S13.E04: Chapter Four: Village of the Angels

[DanaK]

Quote

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?

Broadcast November 21, 2021 at 6:20pm on BBC1 in the UK; it will be 56 minutes. It will be broadcast at 8pm on BBC America in the US

[DanaK]

New promo pics for the episode https://www.tvzoneuk.com/post/dwflux-ep4-firstlook

ETA: Cast list: https://cultbox.co.uk/news/doctor-who-flux-village-of-the-angels-full-cast-list

Edited November 16, 2021 by DanaK

[Llywela]

Well that was a cliffhanger! Way to make the angels scary again. High stakes! The trailer may have made me squeal a little. I'm still wary of where all this is heading, but props to the production team for getting me to invest in the ongoing story.

Edited November 21, 2021 by Llywela

[John Potts]

So "Division" created the Angels, yes? That would explain how they use time as a weapon and why they'd want the Doctor (and how the Doctor will be extracted from the statue). If so, they really are hitting the Time Lords are evil (though there's always been a definite element of that, particularly their CIA*).

Was expecting "The Saviour" to turn out to be The Doctor (either Jodie or Jo Martin), so it turning out to be one of Team Evil was a nasty twist, even if it was a bit reminiscent of "Utopia".

* Celestial Intervention Agency. I'm sure the choice of initials was entirely co-incidental

[ElleryAnne]

I wanted to like this episode.  It's the one from this season that I was most looking forward to, because I like the Weeping Angels and the idea of a cursed village and an extra gravestone and all, it sounded like it would be good.  But it was too messy, and I just don't like when they make any part of a mythos even more convoluted than it already is.  And I just don't care about this "Division" stuff.  I don't want my Angels over-complicated with extra corporate/governmental motives.  I liked when they just wanted "time", and if they got hold of the phone box it was supposed to be a big deal, not a teaser.  If the episode had just been about a village dealing with Weeping Angels tossing townspeople back in time over and over,  it could have been fun.  (Especially with a professor that apparently threw a cup at the Doctor to get her attention.  Wish we'd seen it happen.) 

[DanaK]

That was really fantastic. It was a very engrossing and scary episode. I thought the beach scenes between the Doctor and the rogue Angel were really great. And now the Doctor has been captured by the Angels for the Division and turned into a stone Angel. That mid-credits scene was unexpected. Probably the best episode of the season

[rwlevin]

Bel and Vinder right now are the MVPs of this season for me.

The weeping angels seriously confuse me. They feed off the time you would have lived but you still live. All the people who went back in time in Blink, as well as Amy and Rory, had happy and meaningful lives. But then, they also like to kill people for funsies as well, which we saw in Time of the Angels. But now they’re part of the Division? How does that make any sense?

oh, here’s a question. What would happen if Azure or Swarm touched an Angel? Would those two go back in time or would the Angel burn up? Or both?

[Lantern7]

Well, damn. Overall "Flux" arc is still confusing AF, but this episode was a thriller. Weeping Angels managed to bring chills back . . . and what's scarier than a woman looking into the mirror to set herself with stone wings? The Doctor turning into a Weeping Angel herself, knowing that Division (or at least those Angels) set her up. And yes, I realize the former came off a bit goofy, but it was still sterling.

When the old couple ignored that one Angel again, did anyone else think, "Don't touch it! It's full of evil!!"? Would any of you admit thinking of that?

How funny is it that we see the Angels right near the peak of popularity of Squid Game, which also turned "Real Light/Green Light" into a deadly game?

[QuantumMechanic]

So what's the significance of using (what sure sounded to me like) the original 1963 theme for the closing credits?

[QuantumMechanic]

One thing I'm liking about this season is that it lets us experience what classic-era British viewers did -- cliffhanger on every episode, have to wait a week for the next episode. Very old school! (I have course watched classic-era episodes on WGBH as a kid with the per-episode cliffhangers, but since they were stripped I never had the week's wait.)

[TheGourmez]

The Doctor felt so very like the Doctor this episode, with all of her pretending to know what to do and theories and brain running off in different directions. That was my favorite part.

