I am – Hercules!! “Doctor Dan” deems 5.5 “a thrilling and exciting episode”:

Hi Herc, Here's another review from me, for the concluding part of Doctor Who's mid-season two-parter: DOCTOR WHO 5.5 – "Flesh And Stone" WRITER: Steven Moffat DIRECTOR: Adam Smith GUEST CAST: Alex Kingston, Iain Glen, David Atkins, Darren Morfitt, Mark Monero & George Russo The concluding part of the "Time Of Angels" was perhaps even more tense than last week's setup, and simply because it concluded in a plausible way it left me feeling relieved and satisfied. So many two-parters of nu-Who have struggled to give us convincing pay-off, but writer Steven Moffat's superior writing skills ensured "Flesh And Stone" delivered a conclusion that felt earned. Continuing from last week, The Doctor (Matt Smith), Amy (Karen Gillan), River (Alex Kingston) and the soldier-clerics found themselves stuck to the bottom of the Byzantium spaceship to escape the encroaching Angels, after The Doctor managed to trigger the ship's artificial gravity and pull them skyward to temporary safety. The episode became an extended chase sequence up the Byzantium ship, through an "oxygen factory" that resembled a giant forest of "treeborgs", as the Angels continued their relentless pursuit. Adding a further twist to the story was the surprisingly decision to tackle this series' motif of the "glowing crack" that appeared in Amy's bedroom back in "The Eleventh Hour". I say surprising because Russell T. Davies reign always kept the season's motif unexplained until the very final, but Moffat has wisely chosen to subvert expectations and has given us plenty of information mid-way through the season. It's apparently the after-effect of a terrible explosion yet to occur in The Doctor's timeline, which has the power to "erase" time when it appears – hence Amy's inability to remember the Daleks recently, and possibly many other troublesome issues about Doctor Who's canonicity. "Flesh And Stone" was really rather good -- partly because it was such a simple chase/siege story at its core, so the action and performances could breath around it. Smith put in a great performance as The Doctor and got to show quite an angry, impatient side to this incarnation. Kingston was pushed into the background as River quite a bit, although we came to learn she was a prisoner of the clerics after murdering a very important man, and was trying to accrue some leniency by helping them here. But that's all to come for The Doctor, as the mystery of River Song will no doubt continue for awhile yet. Overall, I have no major complaints – "Flesh And Stone" was a thrilling and exciting episode that brought everything to a fitting conclusion, and even gave us a surprising denouement with Amy ravishing The Doctor in her bedroom. There's clearly something very strange going on with Amy, who is becoming more of a mystery now with this curious behaviour. It can't be a simple case of infatuation, can it? The Good Matt Smith. Buzzing with energy, funny one-liners ("I made him say comfy chairs") and turns of phrase, plus some anger and edginess that shook things up. I do hope The Doctor gets himself a new jacket, too. The crack in the wall motif. I just didn't expect it to be half-explained so soon, given how motifs usually work up until now, so that was a nice surprise. The Angels. Man, they're good. Possibly the best sci-fi villains of the past decade, right? I loved the sequence when we finally saw them move in "real time", too. Creepy and menacing every step of the way. The Bad There wasn't much bad about this episode, although it could be argued that some of the explanations for things were hazy and some moments felt illogical – like the Angels being unable to just kill Amy when her eyes were closed, just because they were "running scared" and would "assume" she could see them. Since when does assumption come into it? If a living thing is watching them, even via a video-feed, they're powerless to move, right? River Song. We were given some welcome information about her, but she was less prominent here because The Doctor took charge of things. Which I guess is a good thing, but River fans may be disappointed coming off her barnstorming performance last week. The Geeky River Song mentions the opening of the Pandorica (as she did in "The Silence Of The Library"), which was also mentioned to The Doctor by Patient Zero in "The Eleventh Hour" as having already happened. Steven Moffat came up with the idea for the crack in the wall after he spotted one above his own son's bed, shaped like a smile. The date of 26.06.2010 coincided with the thirteenth week after The Eleventh Hour premiered, possible meaning it has significance for the finale. Filming took place in the 14-acre Puzzlewood, part of the Forest Of Dean, for nine nights in July 2009. Rating: 4.5 / 5

“Kelvington” calls it “a great second half”:

