The Time of Angels (TV story)

 The Time of Angels was the fourth episode of the fifth series of BBC Wales Doctor Who. It was the first part of a two-part story. It included the return of River Song and the Weeping Angels.

Synopsis
The enigmatic River Song hurtles back into the Doctor's life but she's not the only familiar face returning... The Weeping Angels are back! The Doctor is recruited by Father Octavian to track the last of the Angels, that have escaped from the Byzantium starliner, through the terrifying Maze of the Dead.

Plot
A man is seen in a green field on a beautiful day, surrounded by trees, with a lipstick smear on the corner of his mouth. He is approached by a well-dressed man being followed by two guards, each armed. The well-dressed man wipes some of the lipstick off, and says that it is hallucinogenic. It is revealed that they are actually in the corridors of a spaceship. Grimly, the well-dressed man remarks, "She's here."

River Song finds a vault and blasts the door open with a firearm, revealing a black box. She uses the firearm to burn a message in the ancient language of the Time Lords into the artifact that is found in the vault, a Home Box, the equivalent of a black box in planes, except it homes. Meanwhile, 12,000 years into the future, the Doctor and Amy Pond are in a museum, the Doctor explaining that most things there are incorrect (although he identifies a couple as belonging to him) until they come across the same home box. Amy is told of the power of the language of Time Lords and when Amy asks what it says, he exasperatedly replies "Hello sweetie". Immediately after, the Doctor and Amy steal the box and retreat into the TARDIS.

They look at the box's data and see a security feed of River Song standing in front of a doorway, and giving a series of coordinates. The Doctor takes the TARDIS to these coordinates and rescues River right after the door opens, throwing her into space.

The TARDIS gives chase to the Byzantium, but River takes the controls from him, telling him to press the blue stabilizers. The TARDIS stops shaking, and she lands the ship without the trademark hum of the landing TARDIS, explaining that the thrumming is only because the Doctor always leaves the brake on.

They exit the TARDIS, where they see the flaming wreckage of the Byzantium atop a plateau of stone. After Amy asks who River is, the Doctor introduces them, accidentally letting loose to River that she will one day become a Professor. River calls in reinforcements that she has in orbit, and four men in desert camouflage teleport down. They are introduced to the Doctor by River. The leader, Father Octavian, has already heard of the Doctor. After being prompted by Father Octavian, River reveals to the Doctor that they are, in fact, chasing a Weeping Angel.

They enter the Temple, where camp is swiftly set up. The men in camouflage, the Clerics, have landed a dropship, which Father Octavian, River, Amy, and the Doctor enter. River has a tape of a Weeping Angel in the hull of the ship, one which loops every four seconds. The Doctor and River explain to Amy the nature of a Weeping Angel. The Doctor grins after he explains that they can move, and then he, River, and Father Octavian leave the dropship to work out how they will deal with the Weeping Angel. While working out a plan, River mentions to the Doctor that he once gave her all of his faces for whenever they meet. She hands the Doctor a book warning people about the Angels, and he starts to read. While the Doctor, River, and Father Octavian plan out their exploits, Amy feels left out, and looks around the dropship. However, the Weeping Angel has changed ever so slightly - its hands are slightly away from its face, and its head has turned to the camera slightly. She asks River Song if there was more than one clip of the Angel; however she finds out there is only one. The four-second loop changes again, Amy having looked away from it for a while, and the Weeping Angel is now facing the camera, arms spread. Amy attempts to turn the television off, but it turns itself back on. After trying to convince herself a recording can't move, she attempts to unplug the television, to no avail. When Amy looks back up, the Weeping Angel has again moved closer to the camera, its face now filling the screen. Amy tries opening the dropship's airlock, but it is deadlock sealed, and the Weeping Angel is now screaming into the camera.