[Llywela]

11 hours ago, John Potts said:

* Celestial Intervention Agency. I'm sure the choice of initials was entirely co-incidental

Not a new piece of lore, however. The Celestial Intervention Agency has been part of Time Lord lore since the 70s.

4 hours ago, QuantumMechanic said:

So what's the significance of using (what sure sounded to me like) the original 1963 theme for the closing credits?

A lot of shows use a slightly different closing theme to underline a powerful cliffhanger or tragic ending - the soap opera Eastenders, for instance, has a piece called 'Julia's theme' which plays over the closing credits whenever a character dies in place of the regular theme - so the stripped back theme could have been done to underline the cliffhanger, the shock of what just happened to the Doctor.

2 hours ago, QuantumMechanic said:

One thing I'm liking about this season is that it lets us experience what classic-era British viewers did -- cliffhanger on every episode, have to wait a week for the next episode. Very old school! (I have course watched classic-era episodes on WGBH as a kid with the per-episode cliffhangers, but since they were stripped I never had the week's wait.)

Yes. It is taking me right back to watching on a Saturday evening as a child in the 80s. I still remember the gut punch of Adric's death, even though I was really small when it happened, I never forgot the impact of it (thinking about it, the closing theme was similarly stripped back for that, too, iirc). For today's young viewers, this cliffhanger end, seeing the Doctor turn into a weeping angel, may well have the same impact.

[DanaK]

Overnight ratings 3.45 million. Haven’t heard the rank yet

[Eulipian 5k]

WHY don't they take turns blinking, so that one of them is always looking! Dan! Put some googly eyes on the wok!

[taanja]

8 hours ago, Llywela said:

Yes. It is taking me right back to watching on a Saturday evening as a child in the 80s. I still remember the gut punch of Adric's death, even though I was really small when it happened, I never forgot the impact of it (thinking about it, the closing theme was similarly stripped back for that, too, iirc). For today's young viewers, this cliffhanger end, seeing the Doctor turn into a weeping angel, may well have the same impact.

Right! I was not small and had been watching for several years and several Doctors -- but as far as I remember they had never killed a companion before! Adrick's death changed EVERYTHING!!!! No one was safe after that!

The Angels were actually scary ! Like I kept thinking -- this is a kids show??? HA! ***(disclaimer***) I don't like scary things. 

Anyway I will watch this ep again (seems I have been watching every ep this season at least twice) They are all just a trip and very full of -- timey wimey stuff!!! Half the time I'm not sure what is going on but since that's how it has always been with The Doctor -- it is riveting to be sure!

Loving the cliffhangers! 

[DanaK]

5 hours ago, DanaK said:

Overnight ratings 3.45 million. Haven’t heard the rank yet

5th for the night, behind Strictly results, I'm a Celebrity premiere, Top Gear premiere and the Adele special,

[QuantumMechanic]

1 hour ago, Eulipian 5k said:

WHY don't they take turns blinking, so that one of them is always looking! Dan! Put some googly eyes on the wok!

I was screaming that at the TV over and over...

[Llywela]

1 hour ago, taanja said:

Right! I was not small and had been watching for several years and several Doctors -- but as far as I remember they had never killed a companion before! Adrick's death changed EVERYTHING!!!! No one was safe after that!

Before Adric, the only companions to ever die were Katarina and Sara Kingdom in The Daleks' Master Plan way back in the mid-60s, and both had been with the Doctor only for a very short time. Their deaths cemented the epic nature of that serial - not unlike this one, in fact. And both have their companion status disputed by some, because of their very short tenure. Adric, though, he'd been around a few seasons. The shock of it!

Kids TV, indeed. Our 6yo wants to watch the show but still finds it too scary.

[taanja]

21 hours ago, Llywela said:

Before Adric, the only companions to ever die were Katarina and Sara Kingdom in The Daleks' Master Plan way back in the mid-60s, and both had been with the Doctor only for a very short time. Their deaths cemented the epic nature of that serial - not unlike this one, in fact. And both have their companion status disputed by some, because of their very short tenure. Adric, though, he'd been around a few seasons. The shock of it!