It’s often hard to rate two-parters based on just half an episode, but today Moffat and company really delivered a great second half to “The Time Of Angels”. While the cliffhanger last week was a tad weak, and resolution of simply shooting the gravity ball so they could all jump up into the “Byzantium” was telegraphed from a thousand miles away. It’s only a simple plot device to move the rest of the story along. The zombie angels as I will forever call them, slow moving, dim witted, even by Frankenstein’s monster’s point of view continue to chase, well chase isn’t the right word, to lumber after the Doctor, Amy and River. On the plus side we didn’t have to wait for the end of the series to deal with the crack in the wall, unlike “Bad Wolf” where we were teased in every episode, today the crack is explained along with why Amy can’t remember the Daleks, and there is even mention of the Cyberking. For those of you who thought Karen wasn’t a good actress, and were hating on her, tonight is her chance to shine, I loved her performance tonight. You see anyone, any actor can play tough, and strong, it’s not that hard. But to play a role where you are totally vulnerable is much harder. Between the cruel joke to have her countdown to her own death, and have to be Helen Keller for the better part of the episode, she does a great job here. And if this really was the first episodes shot, it’s even better. Were there problems with the logic in tonight’s episode? Yes, yes there were. Why, for example, don’t the angels just grab the closed eyed Amy? I thought they were quantum locked, as long as they are observed they can’t move, if you blink they will get you. What if you walk around with your fracking eyes closed? Can’t they tell that? Or are they somehow like the evil equivalent of Schrodinger's cat? Matt was a little up and down in this episode from being manic to entertaining, but again first episode and all, so I forgive it. The other big problem, Angel Bob, the all talking, all chattering on about the plot angel, I hate to say it was bad writing, because it wasn’t, but it was so against the characters of angels we had seen in the past. It was like watching a hundred “Tom & Jerry” cartoons then suddenly, they started to talk like Warner Bros cartoon. It just didn’t work. As for the ending, well, I would to say it was perfect, but it’s not. We don’t get great closure, and I’m not just referring to the crack in the wall, but also with River Song. I also had quibble from the middle of the episode when we find out that she killed a man, most likely the Doctor himself, but for the priest not to say whom it was, was just poor writing. In the end, Moffat gave us exactly what we needed and even a little bit more than what we had hoped for, it was a great conclusion to a wonderful two-parter. Perfect no, but great none the less. Let’s just hope the rest of the series is this good!

“Gabba-UK” says he “really, really enjoyed this episode”:

Hi Herc, Shorter review this week. Birthday party to go to and there a rather nice lady I know going. As much as I like Who, it comes second to chasing some crumpet. After what I described as a zinger of an episode last week with a proper Who cliffhanger, we come to the 2nd part of the return of the Weeping Angels. The Doctor was acting like a hen-pecked husband (which he might be), River was being in charge and flirty, Amy was having bit of grit in her eye and getting bitten by a Galafrian, Father Octavian was being commanding and making girls damp with his voice and all where trapped in a cave surrounded by resserected light sensative Angels and a pissed off Timelord had just shot their last source of light out. Up to speed? Just your typical Who moment, ruined by a crappy VT operator pressing play too early and showing us an animated camp comedian, over a heavy trailed great line from Moffat's pen. You wouldn't believe the number of complaints the BBC got about that. After turning the whole situation on it's head, The Doctor gets everyone into the ship thanks to a very simple Doctor solution. Following a great sequence using the strobe effect from gunfire masking the advance of the Angels they find a control room with a familer crack in the wall. A crack that seems to be following Amy... The very creepy vibe that last weeks show created so effectively is amped to 11 on this one. The relationship between River and the Doctor is built further up but it's nothing to the relationship between Amy and him. The growing level of trust they have is really nice to watch. The increasing significance of the Crack is at the forefront of this episode. And it's not just hints like past series threads, this is big. Amy not knowing what the Daleks were, why present day humans seemingly have no memory of a giant cyberman buggering up London in the past, and why Amy seems to be in the centre of the mystery of the Crack. I really, really enjoyed this episode. Matt and Karen's on screen chemistry (and off if Confidential is anything to go by) is infectious to say the least. Smith is getting better by the minute, never mind by episode. I am now totally in love with Amy, some don't like her but I dismiss these people as delusional fools (or Ginger haters). We're promised a another appearance from River (who's on parole..) and vampires next week. Without giving too much away the last few minutes are very funny and shows just out of his depth The Doctor is with matters of the opposite sex. 8.5 out of 10.

“Sherlock's Lacky” found it “disappointing”:

Greetings Hercules, I wanted to throw my hat into the Dr Who ring as I caught up with the reviews being posted on your web site by fellow Brits on the new series. Firstly I'll point out that I am a fan of the franchise so looked forward to the new series. Secondly, I felt compelled to send my brief comments as I did not want all your worldwide readers all thinking us Brits have zero taste. Show in brief: Episode 1 introduced Matt Smith as the new doctor and I found the script witty and Matt extremely good. Story was simple but as this episode was all about introducing the new Doctor I forgave the lack of decent story. Episode 2 - dull Episode 3 - Daleks...been there, done that and much better, found my mind wandering through second half of show. Episode 4 and 5 - two parter following on from my favourite episode in the David Tennant years called 'Blink' featuring the weeping angels. Despite Alex Kingston being in these two episodes to whom I think is extremely watchable, these, although an improvement on previous episodes in this series, were disappointing. You struggle to hear Matt Smith at many points which was frustrating to put it mildly due to the music mainly and at other points for no reason I could fathom. No tension throughout and a resolution which after best part of two hours was a cop out. I hope the story's greatly improve as viewing figures could drop and it will not be Matt Smiths fault but he could get the blame and ejected. So far, so boring.

