Doctor Who Series 5 Episode 5 - Flesh & Stone (Part 2) - Review
Starring: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Alex Kingston & Iain Glen
Written By: Steven Moffat
Directed By: Adam Smith
Welcome
back to my review of The Time Of Angels and
Flesh & Stone.
You can find my review of Part 1 here:
So
let's waste no more time and crack straight on with Part 2: Flesh
& Stone.
Still
being pursued by an army of Weeping Angels, the Doctor, Amy, River
and the surviving clerics make their way to the wreckage of the
crashed Byzantium
starship. With the relentless Angels hot on their tails, a crack in
the fabric of time threatening to eat away at their very existence,
and Amy having to battle with the image of an Angel imprinted on her
brain, the odds seem stacked against them.
First
things first, Flesh & Stone started
off really well, providing a clever conclusion to last week's
cliffhanger and allowing the action to keep moving right from the
offset. The opening ten minutes of this episode really racked up the
tension, and events barely stood still. The Weeping Angels pursuing
everyone down the corridors of the Byzantium was
a really-well made moment, with some terrific lighting and direction,
and using the bullet fire from the guns to illuminate the Angels was
a smart idea.
One
area where Flesh & Stone definitely
improved over The Time Of Angels,
was the way it handled Amy. While Amy was given little to nothing to
do last week, here she has a much bigger role, and the episode is all
the better for it. For the first time this series, Karen Gillan was
given the chance to flex her acting muscles and show just how good
Amy can be. A big well done has to go to Karen Gillan for her
brilliance during the scenes in the forest where Amy has to close her
eyes and keep moving. Throughout the scenes, the sound of Amy's quick
and heavy breathing, as well as the sound of the communicator beeping
– it all felt really tense and I was genuinely unsure as to where
these scenes were going to go. Sadly, while one problem from last
week was fixed in this episode, another emerged. While Amy has a lot
more to do here, it now seems that River Song has the same problem
Amy endured last week. Until her very last scene at the end of the
episode, River could have honestly been any other one of the clerics
and very little would have changed.
Someone
who continued to impress from last week, was Matt Smith as the
Doctor. While last week the Doctor was reluctant to talk to, and at
times, even look at River Song, this week we're given a Doctor who's
facing some extreme odds. For a large part of the episode, it doesn't
look like there's a feasible way of escaping the Weeping Angels and
getting everyone out alive, and this can be seen from how angry and
emotional the Doctor is. Particularly in the last ten minutes, Matt
Smith delivers an angry, on-edge and impressive performance – one
that I wasn't entirely sure that he had in him, and going as far as
bawling at River Song. But the Doctor isn't angry all the way
through, and there are some scenes where he's seen trying to hold
back the tears. (Spoiler Warning!)
In this case, the scene that springs to mind is Father Octavian's
death – while I didn't have any strong feelings towards this
character, I can't deny that his last scene was surprisingly
upsetting, but still well-written by Steven Moffat.
But
the writing quality wasn't a strength throughout this episode.
Indeed, compared to last week, the plot takes a backseat in favour of
building on the overall series' arc, and this brings about mixed
results. The plot here is stretched very thinly in order to look more
at the cracks in time and what exactly they are, as well as building
up further mystery as to the identity of River Song. This has left me
worried, as I'm concerned Steven Moffat may have revealed a bit too
much too soon. By having the Doctor discover that there's more than
one crack in time this early, makes me wonder what else the series
has in store that can keep up that sense of mystery for the remainder
of the series. (Spoiler Warning!) It also seems pretty obvious
just who River killed – the Doctor. If in Doctor Who, you're
referring to someone as a “good man”, you're highly likely to be
referring to the Doctor himself, but despite this, Steven Moffat
still seems to be treating who River killed as a mystery, when it
really isn't anymore.
Easily
the weakest part of this episode, and something that's a criticism
rather than a worry, was its treatment of the Weeping Angels. While
in the opening ten minutes they're just as great as they were last
week, for the rest of the episode … they're not. (Spoiler
Warning!) In what is probably one of the worst creative decisions
possible for this episode, Steven Moffat breaks the Weeping Angels'
own rules, by letting the audience see them move. Now I'm aware that
Steven Moffat created and has creative control over what the Weeping
Angels are capable of, and that the new elements he introduced last
week were welcome and added a lot to their menacing feel.
However, this change completely detracts from their fear factor.
Seeing the Weeping Angels move removes so much of their threat and
menace, not to mention the fact that it doesn't really make sense.
The Doctor tells Amy that although she has her eyes closed, the
Angels are assuming that she can see them. But this implies that the
Angels have some kind of control or influence over their Quantum Lock
defence mechanism, even though it was established in Blink that
they don't, and this lack of control was what eventually led to their
defeat in that episode. The scene of Amy walking through the group of
Angels didn't even get resolved well, with the teleportation being a
massive cop-out.
On
the bright side, this two-parter picked up again thanks to a pretty
clever conclusion that I didn't see coming. It brought both the
episode's plot and the story of the series arc together well, and
it's at that point where I sort of understand why Steven Moffat spent
so much time focusing on the arc itself. Overall, The Time Of
Angels was a really solid entry to the series and promised
great things in Part 2. While Flesh & Stone was far
from bad, it kind of let the side down, after breaking the Weeping
Angels' own rules and becoming a bit lax on the overall plot. When
judging the two episodes together, there's a lot to like, including
some brilliant performances, fantastic direction, a great mix of
bigger and more subtle CGI, with well-written cliffhangers and
conclusions.
Final Score for The Time Of Angels and Flesh & Stone
7/10
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