#weeping angel

halloween creature series ~ ghost

(witch|vampire|werewolf|monster|zombie|mummy)

Instagram @sisterxserpent

Hello, friends! Apologies for the delay. If you caught my last post, you’ll know I have been ill with a nasty cold. While I could have written while unwell, I didn’t want it to influence my writing. For instance, back in 2011, I lost $200 just before going in to see “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.” I’ll never know if I hated that movie because it was an unfulfilling yawnfest written by a transphobic anti-semite, or if it was because I lost two-hundred dollars prior. Either way, it didn’t help my mood. That being said, I should mention that I did watch Sunday’s episode through a wall of stinging sinuses and cold medicine. I’ll try my best to remember the details. And before we get to it, I would like to take a moment to wish Doctor Who a happy 58th birthday!

Continuing from last week’s episode, we’re back with the Doctor and her companions riding as passengers in a TARDIS hijacked by an angel. That’s actually a pretty cool sentence to say. I really like that concept. The TARDIS has not at all felt like a safe place this series, so this is pretty par for the course. I was surprised to see that the audience numbers had dropped between this episode and last week’s “Once, Upon Time.” Critics weren’t very kind last week, but even still, the Weeping Angels are a bit of a crowd favourite. You would think they would pull people back in. You certainly get the impression that’s what the BBC was hoping. Personally, I have never found the Weeping Angels as effective as they had been in their first episode- “Blink.” We’ve seen them go from silent predators to the Statue of Liberty. So going in, my bar was pretty low.

One unique aspect of this story is that it is the sole chapter of Flux not written completely by Chris Chibnall. This time there is Maxine Alderton, who you may remember as the writer of “The Haunting of Villa Diodati.” Oftentimes when a showrunner shares writing credit with another writer, it’s because they added a scene where the overarching plot of the series comes into play. However, Chris Chibnall has top billing, so I have no idea who wrote what. My inclination is to assume that Alderton wrote the bulk of the Weeping Angels story, while Chris Chibnall wrote the bulk of the Bel and Vinder storyline. It’s impossible to say without asking, but it seems a safe bet.

An aspect I really like about the opening scene with the Doctor is that it gave her a chance to do something clever. Rewiring the TARDIS to eject quantum entities reminded me a lot of the Fifth Doctor. It felt like something he would do. Any time the Doctor feels like the Doctor in this era is nothing short of a miracle. I’m pleased to say that we got a lot of great Doctor moments like we did in “War of the Sontarans.” I felt like the character totally did a backslide into bad habits last week. Emoting everything with huge emotion and every line expository. I had a feeling seeing her back into a simple monster of the week storyline would focus her character a bit. That isn’t to say this was a paint-by-numbers storyline. However, it does jive with my predictions about the structure of the series with one episode being a setup followed by an actual story.

The Angel may be expelled from the TARDIS, but it got the Doctor and her pals where they needed to be. We’re now back with Claire, a character from the first chapter of Flux. I rather like Claire. While I barely mentioned her in my review for “The Halloween Apocalypse,” she was one of the elements I found most intriguing. Perhaps it’s the fact that she has an interesting look about her, or the fact that she was tied to the Weeping Angels, one of the few non-Timeless Child elements of the story. Claire is being experimented on by a Dr Jericho, who is interested in Claire’s psychic abilities. Notably different is the time period from when we first met Claire in present day England, which is now 1967. This of course due to the fact that Claire had a run-in with a Weeping Angel.

One of the things I disliked when Steven Moffat brought back the Weeping Angels was the introduction of the concept that the image of an Angel becomes an Angel. I never liked this because it felt like an overcomplication of what was already an effective villain. I would rather see different stories than new powers. Sometimes I think modern Doctor Who forgets this to a degree. One of the strongest aspects to Doctor Who is how it juxtaposes completely different elements to a positive effect. If you don’t want to rehash the Weeping Angels, just change their location. You don’t need to give them new powers. I don’t mean they should never develop, they’re quantum beings after all. But it does feel as though there was always more of an emphasis on expanding their powers over creating interesting situations. Regardless, I rather liked how they use the idea of the image of an Angel becoming an Angel. Having an Angel hiding in Claire’s mind from the image of a premonition is peak Doctor Who. I’m into that. Totally.

