The Angels Take Manhattan (TV story)

The Angels Take Manhattan was the fifth episode of the seventh series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales. It featured the departure of Amy Pond and Rory Williams as Companions, and the return of River Song.

Synopsis
A simple trip to New York City goes horribly wrong when Rory is sent back to 1938 by the Weeping Angels. There he finds that River is investigating the angels and Manhattan has become their hunting grounds. The Doctor and Amy must find Rory before it is too late, but they soon find that not every point in time can be changed. And here, the Doctor must do the one thing he has been dreading - say a final farewell to Amelia Pond.

Plot
A detective is sent by an art collector and mob boss to Winter Quay, a place "Where the statues live". When he arrives he notices a little girl in a nearby building mimicking a Weeping Angel's pose. He enters the building unaware the girl was trying to warn him about the Weeping Angel that was sitting on a plinth near the building which is now awake.

The detective enters a room in the building that has his name on it; unaware the angels are prowling the corridors. He encounters an elderly version of himself, who warns him that "They" are going to send him back in time now he is there. The Detective is then attacked by the angels but manages to avoid them as something large is heard approaching from outside. Since the angels have blocked the stairwell he is forced onto the roof and comes face to face with the snarling Statue of Liberty; revealed to be a Weeping Angel of gigantic size. As he succumbs to his fate, the audience is made aware that someone is writing about the man's demise on a typewriter.

In current day New York, the Doctor and the Ponds are having a picnic in Central Park. The Ponds are annoyed by the Doctor's habit of reading his detective novel by Melody Malone out loud, while he in turn is perturbed by Amy's use of reading glasses. Rory eventually goes off to fetch them more coffee. On his way back, he hears the sound of children giggling, as a cherub on a nearby fountain disappears. As Rory walks, the giggling gets closer and closer. Amy and the Doctor continue to read, only to discover that they have begun appearing in the book. They run to the TARDIS, while in 1938 Rory is talking to Melody, who turns out to be River Song, as they are taken captive by some men.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
 * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
 * River Song - Alex Kingston
 * Grayle - Mike McShane
 * Sam Garner - Rob David
 * Hood - Bentley Kalu
 * Foreman - Ozzie Yue
 * Old Garner - Burnell Tucker
 * Photoshoot PA - Zac Fox

Buildings

 * The Statue of Liberty is revealed to be a Weeping Angel.

Foods and beverages

 * Rory goes to get three coffees and is transported to 4 April 1938 whilst holding them.

TARDIS

 * River tells Rory that the TARDIS Translation Circuit 'sticks around' when he sees writing on ancient Chinese vases being translated.

Theories and concepts

 * By changing his future and creating a paradox Amy and Rory's actions wipe out the Angels' Winter Quay building.

Time

 * The Doctor says that there's significant time distortions around New York.
 * If the future is read in a book, it becomes a fixed point in time and therefore cannot be changed.

Timeline

 * The Doctor visits China in 221 BC to have a message placed on a vase to alert River.

Cars and trucks

 * When the Doctor decides to adjust his hair before exiting the TARDIS, a plaque references that the Doctor's TARDIS was manufactured by Rolls Royce.

Other products

 * Rory uses Brightwell & Hyman matches to defend himself from the cherubic Weeping Angels

Story notes

 * The title of the book which River Song writes under the pseudonym "Melody Malone" is The Angel's Kiss. An e-book version of the novel will be released on 4 October 2012.
 * This is the first episode to feature River Song that is not a two-parter or is at least following a cameo appearance by River in the previous episode.

Ratings
to be added

Rumours

 * The Statue of Liberty is a Weeping Angel. This turned out to be true.

Filming locations
to be added

Production errors

 * The Statue of Liberty is around 150ft tall in real life. But in the episode, she stands behind the Winter Quay building which is around 70 - 90 feet.


 * When Amy and Rory are contemplating suicide, there are clearly some moments in which neither one of them is observing the Statue of Liberty angel, meaning it could easily have taken them both. This is also true when the Doctor and River are on the roof after they jump: neither is looking at the Statue yet it is clearly visible frozen in the background. However, in these shots, we the audience are still observing the angel.


 * Multiple times throughout the episode Angels are seen standing in groups or facing each other without their eyes covered, what we know of angels from past episodes would mean those angels would be permanently frozen as they are all able to see each other.

Continuity

 * Amy Pond calls the Doctor "Raggedy man". (TV: The Eleventh Hour, The Big Bang, The Girl Who Waited)
 * The Doctor used some of his regenerative energy to repair River Song's hand. He did something similar when recharging the last power source in the TARDIS after it traveled to a Parallel World. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)
 * In response to the Doctor healing her hand, River exclaims "You embarrass me!" much like the Doctor did in The Wedding of River Song.
 * The afterword Amy wrote in Melody Malone's book was a message for the Doctor, which made reference to various adventures the Doctor and Amy had had together: saving a whale in space (TV: The Beast Below), fighting pirates (TV: The Curse of the Black Spot), inspiring a great artist (TV: Vincent and the Doctor), and falling in love with a man who would wait two thousand years for her. (TV: The Big Bang)
 * Amy asks the Doctor to return to meet a young Amelia Pond the morning after he left her waiting in the garden in The Eleventh Hour to tell her about the adventures they will have together. The older Amy was dreaming about that morning when the Doctor came back to pick her up the night before her wedding at the end of The Eleventh Hour. Steven Moffat said of the scene, "After showing Amelia Pond in the garden as a young girl in The Eleventh Hour, Karen's first episode, the final shot in Saturday's The Angels Take Manhattan is a punchline I have been waiting to tell for two and a half years."
 * River mentions that she was pardoned from prison because the man she killed never existed. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut, TV: The Wedding of River Song) Oswin erased the Doctor from the Daleks' memories in TV: Asylum of the Daleks. However, it is unclear how exactly the Doctor was erased from other networks and memories. The conversation between River and the Doctor (and the fact that Solomon couldn't find info about the Doctor in TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship) implies the Doctor is responsible for the other erasures, as he was "getting too big".
 * River says that she is a professor now. (TV: Silence in the Library)
 * While on the roof contemplating suicide, Rory makes a reference to his history of having died multiple times and coming back to life each time. (TV: Amy's Choice, Cold Blood, The Curse of the Black Spot, The Doctor's Wife)
 * The Doctor sent a coded message to River ("Yowzah") from the past, as River had done with him on Planet One. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)
 * The Doctor uses the extractor fans once more (TV: Let's Kill Hitler).
 * River tells Amy that The Doctor doesn't like to see his companions age. The Doctor once indicated the same. (TV: School Reunion)
 * This is Amy's third encounter with the Weeping Angels. She previously met them in TV: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone and PROSE: Magic of the Angels.

DVD releases
to be added

Blu-ray releases
to be added