a pint over David Tennant too. Charismatic, young and the object of almost hysterical devotion, he – like Blair – jumped before an over-rated Scotsman finally took over and ran everything into the ground. True, one can stretch the idea too far: unlike Blair, Tennant is still loved, and certainly deserves some if not all of that adulation. And it was RTD who wrote ‘Torchwood: Children of Earth’, as scathing a satire of the New Labour years as you could hope for.
But still, the parallels are… eerie. Not least because Peter Capaldi keeps turning up both in the Whoniverse and as a thinly veiled Alastair Campbell. Or how 70s feminista Sarah Jane Smith was reborn as a sort of Blair Babe, a mumsy authority figure who sacrificed a family life for a career and an unrequited love for a distant, Christ-like figure.
Even the rise and rise of Who producers BBC Cymru echoes the ascent of a more confident, more assertive post-devolution Wales. Meanwhile, the growing clamour of criticism for Stephen Moffat’s tenure as ‘Show Runner’ echoes the slow rot and decay of the post-1997 political settlement under Gordon Brown. Moffat also shows another Brownish trait. He simply can’t stop living off past glories, whether they be an end to Tory Boom ‘n Bust, ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’, pouring tons of money into public services, ‘The Empty Child’, throwing Nokias at people or ‘Blink’.
For what was last Saturday’s episode, "The Time of Angels", but a trawl through an ever-more tarnished legacy, at the cost of fresh ideas or anything to say? Moffat’s last outing – the two-part "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead – had all his tropes, tricks and eccentric plot devices, as well as recycled dialogue from previous Moff episodes. The net result was a bloated regurgitation of ideas that worked last time but now seemed worn and dated precisely because they relied so much on their own novelty.
This episode features two of Moffat's 'big ideas'. Namely: Mrs. Who, aka Professor Riversong. She's a sort of bastard lovechild of Elric (in that she’s FUCKING DOOMED) and Bernice Summerfield (in that she’s a bit foxy, likes digging things up and spends a lot of off-screen time with the Doctor). Only, this is the point where she hasn't become a Prof yet, is just out of jail and no doubt hasn't married the Doc either, as he keeps flitting in and out of her timeline in a random sort of way. (Not At All Like The Time Traveller's Wife or, indeed, The Girl In The Fireplace, you understand. Oh NOOOOOO...)
The other returning idea (or rehash of old glories if you wish) comes in the form of the Weeping Angels. For those who have not yet seen "Blink", they're those statues that come to life when you're not looking and steal your potential future from you. This time though, they are NEW AND IMPROVED, with the ability to spread through images, including televisions (Not At All Like The Ring!), and steal voices of their victims (Not At All Like The Vashta Narada!), not to mention being able to infect their victims like a sort of virus. (OK, that's quite original, I'll give him that...) Also, they now cut to the chase and just kill you. HOW'S THAT FOR INNOVATION???
There are some other original ideas here though. The concept of clergy-as-squaddies is rather good, not least because it doesn't go down the path of cyber-goth/Warhammer 40,000 pastiche. Yet the tensions between the Doctor and the 'Father' are just a retread of the equally pointless tensions between Richard E. Grant's Doc and Jim Norton's Major Kennet in "Scream of the Shalka", right down to the squabbling over a radio in an underground setting. The only difference being, of course, that you really don't care if the Father dies or not.
The Doctor also gets some decent dialogue too, for once, and starts sounding like a new Doctor rather than a David Tennant tribute. Still, that doesn't last long, and soon Matt Smith reverts to waving his sonic screwdriver about and doing Who 10's hyperactive ferret act. His 'look of surprise' when it's revealed the Angels are out and about is meant to be dramatic but is so overdone it comes across more as accidental self-parody that wouldn't look out of place in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace.
But the highlight is Alex Kingston's performance as Riversong. True, the way she summons the Doctor via a message from the (relative) past was done to death in Blink. But Kingston brings a real crackle and swagger to her cocky and knowing character. In doing so, she gives the episode a sort of depth and soul it otherwise lacks. And yes, there is even more unoriginality when she does a Lara Croft at one point. Yet she is also the most interesting character here because she is both the story's ambivalent protagonist and the one with the most going on under the surface. Her 'husband', meanwhile, seems like more of a cardboard cutout, following her lead and delivering lines that wouldn't be out of place in a bad action film.
Speaking of flat and insipid, Amy Pond remains awful. Her character development in this episode can be summed up as both obnoxious and slappable. But sadly, you know the Angels won't snuff her out, so instead teeth must be gritted as she stumbles around the place like a crap heckler or a particularly unsympathetic damsel in distress. Alas, the Doctor does not leave her to her death. That would have been fun. The rest of the cast may as well not be there.
All in all then we have one more shit-to-lukewarm episode on our hands. Ironically for a Moffat episode, it's the lack of originality that stands out. Beyond all the examples just given, it's plain that the episode's high-tech military force being picked off piecemeal by an extraterrestial foe (with a numerical advantage!) is pretty much Aliens for a teatime audience. And why did that chav twat from The Streets have to make a cameo at the start of the episode? Why oh why? It would have been more fun to see him get abused in a Turkish prison - now that would have been entertaining!
Still, there's always part two, which is next week and - if the preview is anything to go by - has Amy Pond still not getting killed and Matt Smith shouting a lot. Who knows? Who actually fucking cares?
WHOPOINTS 5
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