Doctor Who: Flesh and Stone

[seawasp]

I will cut for spoilers:

Alas, the second half pretty much did nothing to remove this one from the Hall of Lame. It's rather frustrating because there are a lot of good PIECES in here, but they're disjointed and interrupted by Lame.

Still nothing to ease the pain of the Suddenly Munchkined Angels. In fact, all of this just raised more terribly annoying questions about the things (starting with "and explain to me why they haven't long since taken over the universe?"). First, why is it that they have suddenly completely and utterly changed their behavior and powers? When we met them, they were chronovores. They didn't kill people; they touched them and sent them back in time. This, combined with their super-speed and creepy "I'm not alive, I'm a stone! Nothing to see here, just blink" trick makes them MORE than scary enough as antagonists. Why in the hell do they now:

• Consume energy in apparently almost any form (like cut-rate versions of my own Werewolves)
• Kill people directly (including apparently breaking necks, etc.,)
• Have the apparent ability to take someone's brain for the purpose of providing dialogue
• Suddenly become duplicated through images, including frickin' MEMORIES of images?

      This kind of thing just annoys the heck out of me. While I didn't LIKE the Weeping Angels to begin with, they were at least fairly well defined and my main dislike was due to the fact that if you followed the rules, they should be either trivially easy to defeat, or 100% victorious, almost instantly.

      The addition of More Super Munchkin Power doesn't make this better, it exacerbates the problem. With the above abilities, they should be able to conquer the frickin' universe faster than almost anyone else could imagine. The "observation" requirement for keeping them stone is ill-defined and, in the latest episode, badly broken.


Dr. Song still doesn't work for me, though I slightly reserve judgment in case she does turn out to be a Timelord. I'd prefer it to be Romana but  the Rani will do.

I do like Matt Smith's Doctor, and I like Amy Pond. I just hope we'll get some better episodes out of this. So far we've had 5 eps, of which I've liked two reasonably well, tolerated one, and consider two very very lame.

Comments

[richardboustead.livejournal.com]

Ah, that scene is even worse. In "Blink" the whole twist was that the stoneskin thing was involuntary, and the TARDIS dematerialization 'tricked' the angels into staring at each other, forever unable to move (until the bulb goes out).

In Flesh and Stone, suddenly it becomes a voluntary choice. The explanation the Doctor gives is that the Angels are running scared from the Time Crack, and have chosen to freeze as they assume Amy can see them. When butterfingers gives the game away, they realize they're free to move, and begin inching towards her in patented HorrorMovieExaggeration Mode, until she's saved at literally the last second by River's teleport.

It's also the only time we ever see them move, which is kind of their gimmick - they're scary pretty much because you never see them move. (and Ryk's list of superpowers of course).
That one scene demystified them a staggering amount.

No, in this New Series, they've got the characters down. Now work on the stories a bit more please.

[seawasp]

The other thing about their first appearance is that as you NEVER see them move -- EVEN THE ONES OUT OF SIGHT OF THE CHARACTERS -- it indicated that either it wasn't just sight but any other sense, or that they were using the Fourth Wall itself as an observer. If WE could see them, they were unable to move.

The new story trashes that cute, almost lit'ry possibility, and as you say also takes away part of the scariness of their basic nature, the fact that they're ALWAYS immobile stone statues... which somehow keep moving when you're not looking.