One way I was less into the idea was the drawing of the Angel coming to life. I kind of wrote it off in my head at the time of “Well, that drawing was specifically of a Weeping Angel by someone with a psychic link.” Because I went to Sunday school and I’ve drawn some angels. I don’t think just any drawing of an angel in the Doctor Who universe is going to come to life. That would be silly. Though the EKG drawing of an Angel went surprisingly nowhere. While pushing one aspect of the Angels forward, one element that seemed like a step back was literally how little else of the Weeping Angels’ lore was actually considered. The Doctor is in a room with two other people and nobody. not even the alien Time Lord, thought to say “Let’s close our eyes in shifts.” It’s the Sontarans’ sleep schedule all over again. “You blink while I keep looking. Now I’ll blink…” Amy Pond figured this shit out immediately. This was a really bad sticking point for me throughout the episode.

The village has all come together in search of a missing young girl named Peggy. I’ll not say much about Peggy other than that she’s carrying on the fine tradition of terrible child actors in Doctor Who. After being zapped to 1901, it’s Yaz and Dan who find Peggy who was also zapped by a Weeping Angel. While there, they see Peggy’s guardians who were also taken by an Angel. This time they know better, but they totally don’t. They get too close to a Weeping Angel only to discover that you can only survive the Weeping Angels once. The result of being touched by an angel twice is that you turn into stone and then explode. Unless you’re Rory Williams and everyone else in the Winter Quay from “The Angels Take Manhattan,” where the whole point was that they kept people as batteries by sending them back through time, over and over. If you’re going to write a Weeping Angel story, you could probably stand to watch the four major Weeping Angels episodes. This isn’t like when Maxine Alderton ignored the fact that Mary Shelly was a companion of the Eighth Doctor. That was from the audios. But this was an actual episode. Come on, Maxine!

You may think to yourself “Oh damn, how are Yaz and Dan going to get out of this tight spot?” Well, you’ll be happy to know that the episode doesn’t share your concerns. The next time we see Yaz and Dan, they’re fine. I guess that Weeping Angel killed those old people and said, “Peace out.” There is a point in the episode where it mentions that the angels are cruel and like to leave a witness, but that’s hardly an explanation for letting three people live. It feels like a scene that was cut for time, which is ridiculous because you could have fit twenty minutes of extra storytime in by cutting out the scenes with Bel. I’ll get to that in a moment. Along with discovering the Weeping Angels have been sending people in this village back to 1901, Yaz and Dan also discover that this village has been ripped out of existence where it floats freely in space. That’s pretty cool I guess.

The Doctor decides to talk to the Angel living inside Claire’s head by making contact. I don’t care how I old I am, I will always get giddy at the sight of the Doctor saying “Contact!” right before sharing minds with someone. Claire keeps a gentle and breezy mind, which honestly I’m pretty jealous of. While in there, the Doctor learns that Claire has a fugitive Angel hiding in her head. The Angel is asking the Doctor for her help, which I am always into. She asks the Doctor for help, and in return, promises to tell her what the Division knows about her past. I love when the villains of the Doctor become uneasy allies. It’s like when Batman and the Joker share a laugh at the end of “The Killing Joke.” You know the peace won’t last long, but it’s a fun space to explore. While all of this is going on, poor Dr Jericho is drying his damn eyes out keeping a lookout on the Weeping Angels. I really loved returning Doctor Who veteran Kevin McNally in this role. Judging by Twitter, I’m not the only one. Throwing a cup at the Doctor to wake her from her psychic contact with Claire was the icing on the cake.

