The Better Angels of Our Nurture

Within a show with the sheer legacy that Doctor Who has, one of the most innocuously difficult tasks has got to be adding new or interesting wrinkles to an established monster or villain.  Even original creators have struggled with this feat. A Dalek is a Dalek is a Dalek, and it took until David Whitaker in The Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks, not Terry Nation to subvert their original vision by either making them subservient or by adding the ‘human factor’ to add new dimensions to their character.

We have spoken occasionally in this space about the classic ‘Big Five’ of Doctor Who Monsters (Daleks, Cybermen, Yeti, Ice Warriors, and Sontarans). With nu-Who thrown in there is now an undisputed and credible sixth to add to the list, and they are The Weeping Angels. No surprise there. Their legacy was already secured from Blink right through The Angels Take Manhattan and, despite not being seen since Series 7–which we hasten to add is a good thing–Village of the Angels not takes their menace to another level.

Steven Moffat must be proud that this story builds upon concepts he introduced, mostly that the image of an Angel is an Angel to allow for even more menace and capability in their movement and in turn created some of the most striking images, the Angels coming out of the TV or sketch drawing–even burning at one point–that we have seen for quite a long time.

If we are going to quibble about ‘Village,’ as we are now, we would have wished that the focus remain wholly with the Angels and not ducking back to the larger Flux-arc, especially at the end when the final image should have stayed with the Doctor now in her ‘stoner’ phase. This is the unnecessary intrusion that a connected Series must we fear bear, but wouldn’t ‘Village’ have been even stronger if this has been moved back into Chapter 5?

That said–Village of the Angels is the strongest episode of the Series to date. Images and caps for Village of the Angels are now online.