David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Seasons 1 to 7 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all.
We are working our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, and sometimes a couple of extra episodes we love as our blogging points. Just for fun! Tansy and Tehani love this season so much we’re making David do more work – we’re changing up our usual plan and reviewing each episode, in sets of two.
“The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone”
Season five, episodes four and five
The Doctor – Matt Smith
Amy Pond – Karen Gillan
River Song – Alex Kingston
TEHANI:
I find myself really struggling with what to say about this two-parter. So much of what is to come in the future of the show has roots here!
TANSY:
Spoilers, sweetie!
TEHANI:
But River! When I first watched these, of course I had no idea about the events of “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead”, so River was this brand new character who apparently had a huge history with the Doctor and I was just learning about it. In light of later events (of which we shall not speak), the relationship between Amy and River in this story is FASCINATING, and her easy manner with the Doctor, the TARDIS, the past and future, well, it’s just marvellous, particularly this time around. That said, River Song’s timeline completely bewilders me. The first bit with the diary seems to imply River and the Doctor have had some intervening adventures offscreen. But then that’s later debunked! So confusing!
TANSY:
Best not to think about it, really. I think it’s great that you came in with this as your first River story – after all, we were told only in the previous story that the Doctor has also been friends with Churchill for ages. You don’t always have to have seen those adventures. One of the best things about Doctor Who (and something new people often don’t believe or understand) is that the massive weight of 50 years of continuity actually hardly matters. It’s always about new adventures, new self-contained stories – and we’re never going to see absolutely everything the Doctor gets up to.
TEHANI:
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I often assume that anytime we meet characters it seems the Doctor has a history with, I just assume there have actually BEEN adventures with them in Classic Who – works really well for newbies! 🙂 Continue reading