“Stanton” calls it “possibly the most complicated episode of Doctor Who ever”:

FLESH AND STONE Spoilers ahoy: The crack is back! And, rather like the Inquisitor in Red Dwarf, it turns out to erase people from existence (and damn - he would have been a cool Doctor Who villain). Possibly the most complicated episode of Doctor Who ever, this is fast-paced; wraps up the story in a pretty damn satisfactory manner; and sprinkles loads of teasers for the rest of the series. Does Amy destroy time? Does River kill the Doctor?? Talkback is gonna be looooong on the theorising. So: THE BAD (1) The worst thing about this series so far is how characters work things out with very little logic. It'd all be very well if the Doctor worked things out through a Poirot-like detective skill - so the audience kicks itself at having missed things - but he keeps jumping to stupid conclusions: the robot bomb won't explode if he makes it think its human; Amy won't die if she closes her eyes. The sonic screwdriver is there to plug in holes in logic, damnit: Moffat uses characters making lucky guesses just to paper over the plot holes. It makes me worry about how good his series of Sherlock will be - the audience ought to be able to kick themselves for not having worked things out themselves. (2) Amy, at the end, wants a one night-stand with the Doctor. Where did that come from? I'm not sure one-night stands even exist in the Doctor Who universe: and this series in particular is meant to be fairy-tale-like and kind of infantilises the characters -Amy was padding around Wendy-like in her dressing gown a couple of episodes ago. Other than Amy eyeing up the Doctor as he changed in the first episode, she's shown no sign of fancying him: it makes me wonder whether Karen Gillan hasn't misplayed the character... (2) The way River rescues Amy - teleporting her from the angels - is such a bathetic deus ex machina I wonder why Moffat had her separated from the others in the first place. But - SCRAP "THE BAD" - she was teleported not in a cool special effect but in a flash of white light rather like the crack... Does the crack NOT erase people but maybe just rewrite time?? Moffat's said that in the series finale that "some things happen twice"... Did Amy fall into the crack and go into a different timeline? And would this explain why she suddenly seems to be so full-on sexing the Doctor - is she completely changed?? The episode will have cracked open a Pandora's box of theories. All in all, it's gonna be difficult to know if much in this episode WAS bad until we get to the series end. In the meantime, this episode was a hell of an entertainment - and I love the fact that Moffat put an episode of teasers in the middle of the series. Plus - I WAS right last week about the duckpond being important - heh heh!

“Tom” calls it “a very good episode”:

Well todays episode was more then a decent ending to last weeks. The cliffhanger was quite creatively resovled, and didn't seem like such a leap of faith in the viewer, nor did it seem quite as dull. The dynamics of the spaceships were intresting and fresh, such as how the gravity, electricity and oxygen systems worked, it seemed quite detailed. Again Moffat continues to give the viewers hints of whats to come, but due to the pacing and threat of the Angels its hard for us to take in these hints such as the fact the role of gravity played. This also brings me back to the angels and how they were also utilised, again they were made more threatening, a proper blink and it could cost you your life as one poor character found out, although said character went out with a lot of courage it has to be said. Performance wise the actors did some good work, wasnt any bad acting. Matt Smith continues to excell in his role as the Doctor, and its possibly just a shame that Tennant was not as lucky to have Moffat around as this new doctor has a lot more emotion to him, and more violent outburts, hes also quite quirky and it works, this may be part of the actor or the writing team or best of all, both, and its awesome to be honnest, this Dr is very intresting and exciting. Gillian continues to do some good work and the ending was hilarious. River songs character continues to have layers of mystery added, and almost breaking the 4th wall at times. Another important factor is that it was refreshing to see that the ongoing theme of the cracks in the walls has finally been noticed and acknolwedge by the Dr and hes now going about sorting it out, it makes a nice change instead of having these little hints through out the season only for it to be dealt with at the end, at least now we can see how the dr goes about sorting out this threat through out the season, and it possibly feels like hes got little bit more of his work set out for him. Finally, the ending, did not see that comming, I'm not sure what to say about it, I was just shocked at what I saw, and I have to say the Dr is a better man then I thats for sure. In all it was a very good episode by the Moff, and a worthy conclusion to the Aliens esque episode that preceeded it.

Follow Herc on Twitter!! Follow Evil Herc on Twitter!!

LOST At PaleyFest 2010!!

74 Blu-rays Under $10!!