author_by_night | The Angels Take Manhattan Reaction Post

I'm not sure how I feel about this episode, honestly. I think it was the best this season, but it was the hardest to swallow.

A lot of my qualms aren't so much with the characters' deaths as it is the fact that we just met Rory's dad. Will he know, or will he just be left to think his son is alive somewhere? Well, technically that's true, but still. And then there's Amy's family (who we've never met for some reason), and her and Rory's friends. I had the same issue with the original Blinking Angels story in that way, when Sally's friend (whose name I forget - was it Elizabeth?) was time locked - so Sally just told everyone she'd gone on a long trip to Hull and would write?

That said, I think the Doctor was always going to see Amy and Rory age, or know they would. After all, he first met River the day of her death. (I should rewatch that episode now that I've seen this. Of course, I doubt they had any idea just how much they'd use her again, so there probably won't be clues or anything.) He also first met Amy as a young girl. So while I do think it would've been nicer if they'd just left Rory and Amy where they were before last year's Christmas special, I can see and respect where Moffat was going with it. Though it's kind of sad that out of the four Companions we've had for the Doctor in New Who, only Martha made it out relatively unscathed. Rose... well, everyone she knew thinks she's dead, Donna's basically memory-locked, and Amy and Rory are stuck in World War II era. I know when I think of a time I'd love to be in, I say World War II. (Then again, I've long had a philosophical viewpoint that it's more about where you are and how things affect you than time itself. My dad never really knew any hippies or went to Vietnam, so his memories of the 60s are far different from someone who was a hippie or fought in Vietnam. /Very OT)

I also had thought a while back that it would have been interesting if River turned out to be Sally Sparrow. This episode actually made me wish more that that had been the case; perhaps she could've been connected to Amy and Rory some other way. Or she could've still been Amy and Rory's daughter.

It will be interesting to see what they do with the new companion. Is she going to be the same one as that... "girl" who wasn't really human from the first episode? Because one of the things I've liked about the Companions is that they're otherwise "normal" humans. Although I guess Amy broke that a little to begin with.