All in all, yeah, a pretty promising thrill-ride season opener
Not wholly sensical, but probably the best use of Weeping Angels since Blink!
Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
In the, it must be said, fate-tempting second iteration of the village of Medderton, November 1967 sees Professor Eustacius Jericho planning on helping out his percipient object of study Claire Brown just as soon as he’s gathered enough data to explain some fascinating psychic anomalies. Outside, young Peggy has gone missing and nobody bats an eyelid at the vicar and the suspicious old lady not lifting a finger to join the search.
But batting eyelids is the last thing you should do on a cloudy night in rural Devon when the Weeping Angels are messing with your 9 Volts. Doc, Yaz and Dan get stuck in while the TARDIS reboots – Dan and Yaz get stuck in 1901 and Doc gets stuck in the basement with hordes of angels overrunning the upstairs, one reassembling like the T-1000 from a grate sketch, and as Claire rubs her eyes it turns out another may be already in the rheum.
(I’ll add all the missing Listener Minis from the last few eps to the site pronto, Podcastland. I promise! /Leon)
Hi folks
Yay, the Angels are here. There’s a nice sense of inventiveness to the use of the Angels in this one. I love the Burning Angel and there’s nice bits as they attack the house. And the ending visual of the Doctor being turned into an Angel is very striking. Chibnal showed he could handle the Angels in the sequence in the first part of Flux, while this proves that wasn’t a one-off. I also feel it’s a fairly good outing for the Doc and Co.
Oh look it’s Lang from The Twin Dilemma, looking a little different these days. This one feels similar to Hide from series 7. A psychic being monitored by a grumpy professor who is a WWII veteran. Also the shrinking universe idea. Hmm. The atmosphere is also similar but it works well. The Angels are arguably a better match for the 60s or before than the modern day. Certainly architectural style has moved on and we put a lot less statutes on buildings. We also now know what happens if you are double tapped by an Angel and yes being turned to dust makes sense as a result. Also a good visual. The idea that Division used the Angels as agents is a decent one as it makes sense that they would use beings with the Angel’s characteristics to their advantage.
Oh look, the torch Dan uses is a Bardic, someone’s been robbing the railway.
Overall, the best episode of Flux so far and a creepy and well used outing for the Angels 4.5/5 Angels on your mind
Cheers
Kieren
Hi there— oh, sorry, hang on. Was just looking to help a couple of dudes finish off and seem to have taken a wrong turn. By which I mean ‘finish off the run of Classic Who reviews’, natch. Ahem.
Since I’m here though, I might as well stick around a moment to say: holy heck, this was bloomin’ great wasn’t it?
All right, so the extremely underwhelming (non-)resolution to the cliffhanger leaves a lot to be desired at the start of the following week, but that’d be a nitpick for the next episode and I refuse to hold it against this one.
In the meantime, best super-tense usage of the Weeping Angels since at least Flesh & Stone, and arguably since Blink.
Unlike the Classic stories I’m not sure I even have a way to rewatch this right now so for once my thoughts will be kept mercifully brief. Although on the other hand, it did only air 18 months ago, so swings & roundabouts…
Yaz & Dan helping out the little girl are brilliant, but the guest cast are even better. Jericho’s an awesome addition! Did the actress playing the character of Claire look eerily reminiscent of Jenna Colema AKA the similarly-named Clara to anyone else? Just me then?? Jodie is every bit the Doctor here too.
Overall: I give it 4.8 abusive uncles out of 5. Hmm, perhaps not the most inspired arbitrary scoring system to take from this episode, but there you have it.
Oli “Oshi” Raven
[IG: @foggydrwho – surprised myself by making an actual posting about the 2016 Xmas special recently-ish]
Hey Guys,
Time flies and I missed this! Grrrrrr!
I loved it anyway, my favourite Jodie Whitaker episode ever, and the best of The Flux episodes by far!
My rating: 4.9 old lamps running out of batteries!
Take care guys,
GP Haynes