Time Vortex: The Angels Take Manhattan

All too soon the run of Doctor Who is over and so is the story of the Ponds. Join me as I reflect on their fate. As usual they’ll be spoilers so I suggest you stop reading if you’ve yet to see the episode- basically run!

The genius of this episode is that we all knew the Ponds would leave, possibly by dying, and it was only a matter of time before our hearts were ripped apart. For our three heroes all was going well as they relaxed in Central Park. Then the Doctor realises the book he is reading tells his own story and that River Song is responsible.

Poor Rory ends up transported by the creepy weeping angel babies (as if they weren’t terrifying enough) until he arrives at Winter Quay. The Doctor, Amy and River catch up with him just in time to find and old Rory who promptly dies. Winter Quay is a massive weeping angel trap, a battery farm for them. Rory creates a paradox by jumping off the building, with Amy joining him, and it destroys the whole building and defeats the weeping angels.

All is find and Amy and Rory wake up in a graveyard. They are just about to leave when a surviving angel zaps Rory into the past and Amy chooses to get zapped and spent her life with him. The Doctor can’t ever see them again because of timey-wimey things but Amy’s afterword in River’s book sends him to see young Amelia Pond in that night she waited all night for the Doctor and tell her all the adventures she’s going to have.

I think it was a satisfying end for the Ponds. Having a couple in the TARDIS made for more of a challenge than other companions in writing an exit. They had to end up somewhere the Doctor could never get to but still have the opportunity to live their lives together and Moffat gave them this. The actual situation isn’t that great and fixed points in time seem to be Moffat’s get-out clause for any plot line. Surely there is some way that the Doctor could see them again? Couldn’t he borrow River’s vortex manipulator? But still, the method was good and Amy scarifying herself to a weeping angel was a great end.

Moffat promised that someone would die in this episode and they certainly did. Amy has managed to die quite a few times since her time in the TARDIS but that’s nothing compared to Rory who has “died” more times than I can be bothered to recount. In this episode he manages another three deaths old age at Winter Quay, jumping off Winter Quay and his final proper death of old age again. Amy joined him for two of those as well. The Ponds will be forever remembered as the companions that died a lot but were always fine.

I liked most of the elements in this story. The book was a fantastic plot device. If you could read your future would you? Could you? Matt Smith once again proved how amazing an actor he is and his reactions to Amy’s fate seemed so genuine. And New York was the perfect backdrop for this story. It could have been set in any city really but the New York skyscape and the gangster world really added something.

This was another River Song episode. She’s an interesting character and most people either love her or hate her. I can’t quite decide which side I fall on though. In her timeline this falls before the Silence in the Library two-parter, seeing as though she’s just been made into a Professor. And for once it directly follows her last appearance in The Wedding of River Song. There’s not really many gaps in her story now but I do feel she should have one final episode which really completes it.

So that’s it! No more Ponds! Although I wouldn’t be too surprised if they did turn up at some point in the future for a special, either by a get-out clause or earlier in their timeline. So where does the show go from here? Well it was quickly suggested from both River and Amy that the Doctor should not travel alone and new companion Jenna-Louise Coleman will be back at Christmas to start her era properly. At some point there has to be an explanation into how that can be possible but I wouldn’t be surprised if that doesn’t happen straight away. Beyond that we know very little beyond whose is writing episodes. Neil Gaiman is returning, supposedly with an episode that reinvents the cybermen and some old classic monsters might be making an appearance, with the Ice Warriors in particular being rumoured (I really hope they do return!). 

Next Time: The Doctor will return at Christmas but Time Vortex will be here much more regularly! You can join us on every other Sunday for all sorts of cool things!