Outside, the Doctor questions why a warning about the Weeping Angels has no pictures of the Angels. Re-reading the warning, he realizes that the image of an Angel becomes an Angel itself. At the same time, Amy looks back to the screen and the Weeping Angel is projecting itself inside the dropship as a hologram (or at least something visually akin to a hologram) with image noise. The Doctor attempts to open the door with his sonic screwdriver, but it won't work, and neither will attempting to cut off power to the ship's television from outside. The Doctor warns Amy to not look into the eyes of the Angel explaining they aren't the window to the soul, but the door. This is useless though, because Amy has already looked into the eyes of the angel. Amy finally defeats the Angel by freezing the image on the television between loops. The doors unlock and the Doctor enters and pulls the power cord to the television. The Doctor explains that the Angel was trying to reach out to them through the television and is no longer dormant. The Church soldiers outside are able to break through into the temple and the Doctor leaves exclaiming "It's begun," but not before Amy rubs her eye, and tells River that there was something in it.

The team climbs down into the temple and discovers a gravity well inside. The Doctor kicks a gravity globe into the well, and it floats into the middle of the chamber, revealing a room filled with stone statues. The Doctor goes off to explore, giving Father Octavian a moment to ask River if he "knows" yet. River tells Octavian that it is too soon in the Doctor's timeline, to which Octavian responds "Well, don't let him work it out." She ends the conversation by telling Octavian that she has "no intention of going back to prison." Octavian lets River leave and then sends Clerics Christian and Angelo to search the one visible exit from the chamber.

While exploring with the Doctor and River, Amy rubs her eye again. This time, dust runs out of it and through her fingers. River notices Amy looking at her hand, and asks if she is all right. Amy shakes the question off and asks what a Maze of the Dead is. River tells her it's not as bad as it sounds, and that it's just called that because dead people are buried in the walls. While getting an inoculation to provide protection from radiation, Amy asks River what the Doctor is like. River says "the Doctor is the Doctor."

Elsewhere, Cleric Christian and Cleric Angelo explore the caves exit and complain about the mission. Christian continues forward, and away from Angelo, when his rifle's light flickers. He turns back to call for Angelo to come to him, and looks up to see a Weeping Angel about to attack. Angelo then gets a transmission from Christian to come and see something. He continues down the caves and is also attacked.

The Doctor, Amy, and River hear gunfire from afar and head out to investigate. Cleric Bob has fired on a regular statue thinking it was an Angel. During a short conversation with the Doctor, Octavian tells the Doctor that their names are sacred names given to them when they enter the service of the church. Octavian orders Bob to keep guard of the entrance along with Christian and Angelo, and then joins the Doctor in his exploration. It is unknown to any of them that Christian and Angelo are dead.

The Doctor, Amy, River, Octavian, and a few Cleric soldiers continue deeper into the caverns and into a chamber of just statues. River and the Doctor begin discussing the fact that the temple builders had two heads, when The Doctor suddenly realises that the statues all have only one head. The Doctor asks everyone to turn off their torches which they do. He then turns off his own torch for a split second. When it comes back on, all the statues are trying to climb over to the group to attack. They realize that the entire chamber is filled with Weeping Angels. They do not look or act like other Angels, and the Doctor deduces that they have been down without anything to feed off of for long enough to degrade and weaken. He realizes that the crash of the Byzantium is releasing enough radiation to feed the army of Angels.

Meanwhile, Cleric Bob gets a transmission over the radio from Angelo, telling him to come over and see something. Bob does so, and is attacked by the Weeping Angel from the ship (it is the only Angel that is not damaged). Octavian radios Bob with a warning about the Angels, and gets a response. After a short talk, Bob reveals that he is on his way to the group, and that he didn't escape the Angels. He explains that his neck was snapped, along with Christian's and Angelo's, and that the Angel took his cerebral cortex and reanimated a copy so that it could have a voice. The group begins running towards the wreckage, but Amy cannot. Her hand turned to stone while she was grabbing something, and she is now stuck. The Doctor tells Amy that the Angel is playing with her mind, and her hand is just fine. They argue over whether or not her hand is stone as Angels draw nearer, flickering the Doctor's flashlight in order to gain ground. The Doctor bites Amy's hand to convince her, and the two run away.