The Doctor discovers a secret tunnel out of the manor, only to find that there are Weeping Angels growing out of the walls. It’s like a game of Operation watching the Doctor and her new friends avoid reaching hands. Dr Jericho is less lucky when a bit of dust from a Weeping Angel sends him conveniently to Yaz and Dan’s location in 1901. The whole idea of the dust reminded me of the bit in “28 Days Later,” when Brendan Gleeson’s character goes rabid after a single drop of zombie blood lands in his eye. One might even say it was lifted wholesale. Another thing this does is put an end to the argument about breaking a Weeping Angel with a hammer. You’re just adding deathly dust to the air. The Doctor and Claire make it out just in time for the Doctor to understand why. They were being funnelled into a trap. The rogue Weeping Angel used the Doctor to offer her as a trade. She helps them capture the Doctor, and they leave her alone.

The Doctors friends, now trapped with 66 years between them, can only watch as the Doctor is transformed into an alicorn… er… Weeping Angel. You can hate the Chibnall era all you like, it’s rather warranted at this point, but that moment where the Doctor transforms will go down as one of the highlights. It truly is new territory for both the Weeping Angels, and the Doctor, so kudos for that one. I would be more excited for this development, were it not for the continuing fear that all of this is going to relate back to the Timeless Child. But there’s a whole other part of this episode that I’ve neglected to mention, and that is the Bel b-plot. The Bel-plot. My reason for this is because in between “Once, Upon Time,” and “Village of the Angels,” I read the most distressing fan theory- Bel and Vinder are the Doctor’s parents.

Usually, while watching Doctor Who, I don’t miss a whole lot. I’m invested in the story. But ever since “The Timeless Children,” my interest has waned massively. I’m no longer watching for clues or piecing together disparate pieces. I’m merely enduring the show. It’s hard to get excited when even the interesting parts of the series are in service of what I consider to be a ruinous angle for the story to take. I do not want to know who the Doctor was, and I certainly do not want to meet her parents. After the disastrous reaction to “The Timeless Children,” I am astounded that anyone at the BBC allowed Chibnall to continue down such a careless path. I’ve tried to remain positive and hopeful, but I can’t pretend anymore that continuing down the line of this horrible story only does more lasting damage to Doctor Who. Whether I can endure the show is less of a concern than whether the show can endure Chris Chibnall.

What’s ironic is that Bel and Vinder being the Doctor’s parents actually negates the arguments of people who were pro-Timeless Child. Everyone said “It doesn’t really change anything. It’s still a mystery as to who and what the Timeless Child is.” That mystery is as short-lived as its justification. We’re right back around to the idea that it is killing the initial concept of the show- Doctor who? The Doctor has gone from being a slacker who barely skirted through Time Lord academy, to a chosen child from the stars. The Doctor is no longer unique by virtue, but rather by providence. The aspect of the Doctor that makes her relatable is being replaced by a teenage fanboy’s power fantasy. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again- Chris Chibnall owes Pip and Jane Baker an apology.

It’s really a bummer to end this review like this. I liked most of the Weeping Angel storyline. But that turd keeps floating in the punch bowl, causing all of us to nurse our cups instead of swigging them down in victory. I feel like we’re past the point of good stories for Flux. My only real surviving interest in the story is seeing the TARDIS get put back to normal. I’m not implying that I’ve made up my mind, but my hope for this all to come together in a satisfying manner is at an all-time low. The word “retcon,” has been tossed around more than ever lately, and I can see why. I joked the other day that they should do as Community did with season four and just claim that the Timeless Child storyline was the result of a gas leak. The TARDIS has been sick this whole time and made everyone think the universe was suddenly devised by the mind of mad sixteen-year-old. Regardless, I hope this isn’t the last we see of Maxine Alderton.

THE END IS NIGH

I got accepted into LGAL’s final gallery show, “The End is Nigh”
Here’s a preview of my piece. The show opens at their Minneapolis gallery on 10/29!