Kids TV, indeed. Our 6yo wants to watch the show but still finds it too scary.

I started watching right when Jon Pertwee morphed into Tom Baker. So I don't remember those "companions"

[tennisgurl]

I am still not totally sure how all of this is going to tie together, but we do seem to be getting closer to the pieces coming together. I really liked this episode, like the Crimean War episode it told a fun and exciting story while also contributing to the greater Flux story, giving us some answers but not too many. I really like the structure of the season, it really does feel like the old school Who serials where they told a three or four part story with dramatic cliffhangers at the end of every episode. 

I wanted this episode to make the Weeping Angels scary again and holy crap did they succeed. I found the whole backstory with the village where everyone just disappeared without a trace itself was really creepy, and the angels slowly attacking was so intense, especially when they started appearing in the lie detector and in the pictures Claire was drawing. The Weeping Angels are probably some of the Doctor's creepiest foes, but they were so cool and such a big hit that they ended up being so overused that they lost a lot of what made them so successfully scary, and this episode did actually succeed in both adding new information about them while sticking with what made them memorable in the first place. Every time they showed up I jumped, like I half expected them to pop out out of my TV. I feel like people need to come up with some new ways to get away from the angels, there has to be some ways to take them on as a group. Take turns blinking people! Make a system!

I like Claire so far, I guess the silver lining of getting sent back in time was that she got to wear a cute 60s style outfit at least, which really suited her. I also liked the professor a lot, he was a fun guest character and I am glad that he is still seemingly going to be around for a bit longer. Not much Dan and Yaz, they're in a bit of a rough spot in a story like this with so much going on, especially Dan who we are just meeting now. Its hard to make a strong first impression as a new companion with so many new characters being introduced and so many stories all happening at once. 

Bel and Vinder continue to be real highlights of the season, I am glad that we are still following them even now that Vinder has left the Doctor. I would love it if they stuck around, they have so much potential to add so much to the show, being aliens from the far future, that you just cant get with your everyman companions. 

Talk about a cliffhanger! This very high stakes mile a minute storytelling has been really great for Jodi, she really thrives in stories like this where she really gets to throw herself into the manic energy and mystery. 

[gonzosgirrl]

I can't help wondering if this whole Timeless Child arc and especially turning the Doctor into a Weeping Angel would have happened if the Doctor was still a 'man'.

Not gonna lie, I have had to watch each episode twice to even sort of follow the plot, but I am enjoying it. Jody is really coming into her own in the role and giving it everything for her final run. And amazingly, the writing is supporting her!

[Eulipian 5k]

2 hours ago, gonzosgirrl said:

and especially turning the Doctor into a Weeping Angel would have happened if the Doctor was still a 'man'.

The Master did turn the 10th  into a pitiful, wizened, old "monkey in a cage" Once, Upon (a) Time, to the sound of drums.

[Eulipian 5k]

Does the viewing audience still play a role in quantum locking the Angels? ie. Can they still move if we're watching them? Some of the newbies kept looking down or away but the Angel stayed put.

[gonzosgirrl]

9 minutes ago, Eulipian 5k said:

The Master did turn the 10th  into a pitiful, wizened, old "monkey in a cage" Once, Upon (a) Time, to the sound of drums.

That's true (and I miss Martha!). It's not really the same kind of story though. I did notice that there was at least one distinctly male-looking angel in this episode, and I don't recall seeing one before. Although, I freely admit I didn't look for one, either.

[JustHereForFood]

Holy shit that was great! I like these "scary" episodes and after being let down by The Haunting of Villa Diodati last season, I am glad that this one was great all the was through.

Every episode with Angels, I try not to blink for a while and am reminded that I can do that only for few seconds, so I wouldn't last long with them around. 

Interesting that Claire recognizing the Doctor was not from some meeting in her past and Doctor's future, as I assumed, but from having visions. And what scary visions those were, with those angel wings, very creepy. And nice callback to Doctor's telepathy, I don't think they used it much since 10th Doctor.

