Time of Angels Dr Who notes

Just watched Doctor Who A Time Of Angels. The first time this series I haven't been able to watch it live, but at least I got to watch it at home (ep1 watched on set at back of venue in Bath before show, with some audience trickling in, ep 2 on tiny TV in hotel room in Chorley before gig, ep3 on tiny TV in hotel room in Inverness).

It was very good. Mind you, putting Victory of the Daleks on last week was probably designed to make anything look good in comparison. (I was not a fan)

Time Of Angels was no Blink. It was like Aliens is to Alien, ie taking the best idea and spreading it a bit thin.

Amy is not a character, she's just a functional person put there to scream and be imperiled. And she doesn't even scream. Unlike Rose or Donna, we haven't been made to care for Amy. Maybe we cared for the 9 year old (or is it 7 year old) version of her in episode one, the 19 (or is it 23) year old version could be replaced by any other character with any other name played by any other actor and the viewer could not care less. Russell T Davies put that sort of thing first on his agenda, with sound explicable plots coming lower down. Moffat works the opposite way round. Great tight plots, but characters that are quite superficial. Scared Bob is the new Other Dave, that's not characterisation, that's labelling.

My biggest bugbear with this series is those bloody trailers. Every great bit of this episode was in the bloody trailers, include every bit of CGI, all the cliffhangers, and the last line of the entire episode. That is not helping. Who hadn't worked out from the trailer that the statues were all aliens?

Next episode is already half spoilt for me. (At least, watching it on Virgin Catch Up, I didn't get the credits ruined by Graham Norton popping up and shouting about the Wizard of Oz, so that's something).

However I did enjoy this episode, I did think it was the second best of the series so far, I am looking forward to next week, and it did "zhuzz" me up with Doctor-energy making me feel like walking out of the cinema and pretending I am the lead character (not that I don't do that most of the time anyway).




PS, having heard about it online, I watched my DVD recording of Time of Angels off BBC 1 to see the dreadful tralier the BBC has ruined it with. I have since complained to the BBC, using their formal complaint form. This is what I wrote:

Dr Who Time of Angels, the climactic moment, the final dramatic line, the close up of the Doctor's face, were vandalised by an animated picture of Graham Norton and a trailer for the next show.

This was dreadful, demeaning, insulting treatment of your viewers. Whoever was responsible for this act of badly timed idiocy deserves to have the real Graham Norton pop up unexpectedly and dance on their face.

Make sure this doesn't happen again please.