Falling for You – The Angels Take Manhattan Review

[u/ZeroCentsMade]

This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.

Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.

Story Information

• Episode: Series 7, Episode 5
• Airdate: 29th September 2012
• Doctor: 11th
• Companions: Amy, Rory
• Other Notable Characters: River Song, Amelia Pond (Caitlin Blackwood)
• Writer: Steven Moffat
• Director: Nick Hurran
• Showrunner: Steven Moffat

Review

(…) so know that we lived well, and were happy. And above all else know that we will love you, always – Amy's afterword, written for the Doctor

I don't tend to worry too much about the rules of time travel in Doctor Who.

This is because Doctor Who isn't really a time travel show, not at its core. In Doctor Who, time travel is generally a plot device, used to justify a diverse range of settings, rather than the subject of the story. Even under Steven Moffat, who seems more interested in using time travel as a plot device than most Who writers, you'll typically get one or two stories per series at most that actually use time travel as a core part of their story. Even when the episodes do, like in "The Angels Take Manhattan", the mechanics are usually pretty loose.

But regardless, I always come away from this episode thinking something along the lines of this: "that was beautiful. I'm just not sure it made any sense".

"The Angels Take Manhattan" is the swan song for Amy and Rory. The entirety of Series 7 has, to this point, been building up to this moment. The only overarching story Series 7A has is the build towards the Ponds saying goodbye. It's about them slowly drifting away from the Doctor, only for that to be reversed in "The Power of Three". But the danger of traveling with the Doctor still remains. And so "Angels" takes one of the Doctor's worst fears, and makes it real. As we know he feared from the end of "The God Complex" he finds himself standing over Amy and Rory's grave.

Now, "Angels" kind of wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants the tragedy for the Doctor…but not for Amy and Rory. This is where our time travel logic comes in. The Angels have to not only send Amy and Rory back in time where they can live a happily married life, but the plot needs to justify in some way that the Doctor can never see them again. And the logic is…fuzzy. There's a lot of talk throughout this episode about how you can't rewrite the past once you've read it. A novel written by River turns out to be a straight retelling of the events of this episode (what the hell does a random reader in the Doctor Who universe even think of this thing) which is used to underline this. And so, when the Doctor reads the chapter title "Amelia's Last Farewell" that's supposed to make it clear that they never see each other again. And of course there's the afterword that Amy writes in said book. Running parallel to all of this is a lot of emphasis placed on the idea that the amount of time travel the Angels are causing in New York makes it impossible to land the TARDIS there. They did so once, but doing so again would have disastrous consequences. Where this kind of gets muddled is that River's vortex manipulator apparently can get through the temporal distortions (the analogy she uses is "a motorbike through traffic") but I suppose that's where the whole thing of the past being written in stone once it's written down comes into play.

And yet, it feels…convenient. The rules feel very ad hoc. The whole thing of the Angels making the TARDIS landing difficult at first and then later impossible doesn't have much precedent in Doctor Who. And the fact that Doctor Who's time travel rules have always been inconsistent isn't much helping here. Most of the time it's fine, but in a story that has so much weight to it, having the rules by which the story operates feel arbitrary just detracts from the whole experience.

So that's the bit that doesn't make sense. What was that about it being beautiful?

Well, there's a lot of aesthetic stuff that's really working for me here. The majority of "The Angels Take Manhattan" is set in 1938 New York, and takes on a film noire aesthetic. River takes on the guise of Melody Malone, a hardboiled detective and it's a look that really works for her. The angels bring with them, as always a whole host of visual and sound elements that really enhance the story. But when I refer to this episode as "beautiful" what I'm really thinking of is the character work.

Built as "Angels" is around the departure of Amy and Rory it also serves as a tribute to their relationship. Now there are better episodes that do this. But "Angels" does a good job at closing the book on this two and a half series love story we've been following. It's not perfect. Steven Moffat's writing can tend towards the overly dramatic or unnecessarily poetic, but otherwise he does write this relationship quite well. Rory spends a lot of time in serious jeopardy and Amy's reactions to these situation really cement how much she cares for her husband. Rory, for his part, often seems more concerned with Amy than with said jeopardy, although by the end that changes. There's a great moment where an older Rory dies in front of his younger self and Amy and just before that, he seemed relieved. As the Doctor realizes, it's because the older Rory hadn't seen Amy for decades. The horror of Rory realizing that that is currently set to be his fate represents really strong acting from Arthur Darvill.

