'Flesh and Stone' (Story Code 5.05) by Steven Moffat

“We shall take her. We shall take all of you. We shall have dominion over all of time and space.” – Angel Bob

The Doctor shoots the gravity globe, creating an up draught that he and the others jump into: they are caught in the Byzantium’s artificial gravity field, falling up to land upside-down on the ship’s hull. Hastily opening a nearby hatch, the Doctor ushers Amy, River, Father Octavian and his clerics inside, resealing the door seconds before the Angels can reach them. Now trapped inside an airlock with the Angels trying to break in, River overrides the ship’s security system while the Doctor re-routes the power to the interior door – which unfortunately turns off the lights just as the Angels smash through the hatch. With Octavian’s clerics providing covering fire, the Doctor rushes everyone through the open door, sealing it behind him before the stone assassin can follow. Finding themselves inside the secondary control room, the group have no time to rest: the Angels begin forcing open the hatches lining the area, even though Octavian and his troops have magnetised the locks. The Doctor quickly provides an alternative exit, opening a shutter onto the ship’s ‘oxygen factory’: a forest of ‘treeborgs’, biomechanical trees that convert starlight into breathable air. ‘Bob’ gloats over the comm at the Angels’ impending triumph, but the Doctor and River are more intrigued by the fact that Amy has started to count down from the number ten… Just then a crack appears on the wall of the control room – a fissure exactly like the one on Amy’s bedroom wall. Despatching Amy, River, Octavian and the clerics into the forest, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to take a reading from the crack – and then discovers the Angels have him surrounded. But as the stone assassins grab the Time Lord they suddenly freeze in place: they are unable to feed on the energy inside the crack. Taking advantage of the situation, the Doctor escapes into the forest, rejoining the others in time to learn that Amy has just collapsed: a quick medical diagnosis shows that her condition is terminal. With Amy counting down to her death, the Doctor surmises that an Angel has entered her mind through her eyes; at the last moment, he delays the inevitable by getting Amy to close her eyes, shutting down her brain’s vision centre. Satisfied that Amy’s condition has now normalised, the Doctor leaves her with the clerics while he, River and Octavian set off for the Byzantium’s primary flight deck; en route the Doctor analyses the crack’s energy reading: it is the base code of the universe, and translates as 26.6.2010… Back in the forest, the Angels begin turning out the lights by deactivating the treeborgs; but as the stone creatures close in on Amy and the clerics, a bright light suddenly blazes out from amongst the trees, sending the Angels fleeing in terror. The commanding cleric, Marco, despatches his troops to investigate, but the men fail to return. Knowing that if she opens her eyes for longer than a second she will die, Amy risks a quick look and sees that the light is emanating from a giant version of the crack; then things get even stranger: Marco has no recollection of his teammates, and is now convinced that he was the only one left behind with Amy. Ignoring Amy’s protests, Marco goes off to investigate the fracture… Reaching the bulkhead to the primary flight deck, the Doctor realises that the crack is rewriting time, explaining why Amy has no recollection of the Daleks, and why no one on Earth remembers the Cyberking attacking Victorian London. As River enters the control room and sets about repairing the ship’s teleport, an Angel appears out of nowhere and seizes Father Octavian in its fierce grip; with no way to get free, Octavian warns the Doctor that River is a murderer, and then orders the Time Lord to leave him to his fate and get to safety. The Doctor reluctantly complies, joining River inside the flight deck as the Angels claim yet another victim. The Doctor contacts Amy over the radio and instructs her to use her communicator as a tracking device, enabling her to find her way through the forest with her eyes shut. When the Angels reappear and surround Amy, the Doctor sends a software upgrade to her communicator to turn it into a proximity detector; aided by the device’s warning signals Amy steps between the Angels, giving the creatures the impression that she can still see them – until she trips over a tree root and drops the communicator. The Angels quickly close in... and then Amy finds herself inside the primary flight deck, teleported there by River. Opening the shutter to the forest, the Doctor finds himself staring at every Angel on the ship – including Angel Bob, who makes the Doctor an offer: Amy and River will be saved if he throws himself into the crack, to end its threatening effect on the Angels. Refusing to sacrifice himself, the Doctor instructs River and Amy to grab onto something; he then deactivates the ship’s gravity, sending the Angels plummeting back down through the forest and straight into the time crack, which promptly seals itself shut. Some time later, the Doctor reassures Amy that she is now free of the creature inside her mind: when the Angels were absorbed by the crack, they were wiped from history. The two friends are then joined by the surviving clerics and also a handcuffed River, who avoids the issue of whom she killed; promising to see the Doctor again at the opening of the legendary Pandorica, the archaeologist is then teleported back to the orbiting cleric ship to begin her trip back to the Stormcage prison. The Doctor is deep in thought, now knowing that time can be rewritten. Back in the TARDIS, Amy asks the Doctor to take her home, wanting to show her friend how she too is running from something, just like River. Back in her bedroom, Amy finally tells the Doctor about her impending wedding to Rory; she also confesses that she no longer wants Rory – she now wants the Doctor! Fighting off Amy’s amorous kisses, the Doctor is hit by another revelation: the base code from the crack refers to Amy’s wedding day – meaning that the time anomaly responsible for it is Amy…

Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Alex Kingston (Doctor River Song), Iain Glen, (Father Octavian [Bishop 2nd Class]), David Atkins (Bob), Darren Morfitt (Marco), Mark Monero (Pedron), George russo (Phillip), Marie McGonigle (Weeping Angel), Caroline Royce (Weeping Angel)

Directed by Adam Smith
Produced by Tracie Simpson
Executive Producers Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger and Beth Willis
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC HD):
1st May 2010 @ 6.25 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and River

*Part two of a two part story

*The Doctor declares “River Song, I could bloody kiss you!” - the first time we have heard the Doctor swear!