At first I thought that those disappearances of everyone from the village meant that the Angels sent everyone back into the past, but if I understand correctly, it's because they took those parts of the village somewhere into space. How does that work with the village in the proper time? There wasn't any empty space left, the houses and everything else stayed in place... I am a bit confused there. And do those pieces of statues in the secret tunnel and on that burial site mean that they were hiding there and waiting? Creepy. 

Have we ever got a response to why can't people just destroy an Angel with a hammer?

[Ceindreadh]

2 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

Have we ever got a response to why can't people just destroy an Angel with a hammer?

IIRC, if you break an Angel into pieces, every piece is still an Angel so you just end up multiplying the threat.

[DoctorAtomic]

On 11/21/2021 at 9:07 PM, QuantumMechanic said:

So what's the significance of using (what sure sounded to me like) the original 1963 theme for the closing credits?

It's also literally today that the first ever Doctor appeared on television. The Doctor also threw in a 'reverse the polarity of the neutron flux'. 

I liked the professor being stuffy but also smart enough to know he was over his head and listened to the Doctor. It kind of wasn't his fault he got some of the dust in his eye. I like that Dan can be afraid but still keep his wits. I would be asking the same questions too. 

Interesting too, I think for the first time, that could could watch the angels through a camera/tv and it would freeze them. No one thought to get a mirror? I figure if you fix one in place and put a big mirror in front of them, and you dip behind the mirror, then it's stuck. Of course, to catch the Doctor, they brought 100s, so I can't call bs on it. Also, they waited until night time to attack, which is smart. 

I might be on the outlier, but I don't care much about Vinder and Bel's story. Clearly, they're going to factor in to the conclusion. I suppose it's nice that they both appear to be genuinely good and don't have any agenda. 

The angels are sorely mistaken if they think this is all they had to do to capture the Doctor.

[Chyromaniac]

For me, what sets this Angels appearance apart from the last few, is that previously they just kind of happened to be wherever the Doctor and friends were.  They just happened to be in Manhattan, or on the Byzantium, or one of the monsters attacking the Christmas town.  Here they had a goal- there was a point to what they were doing in 1967 Medderton, and how the Doctor got involved.

That’s actually something I feel Chibnall can be good at- Resolution worked because he gave us one p!$$ed off Dalek with a hostage and a plan, instead of a bunch of drones.  I thought the Lone Cyberman similarly had a unique perspective that set him apart from the usual way they are presented.  Even with Tim Shaw, you knew what his motivation was.  I feel like same can be said for the Angels here.

Question- I wonder if the fugitive Angel could’ve been the same one that was in prison with the Doc in the last special.  Unfortunately we don’t get a decent look at that ones face.

[Llywela]

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Interesting too, I think for the first time, that could could watch the angels through a camera/tv and it would freeze them.

New, but builds on existing lore. We already knew that an angel on a screen had to be watched to hold it at bay, we learned that with Amy. Monitoring them through CCTV to try to buy a bit more time to escape is a fairly logical progression from that concept.

Of course, a large group of angels should struggle to get anything done, because they are all in one another's sightline...

[Eulipian 5k]

21 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

hey took those parts of the village somewhere into space. How does that work with the village in the proper time? There wasn't any empty space left, the houses and everything else stayed in place...

What happened when the Judoon Platoon took Martha's hospital to the moon? (say it in 10's voice/accent) I guess a similar vacant space, hand wave, or perception filtering was done like the Sontarans did in Crimea.

[Starchild]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Eleven tell Amy and Rory that if they were zapped by an Angel, they were beyond his reach? That there's some rule that says even with his TARDIS he couldn't go back in time to retrieve them, that they could never see each other again?

Will they keep to that rule now, or will they find some trick to get around it? I feel that it could go either way, what with this being the end of Chibnall's era. Has a companion ever gone from one showrunner to the next?

[DoctorAtomic]

 

10 minutes ago, Starchild said:

Has a companion ever gone from one showrunner to the next?

I thought Clara from Eleven to Twelve. 

12 minutes ago, Starchild said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Eleven tell Amy and Rory that if they were zapped by an Angel, they were beyond his reach? That there's some rule that says even with his TARDIS he couldn't go back in time to retrieve them, that they could never see each other again?

