PART 1 of 2
Written by Steven Moffat
Directed by Adam Smith
“The eyes are not the window to the soul. They are the doorway.”
The Time of Angels is a series of glorious, stupendous, sublime exercises. Acting, writing, and directing muscles are flexed in a myriad of ways…all designed to make the toes tingle and the spine shiver. It’s an exercise in creating the perfect “part one” and an exercise in the fusion of Doctor Who’s 47 year old ingredients for success.
It’s an exercise in first class script writing, from the hand of the Grand Moff himself. Steven Moffat isn’t content to simply write a standard sequel to his massive series three hit Blink — he designs a story to take the creatures, and the situation of his characters, to an entirely new level. Our introduction to the Weeping Angels involved a group of scavengers…but this time, we are presented with the REAL deal. Angels that murder to achieve a devious purpose. Angels that have set the trap of traps, side by side with a resurrection of horrific proportions. Angels that reach out and transform, subsume, and outright steal identity…whether it be turning Amy into stone, or ripping out a cerebral cortex and hijacking an innocent young soldier’s persona.
It’s also an exercise in wit & sparkling dialogue…brought to life by a cast with electrifying chemistry. The lines come flying at a mile a minute, the humour slides from the sly to the outright hilarious when you’re not even looking. In between, there are vast amounts of creepiness, punctuated by sudden bursts of powerful insight, insult, and condemnation. This is a script where being “adult” means a heightened sophistication, wrapped in the trappings of a terrifying monster-hunting epic. In short, it’s everything Doctor Who has excelled at since day one in 1963.
It’s the ultimate aerobic session for actors. Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and Alex Kingston dance with each other: a magical, hilarious, poignant trio, managing all sorts of fabulous interaction, while at the same time retaining the sense of mystery & discomfort regarding the background to the strangest love/like relationship in Doctor Who history. What is especially deft about this set up is that it works on two beautiful levels, both as a neophyte’s introduction to River Song AND as a continuation of what fans remember from Silence in the Library & Forest of the Dead.
Above all, The Time of Angels is Adam Smith’s exercise in meshing old school Doctor Who chills with modern action adventure. Don’t believe me? Just watch that opening teaser sequence…an introduction that puts most James Bond films to shame. The scale of the production is epic (the location shoot for the Byzantium crash site looks like it was stolen from a James Cameron film), and yet it has no problem compressing itself down to the dark corners, one-on-one hushed conversations, and base-under-siege clichés that Doctor Who conquered and made into series archetypes long ago. “Glorious” seems to be best adjective to apply to the look of the production…
…which is as satisfactory a description as you need for anything angelic. Mind you, The Time of Angels is only angelic in its ultimate aim: to scare the living hell out of small children, while entertaining and unnerving the adults. It’s a “how to” manual for classic Doctor Who, new age Doctor Who, and setting up a near-perfect first half of a two part story. At this point, I have no doubt part two will match the superficial, glossy triumphs of part one…but will the upcoming Flesh and Stone deliver a conclusion as definitive as the set up? Stay tuned…
9.5
