Flesh and Stone

Season 32, episode 5.

Now spellchecked because of you whingers who can't let a few typos go.

Just to recap...

Last time, The Doctor picked up that annoying woman (River Song), they chased a spaceship, entered a dark maze, found a fuckload of angels and got surrounded.

Explosions suck

So, what was the Doctor's plan that he ended the last episode threatening the angels with? Turns out it was just to run away, but upwards. That's not very threatening, Doctor. And how does he achieve this escape? Well, it sort of half makes sense. He shoots the floating light thingy, which apparently causes some sort of sucking in of air or something, which gives them enough lift to be able to jump up to the spaceship's gravity field. OK, it doesn't make sense at all, but you can see where they're coming from and things get a lot worse before too long, so let's forget it.

Ten. I mean, running around like idiots.

Practically nothing happens for the next few minutes except that they all run away from the angels some more and open and shut a lot of doors. The only thing of note is that Amy starts counting down from ten. It takes a stupidly long time for anyone to figure out this is what she's doing. I think she was at five before the Doctor picked up on it, and then instead of working out what it was about, he just radioed the Angels and asked. And they told him. Well, that was exciting.

Time to buy some crack!

The Angels then point out the huge glowing crack in the wall that apparently everyone else had missed and the Doctor scans it with his magic wand (apparently it can scan stuff today) while everyone else runs away some more. While he's doing this, a whole load of Angels show up and surround him. But fortunately they only grab his jacket and then stay turned to stone even when no one's looking at them, because apparently the writers have completely forgotten how that was supposed to work. And so the Doctor runs away too.

It's a forest, with SCIENCE!

The place they all ran to is the "oxygen factory" of the ship, or to put it another way, it's cyborg trees. They look like trees, but they have lots of glowy shit inside them and access panels and shit. This is supposedly to get light into the room, so, the trees are supposed to be the light sources I guess. Except they're not glowing. So I don't know. Anyway, for all intents and purpose it's a forest and there was absolutely no reason to bring up the whole cyborg trees thing.

Five. Oh right, the countdown.

So anyway, Amy's still counting, and by now the characters in the show have managed to spot this and figure they should check her out, so River pulls out her tricorder and scans her, and it turns out Amy is dying. The Doctor takes this as another opportunity to be a dick for no reason by telling Amy she's a dead woman before coming up with the solution.

Weeping Angels do not work that way!

Turns out, looking at an Angel's eyes for too long now lets them take over your mind or something. Seriously, why even call these things Weeping Angels? They look the same as the ones from Blink, but they are very clearly not the same thing at all. They're not even close. And the solution? Close your eyes. But that only pauses it, and if she opens her eyes again for more than a second, she's dead. Keep that in mind because it will be important later.

We're being chased by monsters. Let's split up! That never goes wrong!

The Doctor decides to take River and the head priest-soldier with him to... do something. I honestly have no idea what they were planning to do at this stage. It doesn't matter anyway, because I'm pretty sure they never do it. Whatever it was.

Anyway, before he goes, the Doctor decides to be a dick again by telling Amy to remember what he told her when she was seven. And refusing to repeat himself. What? So anyway they leave Amy there with her eyes shut and a few priest-soldiers to guard her.

As she sits there, the priest-soldiers report Angels appearing all around them. Even though they're watching all directions.
...
Weeping Angels do not work that way!

Priest-soldiers die

The Angels surrounding Amy all suddenly run away for some reason (even though people are still watching them) and it turns out the glowing crack is now huge and coming towards them or something. So naturally they decide the best option is to go take a closer look at it. Sure, the Angels are scared of it and ran away, but I'm sure it's safe for humans.

Oh wait, it totally isn't safe for humans and all the priest-soldiers die. Or rather, they get wiped from existence as though they never were. Except that everything they did in their lives stays done, but people can't remember them. Except for the Doctor, Amy and River. They can remember them. Because apparently having travelled through time at some point makes you immune to the mind-altering effects of crack.