All the survivors are now gathered below the wreckage of the Byzantium, with no way out. Bob radios again, and tells the Doctor that the Angels are "very keen" that he should know that Bob died in fear and pain. River remarks to Amy that the Angels are trying to make the Doctor angry. The Doctor confirms that everyone in the group trusts him, then asks for Octavian's sidearm. He instructs them to jump when he does something extremely "stupid and dangerous". He tells Bob that the Angels made one mistake in designing their trap, saying that "There's one thing you never want to put in a trap if you're smart, if you value your continued existence, if you have any plans of seeing tomorrow then there's one thing that you should never, put in a trap. Me." With that, he shoots the ceiling, destroying the gravity globe.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
 * River Song - Alex Kingston
 * Alistair - Simon Dutton
 * Security Guard - Mike Skinner
 * Octavian - Iain Glen
 * Christian - Mark Springer
 * Angelo - Troy Glasgow
 * Bob - David Atkins
 * Marco - Darren Morfitt
 * Weeping Angel - Marie McGonigle (uncredited)
 * Weeping Angel - Caroline Royce (uncredited)
 * Pedro - Mark Monero (uncredited)
 * Phillip - George Russo (uncredited)

Languages

 * River leaves the Doctor a message in Old High Gallifreyan.

Planets

 * The Byzantium crash lands on Alfava Metraxis.

Spacecraft

 * The Byzantium is a spacecraft carrying a Weeping Angel. It crash lands when its warp engines suffer a phase shift.

Races and species

 * Over hundreds of years Weeping Angels lose their form.
 * The Doctor mentions he had dinner with the Aplans' chief Architect once. This is possibly a reference to The Curse of Fatal Death, which was also written by Steven Moffat.

Religion

 * The soldiers who accompany River Song are from the Church.

TARDIS

 * The TARDIS is capable of creating and extending an air corridor.
 * The TARDIS has brakes.
 * According to River Song, the TARDIS isn't supposed to make the classic materialization/dematerialization noise; she says it's because the Doctor always leaves the brakes on to which he counters he likes the sound the TARDIS makes.
 * The TARDIS can operate like a spaceship, following the Byzantium through space before jumping through time to reach the crash site.
 * The TARDIS has a blue stabilizer button that the Doctor was seemingly unaware of.

Technology

 * A Home Box is like a flight recorder, after a ship lands it can home-in back to the spacecraft's planet of origin.
 * The projection of a Weeping Angel is able to deadlock seal the landing pod, despite the pod not having the capability.
 * Perception filters are refered to again.
 * Gravity globes, first seen in The Impossible Planet, return.

Story notes

 * This was the first episode of Series 5 to be filmed, and therefore the first episode featuring Matt Smith and Karen Gillan.
 * Amy Pond thinks her hand has turned to stone. Actress Karen Gillan previously appeared in DW: The Fires of Pompeii as a member of the Sibylline Sisterhood, a cult of soothsayers whose flesh was beginning to turn to stone due to the influence of the Pyroviles.
 * This is the third appearance of the Weeping Angels if one counts non-TV appearances; they have previously featured in DW: Blink and in Captain Jack's Monster Files. (See WC: A Ghost Story for Christmas)
 * The Doctor ripping the strap off the ceiling of one of the small ships was originally an accident; the producers liked the idea so much that they filmed Matt Smith doing it again.
 * In this story, River Song is a doctor. She acts with surprise when the Doctor lets slip that she will one day be a professor. In conversation with Father Octavian, she mentions that she was once imprisoned for a crime, and that the Doctor wouldn't help them if he knew who she truly was. It was revealed shortly before the episode aired that the crime was murdering "the best man she ever knew." Fans have speculated that this man could be the Doctor..
 * River Song is the sixth person seen capable of flying the TARDIS solo since the reintroduction of Doctor Who in 2005. Others have included: the Doctor; Captain Jack Harkness; The Master; Rose Tyler empowered as the Bad Wolf entity; the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor; and Donna Noble after her Meta-Crisis with the Doctor. Prior to 2005, several companions and (of course) other Time Lords were seen to be able to operate the TARDIS to varying degrees.
 * During its airing in some parts of England, an animated advert for the talent show Over the Rainbow began playing over the cliffhanger. This sparked complaints to the BBC who later apologised. The advert contained an animated Graham Norton. Norton later joked about it on his own show, saying he finally secured a role on Doctor Who. However, his voice had previously been overheard during the first episode of the revived series, Rose, when an error in broadcasting began playing the audio of a trailer featuring Norton for another talent show Strictly Dance Fever.
 * This is the first episode of Series 5 not to feature one of The Cracks, however one does show up in the next episode. This is likely to be because it is the first of a two-part story. However, some have noticed what appears to be a closed crack in the Weeping Angel recording. 
 * One question commonly asked by fans regarding DW: Blink was why Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale did not try closing one eye at a time to keep the Weeping Angels at bay. When the Angel is attacking Amy, she tries this method, but remarks on how difficult it actually is.
 * The episode ran short in its original cut because high tides at the beach location forced the abandonment of about three scripted pages — including the scene which had been used to audition Karen Gilian for the part of Amy Pond. In its place, Steven Moffat inserted the scene where River flies the TARDIS, which was filmed as a pick-up. (DCOM: The Time of Angels)

