'The Time of Angels' (Story Code 5.04) by Steven Moffat

“The statues. They’re Angels. Every single one. And they’re coming after us.” – the Doctor

On the spaceship Byzantium, archaeological adventuress River Song evades a team of armed guards and their employer, a rich collector named Alistair, as she makes her way to the ship’s stronghold, and the box-like device within…

12,000 years later, the Doctor and Amy are visiting the Delirium Archive, the biggest museum in the universe (which even includes some of the Doctor’s old possessions) where an ancient, stone box catches the Doctor’s eye: the object is a Home Box, a ‘black box’ device that records the flight details of starships, and then returns home in the event of a crash. This particular Home Box has a message in old time Gallifreyan, words that the Doctor knows only too well: “Hello Sweetie”. Grabbing the box, the Doctor and Amy belt back to the TARDIS, only just reaching its safety before security guards can arrest them. Inside, the Doctor plays back the box’s recording and sees his old acquaintance, River Song…Back aboard the Byzantium, River is cornered by Alistair and his guards; but the attractive archaeologist is undaunted: knowing that the Home Box is recording her words she recites her coordinates – which the Doctor then hears in the future. To Alistair’s surprise, River opens the airlock door behind her and is sucked out into space – but instead of dying, she flies into an air corridor generated by the newly materialised TARDIS, before rushing into the time-space vessel to land right on top of the Doctor. As the Byzantium jumps into warp, River sets the TARDIS controls herself, much to the Doctor’s annoyance; a short while later, the archaeologist parks the TARDIS next to where the Byzantium has landed (and to the Doctor’s disgust, she even takes off the brakes while she does it, silencing the Time Lord’s favourite wheezing, groaning noise). Venturing outside, the Doctor, Amy and River discover that they have arrived on a beach on the planet Alfava Metraxis, where the Byzantium has crashed into an ancient temple. Suspecting sabotage, River attributes it to the vessel’s only survivor: something it its hold, something that can never die… After River makes radio contact with her colleagues, four soldiers materialise on the beach; their commander introduces himself as Father Octavian, whose mission is to find and locate the last of the Weeping Angels. Octavian then leads the Doctor and Amy to a nearby dropship, where the rest of his clerical troops are busy preparing to enter the Byzantium via the network of catacombs that lie beneath the shattered temple. The Doctor tries warning Amy of the threat posed by the deadly Angel, but his companion is more interested in River, suspecting her of being the Doctor’s future wife. Refusing to comment, the Doctor and Amy join River and Father Octavian in a nearby dropship to review a four-second CCTV clip River downloaded from the Byzantium, which shows the inactive Weeping Angel in the ship’s vault. When River explains that the antique statue has been passed from collector to collector over the years, the Doctor scoffs at her claim that the creature is dormant: the Angels are quantum-locked in stone – meaning they can move as soon as you turn your back… Leaving Amy in the dropship, the Doctor, River and Octavian head outside to get ready for the mission. Amy watches the video loop again and realises that somehow the Angel is moving differently each viewing; unable to turn off the monitor, Amy finds she is now locked in – and the Angel is coming straight for her… Back outside, the Doctor ponders why an ancient book about the Angels has no illustrations – until he reads the warning: “That which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel”. Racing back to the dropship, the Doctor shouts for Amy not to look at the statue; but as the Time Lord and River attempt to break in, a projection of the Angel materialises in front of the terrified Amy. Desperately trying not to blink, Amy suddenly recalls seeing a blip on the recording, a frame of static, and by carefully timing a press of the monitor’s remote control, she freezes the playback: the screen goes off, and the projection of Angel vanishes. Aided by clerics, the Doctor and River get inside and find Amy safe – although she now seems to have something in her eye… A short while later, the Doctor, Amy, River, Father Octavian and his troops enter the ‘Maze of the Dead’, illuminating their way with torches and a floating gravity globe. Finding the catacomb’s tunnels filled with ancient statues, their features eroded by time, the clerics begin checking each stone figure in turn. Unnoticed by the Doctor, Amy rubs her eye and a stream of sand pours out; when River appears Amy hides this development from her, and instead allows the archaeologist to inject her with a bio-stabiliser to protect her from the radiation leaking from the wrecked Byzantium. Elsewhere in the tunnels, two clerics, Christian and Angelo, become the first victims of the escaped Angel, their necks snapped by the vicious creature. The strain begins to take its toll on everyone, and it isn’t long before a panicked cleric named Bob opens fire on one of the old statues. As the party continue their journey through the dark Maze, the Doctor suddenly realises that he has made a terrible mistake: the Aplan monks who built the temple have two heads, and yet every statue in the Maze has just one. At the Doctor’s orders, everyone turns off their torches for a moment: the ancient statues all around them begin to move – every one is a Weeping Angel! With the torches back on, the Doctor tells his comrades that the radiation leaking from the shattered Byzantium is causing the Angels to awake: the crash was a deliberate rescue mission. Just then cleric Bob’s voice comes over the radio, reporting the death of Christian and Angelo – and also his own; when the Doctor deduces he is talking to the escaped Angel, ‘Bob’ explains how the creature took his cerebral cortex and used it to reanimate a version of his consciousness, giving it a voice with which to send a warning: the Angels are coming for them. As River, Father Octavian and the troops race through the tunnels, Amy remains frozen to the spot, convinced that she has begun to turn to stone. As the escaped Angel advances on Amy, the Doctor goes back for his friend; deducing that Amy looked into the Angel’s eyes, the Doctor convinces her that her transformation is only in her mind by biting her hand. With Amy shocked into moving, the Doctor rushes her after the others, who have reached a cavern roofed by the hull of the Byzantium. With the clerics’ torches flickering on and off and the ancient statues moving for the kill, the Doctor receives another call from ‘Angel Bob’; the creature tries to make the Time Lord angry, but its words have the opposite effect: as the deadly stone assassins close in on all sides, the Doctor takes Octavian’s gun, swears to make the Angels sorry for trapping him – and then shoots the light-emitting gravity globe above…

Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Alex Kingston (Doctor River Song), Simon Dutton (Alistair), Mike Skinner (Security Guard), Iain Glen, (Father Octavian [Bishop 2nd Class]), Mark Springer (Christian), Troy Glasgow (Angelo), David Atkins (Bob), Darren Morfitt (Marco), Marie McGonigle (Weeping Angel), Caroline Royce (Weeping Angel), Zac Fox is (Photoshoot P.A.)*
*Uncredited

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):
24th April 2010 @ 6.20 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and River

*Part one of a two part story

*Many viewers (myself included!) were furious when the BBC rolled an advert strap over the closing moments of the cliffhanger, an annoying plug for the talent(less) show 'Over the Rainbow', which featured a cartoon Graham Norton. The BBC received over 6,000 complaints about the incident, and were forced to apologise the next day. This is the second time Norton has intruded on 'Doctor Who': the first was during the original transmission of 'Rose', when crossed wires in studio resulted in an audio feed of Norton's BBC Three show being transmitted over the premier episode of the relaunched series.