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Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

There are spoilers. Big spoilers. Massive spoilers. I'm sorry, that's the way it is. You don't want spoilers, fine, I don't blame you, go elsewhere…

1. The Doctor In New York

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

A map of Manhattan laid across the titles? The Doctor hasn't had a lot of luck in America… he was gunned to death there once, and then there was all that nonsense with the Daleks, and there's always New New New New New New New New New York…

2. Whose TARDIS Is It Anyway?

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

"Mike McShane, you are a hammy collector of objects d'art in 1930s America, you have a living statue imprisoned behind the curtain and the Doctor and Amy have just turned up… go!"

3. Babies

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

Right now I'm with Fat Batard. "I eat babies, me!" And yes they are as creepy as all hell.

You know there are plenty of other people the Doctor could have used that regeneration power on over the millenia. When Rory was suffocating in The Black Spot, that would have been a good one. Or maybe he did, which is why that rubbish CPR from Amy worked…

4. Ghostbusters

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

That Statue Of Liberty thundering though Manhattan… can no one else in the city that never sleeps see it and stop it in its tracks? Or are New Yorkers just not looking up? Also, has no one noticed it's gone missing. And, hey, what was that private detective line at the beginning that for the right money, he's believe anything? Rather Winstonny?

5. Yes We Know It's Made Of Metal

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

Shush. The angels probably have the original stored somewhere. Maybe it pops up on its stand when the Weeping Angel Statue of Liberty goes walkabout. Got to say, ding it twice does rather lessen the impact… as does having it appear on a Canadian trailer.

6. When Doesn't Rory Come Back From The Dead?

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

He has died so many times. He did it three times in this episode alone. Can this really be his end? The Doctor however does seem to be, well, if not dead, then deleted. Oswin started it, the Doctor seems to have kept it going – and very useful it is too now.

7. Why Can't They Go Back?

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

The Doctor keeps visiting River Song even though he knows about her death. He's visited many people knowing about their death? Why can't he visit, as long as he drops them off again? Or does he just not trust himself?

Oh that final scene with Amy though, in a graveyard, did it feel like Buffy staking a vampire? Moffat does know his Buffy…

8. What About Brian?

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

Will no one tell him? Will Amy find him when he's a younger man? Could the Doctor introduce River to Brian as his grand daughter – and himself as Brian's new grandson?

And is Amy really five years older than Rory, or did the extra travelling she did with the Doctor on her own add on those years? (UPDATE: Or, silly me, Amy died five years after Rory, what was I thinking?)

9. Back To The Future

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

You know, there was speculation about this scene from "Eleventh Hour" waaaaayyyyyy back in the day. April 2010 we were going on about it, wondering how it would figure in. And two-and-a-half years later he gets round to it. Steven Moffat does that kind of thing you know, I always remember Press Gang's "At Last A Dragon" with fondness in this fashion…

Awww, break out the tissues.

10. Fanon Fodder

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

Right. This is how I've written what we didn't see at the end. Amy and Rory, when they go back in time at the end, do find a little toddler wandering round Manhattan in 1969, or pick her up from the orphanage and raise her as their own (because she is her own, despite the looks about having a mixed race child, and one that doesn't seem to age much), trying to calm her killer psychopath ways but eventually moving to Leadworth with her, in the nineties where she becomes best friends with kids Amy and Rory, who they intentionally never see to avoid any Blinovitch Limitation Effects, before returning to New York to die. And that's what happens. In my head, and not contradicted by the TV show.

Oh and The Doctor and River also take that sole rogue Weeping Angel and send it to the Byzantine, so it can be eventually defeated by those it just attacked. Just saying.

Next Time: Christmas Day

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

Richard E Grant makes a really good villain, doesn;t he?


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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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