In that episode, the Eleven said something like that the 1930s was a fixed point in time, but my take was that it was specific to whatever the angels were doing. Of course, he could have just gone to 1943 and picked them up after they lived another 6 years or so. It's all timey-whimey. 

Over here, '1901' is displaced out of space, so I can buy that the TARDIS can't just go there. It's a fair cheat. 

[Terrafamilia]

I wanted to tell the rogue angel that if it was in possession of knowledge and that was why the others wanted you back, the best course of action would be to spread that knowledge as widely as possible rather than continue to keep it to yourself.

[Starchild]

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I thought Clara from Eleven to Twelve. 

They weren't both Moffett?

[angora]

Each showrunner for new Who has started with a clean Doctor-companion slate (Nine and Rose for RTD, Eleven and Amy for Moffat, Thirteen and Ryan, Yaz, and Graham for Chibnall.) I don’t know enough about classic Who showrunners/execs/whatever to say what went on there, but most of the classic Doctors carried over companions from their predecessors (Three was the only one who started with a brand-new companion, having just the UNIT folks for continuity.) I assume a change in Doctor coincided with a change in showrunner at least once, so someone must’ve carried over companions at some point.

[AvidFan]

Professor Jerichio gets excited about the genuine psychic manifestation, The Doctor: "Eustacius Jericho, a real scientist, Under siege from the impossible, doesn't even stop to be scared, just wants to understand what's beyond his comprehension".

Professor Jericho: "Oh, I've seen many things beyond my comprehension Doctor, I was one of the first British soldiers into Belsen in the end of the war. If you think a few stone statues will destroy my equilibrium, you are mistaken. What do you need me to do?"  That's when Professor Jerichio became my favorite.

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by AvidFan

[DoctorAtomic]

I do like when the Doctor et al. run across people in their adventures that are willing to step up. 

[DanaK]

Couple of updates:

The AI was 79 (highest of the season so far)

The viewership on BBC America in the US at 8pm was 318,000 viewers

[JustHereForFood]

With the Doctor turning into an Angel at the end and the Angels being apparently a part of Division, I wonder whether there will be some link between the Angels and Time Lords revealed. There was a short scene in The End of Time when 2 Time Lords were for some reason in a position covering their eyes, similar to Weeping Angels, but I am not sure about details now. Do you think there might be some link to that?

[DanaK]

30 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

With the Doctor turning into an Angel at the end and the Angels being apparently a part of Division, I wonder whether there will be some link between the Angels and Time Lords revealed. There was a short scene in The End of Time when 2 Time Lords were for some reason in a position covering their eyes, similar to Weeping Angels, but I am not sure about details now. Do you think there might be some link to that?

Who knows for sure. Maybe that will be revealed, maybe not. You’re not the first to think that so the idea is definitely out there for fodder

I also don’t think the Doctor has been turned into an Angel per se, just wrapped into a stone object resembling an Angel or whatever so the Angels can transport her to wherever the Division wants her to talk to her

[DanaK]

7-day figures: 4.547 million viewers, 22nd for the week

[Bruinsfan]

On 11/24/2021 at 7:51 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

In that episode, the Eleven said something like that the 1930s was a fixed point in time, but my take was that it was specific to whatever the angels were doing. Of course, he could have just gone to 1943 and picked them up after they lived another 6 years or so. It's all timey-whimey.

I think the problem was that Rory's gravestone established that he stayed in the past rather than the Doctor retrieving him (with Amy to follow shortly thereafter of her own volition), and going back to change that would have disrupted the timestream and caused all kinds of chaos.

[DanaK]

On 11/29/2021 at 11:05 AM, DanaK said:

7-day figures: 4.547 million viewers, 22nd for the week

BARB with an update, revising down to 4.513767 million viewers, revising rank up 1 to 21st

[DanaK]

Update on 7-day figures: 4.571578 million (BARB has been revising numbers quite a bit lately). 28-day figures: 5.013909 million viewers, rank is 16th for the week