Ratings
6.8 million

Filming locations
to be added

Rumours

 * River Song's presence in this episode may indicate that it is set in the 51st century, but this is not certain, as it is unknown precisely where in the timeline River Song comes from. The Doctor very briefly mentioned that it was the 51st century. 
 * A teaser from Digital Spy has implied a Data Ghost device will appear in this episode. This was proved partially true. The same suits which have the devices were spotted in the episode, but were not used.

Production errors

 * When the Doctor is talking to 'Angel Bob' over the radio, he doesn't have a torch in his hand. But then, in the next shot running past Amy, he is shown with one.
 * The warning on the dropship door reads "CAUTION: Trip Hazzard". The word "Hazard" is not properly spelt in this manner.
 * When River is in space, the TARDIS has white windows. The scene then cuts to a close up of the Doctor, and the windows are black. Steven Moffat admits that it is the "David Tennant police box" on the DVD commentary, but falls gentlemanly short of laying blame at the feet of any particular production member.
 * Steven Moffat notes in the in-vision commentary that there are massive continuity errors throughout the episode, with respect to the length of Matt Smith's hair. Indeed, careful examination does reveal that Smith's hair has several different lengths, sometimes within the same scene.
 * Before River is sucked out of the Byzantium, unlike the other two, the guard on the left has no pipes on his side of the corridor to hold on to, yet when River is sucked out, he can be seen hanging onto something.

Continuity

 * The same suits River Song and her crew wore when she became an archeologist can be seen in this episode in the pod where Amy encounters her first weeping angel. (DW: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead).
 * The Weeping Angels previously appeared in DW: Blink.
 * River Song previously appeared in DW: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead.
 * The Doctor refers to the events of DW: Blink.
 * River Song mentioned the crash of the Byzantium in DW: Silence in the Library.
 * The Doctor previously used the TARDIS to chase a crashing space ship in DW: The Empty Child.
 * A gravity globe was previously used in DW: The Impossible Planet.
 * Amy refers to visiting a spaceship and Winston Churchill's cabinet war-rooms. (DW: The Beast Below, DW: Victory of the Daleks)
 * High Gallifreyan was previously seen in DW: The Five Doctors.
 * The new Sonic Screwdriver is as ineffective against Deadlock Seals as its predecessors.
 * Perception Filters are mentioned, though the Doctor does mention that the group may have just been "a bit thick".
 * The scene where the Doctor refuses to do an environment check is reminiscent of DW: Power of the Daleks, where a post-regeneration Second Doctor absentmindedly starts to wander out of the TARDIS. When his companions protest that he hasn't checked for oxygen on the planet, the Doctor rattles off the temperature, radiation, oxygen density, and detects a likelihood of mecury deposits.
 * Similar to the Fourth Doctor with Romana, the Doctor is annoyed by someone claiming to be better at piloting the TARDIS than he is.
 * After flicking through the book on the Weeping Angels, the Doctor remarks "Not bad, bit boring in the middle." He did a similar thing with a book in a Parisian cafe in DW: City of Death.
 * The Doctor tells River that he is not a taxi service. The Fifth Doctor told Adric the same thing in DW: Earthshock.
 * The Book of Weeping Angels later appears in the Doctor's study in his TARDIS. (VG: TARDIS)

Home video releases
BBC Video - Doctor Who Series Five - Volume Two will feature The Time of Angels, Flesh and Stone and The Vampires of Venice. It will be released on Monday 5th July 2010 (UK Only) on DVD and Blu-ray.