Priest-soldier leader dies

Meanwhile, the Doctor, River and Octavian (that's the leader of the priest-soldiers, and yes, I had to look that name up) have found a hatch that leads to some place. I can't remember where it was. Just some other part of the ship. It's really not important. Anyway, River goes through the hatch, but before the other two can follow, an Angel grabs Octavian by the throat.

The Doctor then has a pointless discussion with him about how he's not leaving hi to die, and Octavian points out that there is literally no alternative, and then before he dies, he tells the Doctor that River was his prisoner, and she had been convicted of murdering a man. A man who is very obviously the Doctor, but whose identity the characters in the show pretend is mysterious.

WEEPING ANGELS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!

Then the Doctor goes to join River inside and they get on the radio and talk to Amy, who is now alone. The Doctor uses his magic wand to turn Amy's radio into a compass for the blind, and she starts coming towards them.

Unfortunately the forest is full of Angels, but it's OK, because apparently now they turn to stone if they even think that you look like maybe you might be able to see them, so Amy's fine until she trips and drops her radio. Then the angels start moving.

And I don't mean they move in the same way they always have before, ie. off screen. No, we actually see them move. I think it was supposed to be creepy, but it completely ignores the very thing that made them creepy to begin with. You can't ever see them move. And now we have. *sigh*

River's not even worth one angel. Suck it, River.

Just in the nick of time, River manages to activate a convenient teleporter and bring Amy to them. But the door of the room they're in opens up and there're, like, a whole bunch of Angels out there. And they're draining the ships power, so the lights are going to go out.

Also, the time crack is growing and can only be closed if someone important enough jumps in. River volunteers, but the Doctor tests her she's not important enough, but all those Angels outside the door might be. Fortunately, the angels are draining the ship's power, which deactivates the artificial gravity and makes them all fall into the crack. And gives the Doctor an opportunity to tell them how stupid they are and how he's about to defeat them, Bond-villain style.

In case you missed that clue earlier

The crack's closed, literally all the angels fell into it, and the only three characters anyone gives a shit about are alive. Hooray! Also Amy's cured now, because of magic. And even though all the priests who were holding her prisoner are dead now, River still has to go back to jail. For some reason. Apparently there are still some clerics around, I guess.

But before she goes, the Doctor asks her about being a murderer, and she says "Yeah, I totally killed a guy. And it was you. In case you missed that earlier. You. The Doctor. You." or words to that effect.

Doesn't every girl want to rape a Time Lord?

So the Doctor and Amy get going again, but Amy asks the Doctor to take her home for a minute 'cause she wants to show him something. And it's in her pants. Seriously. She brings him into her bedroom to show him her wedding dress, tells him she's getting married in the morning, then sexually assaults him. Apparently attempted rape is something good guys can do on children's shows now.

While fighting off her unwelcome advances, the Doctor has time to notice that the day of her wedding is the same day the time cracks are all coming from. And he somehow knows that that is not a coincidence. And, like, OMG, the day is the 26th of June 2010! That's this year! GASP!

So he drags her back into the TARDIS while she continues to attempt to rape him and they fly off to find out what the time cracks are all about. Or maybe he just wants to fuck in his own bedroom. Who knows.

Next week: Vampires!

Once again the spoilers piss me off almost as much as the episode. Not only do we know they're going to Venice, and there are going to be vampires, but we also know they're going to eventually figure out that they're not really vampires. Because an unexpected reveal like that works best if the audience knows about it beforehand and therefore is not surprised in any way.

The vampires look pretty cool, but it seems like it'll just be a lot more running around like idiots and I doubt the vampires have anything to do with the time cracks, because once again, that's a season-long plot arc and therefore not urgent at all.

Overall impressions

It was fast-paced and constantly moving and utterly dull. Apart from the shitty ending, I can't even get that worked up about most of it, because it was just boring. There was no sense of danger, no tension, not even any good dialogue. People ran around, Weeping Angels failed to be at all frightening or creepy and people I didn't give a shit about died offscreen. In conclusion; Pphhhbt.

Postscript

Aikanaro tells you: "When I was a little girl, I had an imaginary friend. I spent so many years thinking about raping him. Raping him to death."