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Too Much Red Bull? 10 Thoughts About Doctor Who: Village Of The Angels

Published Sun, 21 Nov 2021 19:47:10 -0600

Tonight saw the fourth episode of the 13th season of Doctor Who, a six-episode one-story season with the overall name of Flux. I'll be missing out on next week's episode as I'll be at San Diego Comic-Con, but this was an absolute belter. Oh, and it also has a mid-credit scene… don't click over when the music starts… okay, Spoilers ahoy!

1. We Are The Village Green Preservation Society

There's nothing Doctor Who loves more than an old English village. Oh, you may think it's all space stations, corridors, other planets, and alien quarries. But there is something about a Doctor Who story, set in a village miles from anywhere important where weird stuff is going down, and if it's in an earlier time period, the more's the better. This one has a creepy village, churches, gravestones, cottages in both the dark and the rain and is also set in a number of points in time through the twentieth century. That guarantees a belter of a Doctor Who story every time. The Daemons, Stones Of Blood, Human Nature, The Family Of Blood, and Amy's Choice… Village Of The Angels joins them all.

2. Finally, It's Claire's Story

We met her in episode one, someone who knew who – and what – the Doctor was, just that they hadn't met yet. And now, courtesy of a Weeping Angel, she's in 1967. And thankfully, we have a lie-detecting machine set up to monitor for other reasons that can't quite cope with someone so time-displaced – and the most basic questions to be answered generate the most outrageous lies possible. A bit like writing Doctor Who, I guess?

3. Turn The TARDIS Off And On Again

Doctor Who goes very The IT Crowd for a minute, rebooting the TARDIS that must reignite speculation that Richard Ayoade could be the next Doctor Who. But it's not the only British sitcom that you'll be thinking of tonight.

4. The Inbetweeners Of Reality

Yup, it's Blake Harrison – Neil from The Inbetweeners, of the TV series and two movies. We already had James Buckley in the really rather awful Orphan 55 a couple of years ago. Neil as Namaca Ost Parvess Po is a) an improvement and b) in a much better episode by far. Although, do we believe that a universe destroyed, fragments of planets, suns, and moons left behind by the Flux was all the Flux's fault? Or had Neil just left the oven on? And Bel is no nearer to Vinder, but she is getting wrapped up in the Swarmy world of Passenger and Azure. And it looks like Neil is the one to reunite the star-crossed lovers.

5. Red Bull Gives You Wings

I can see the filters on TikTok already, but on the day that my eldest daughter painted me a TARDIS birthday card (that Neil Gaiman liked on social, and a few people have already made her offers to replicate), we are glad she didn't go any further with that… not today anyway. Because Weeping Angels have found new ways to invade us – our televisions, our drawings, and our minds… but do they just want to talk?

6. Doctor Lite

Yaz and Dan get to show their strengths here, Yaz as the organised police type, taking control of a situation, smoothing over cracks, while Dan just got the best lines. That's a strength, right? The Doctor just recycled her lines instead – "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" was the obvious one from the Third Doctor, but we also got a "don't wander off" from the Tenth Doctor as well. While Yaz echoed the departed Graham's words about a "flat team structure" when asked who was in charge.

And lots of good value from Jericho as well!

7. The Universe At The End Of The Lane

The episode does the trick of being set on November the 21st, the day the episode goes to air. Even though that's a November the 21st from fifty-five years ago, it's a great way to make it topical. And it's a time loop that has been done before, to be fair, most recently in The Loop, which was apt. But the night/day divide was utterly gorgeous, as was the universe at the end of the lane.

8. The Gain At The End Of The Universe

It's time for a very different sermon on the mount. While Azure at the end of the universe seems to be doing a fine impersonation of Professor Yana with the final people of the universe. In Passenger, you are not alone…

9. Divide And Conquer

The Division is as active as they ever were, not just in the Dark Times, it seems. With active squads of Weeping Angels. Both creatures of time, what the link is between Time Lord, Mouri, and Weeping Angels is still to come. And one Weeping Angel with the knowledge to give the Doctor everything she needs to know. But instead recruiting her back. I wonder how many Time Lords make up that number?

Too much Red Bull, Doctor.

10. The Two Peggies

But also time for Peggy to go the long way round, in a Night & Day Pixar way. And from the Next On Doctor Who, she may not be the only one. And we have Ood and Robert Bathurst to come. Shame he never made it into a Moffat episode after their Joking Apart days…

Doctor Who: Village Of The Angels

Devon, November 1967. A little girl has gone missing, Professor Eustacius Jericho is conducting psychic experiments, and in the village graveyard, there is one gravestone too many. Why is Medderton known as the Cursed Village, and what do the Weeping Angels want?

The Doctor Jodie Whittaker
Yasmin Khan Mandip Gill
Dan Lewis John Bishop
Professor Jericho Kevin McNally
Bel Thaddea Graham
Azure Rochenda Sandall
Claire Brown Annabel Scholey
Weeping Angel Barbara Fadden
Writer Chris Chibnall
Writer Maxine Alderton
Director Jamie Magnus Stone
Executive Producer Matt Strevens
Executive Producer Nikki Wilson
Executive Producer Chris Chibnall