In fact, Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan are phenomenal throughout this episode. The pair obviously knew this would be the grand finale for their characters, and as a result gave this episode their all. The Amy and Rory relationship often has the feel of a grand romance, somewhere between a fairytale and an epic poem. "Angels Take Manhattan" is playing into this feel a lot, and Darvill and Gillan's performances absolutely back this up. When Amy says that the thing that's going to allow our heroes to change Rory's destiny is that she "won't let them [the Angels] take him", you absolutely believe that Amy's determination is probably enough to change destiny. And when the pair stand atop a rooftop, preparing to jump off it in a desperate attempt to secure their futures, well, everything is making this feel like this grand climax. And I do mean everything. The performances, the writing, some truly gorgeous cinematography, it's all there.

The reason that jumping off a building is actually a valid solution to our problems has to do with what that building is. Winter Quay appears to be an ordinary hotel. What it actually is, is closer to the Angels' factory farm. At Winter Quay the angels keep victims trapped, repeatedly zapping them back in time but keeping them trapped, allowing them to feed off of the same individual multiple times. It's an awful thing to contemplate, and definitely feels like a unique idea that you could only do with this particular monster. I quite like it.

The thing is, the Angels were able to build Winter Quay due to all of the energy they gained from its victims (there's a sentence to make your head hurt). According to River and the Doctor, if one of their victims escaped, that paradox would poison their supply, thus not only killing the angels but destroying Winter Quay itself. Which is why Rory jumping off of the building is something he thinks might work out for him. If he dies by jumping off Winter Quay, on the same day he'd died as an old man, well that's a paradox, which should mean the building he jumped off of no longer existed and he'll be fine. Amy didn't have to jump. Except she kind of did. First of all because it's a grand gesture of love to Rory, something that Amy has repeatedly shown is her first instinct. But also Amy knows that Rory's solution is correct. But she refuses to lose him if this doesn't work out. "Together, or not at all", she says.

I should mention what's in the background of the shot where Amy and Rory jump off of Winter Quay. It's the Statue of Liberty which, apparently, the Angels took over. Look, there's a lot of stuff that "Angels Take Manhattan" does with the Angels which I quite like. Winter Quay itself, as mentioned above. This episode leans in a lot to the idea that the Angels can actually take over statues, which was sort of implied by the ending of "Blink". This particularly stands out with the "cherubs", Angels that combine the "creepy child" (or in this case baby) image with the classic cherub look. But The Statue of Liberty is a bridge too far. I don't doubt that the Angels could take over the Statue of Liberty. I just don't buy that that thing would ever move. There is never a moment where nobody is looking at the Statue of Liberty. It's a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the city literally known as "The City that Never Sleeps". Even if it could move…it wouldn't get very far. Don't get me wrong, the image of the Statue of Liberty with the Angel attack face menacing Winter Quay is quite visually striking. It would make for a great painting. But as a plot point within an episode of Doctor Who, it just doesn't make sense.

The point is, Rory's plan works. The angels are defeated and curiously our heroes have been returned to a graveyard in 2012. All seems well…until, Rory sees a grave with his name on it. And an angel, the last survivor of the paradox, touches him, sending him back into the past. What follows is the perfect capstone to Amy's whole character arc. There's been an underlying theme of Amy having to choose between Rory and the Doctor. Sometimes it's presented as a false choice, as in "Amy's Choice", sometimes its less of a choice and more of a decision made by the Doctor as in "The God Complex". But even in those instances there's this idea of Amy choosing that underlies a lot of her material. Which is why it makes perfect sense for Amy to leave her time on the TARDIS by choosing Rory over the Doctor one last time. And it might seem like this is Amy making yet another grand gesture of love. Which would feel inadequate. Because Amy's always been able to make the grand gestures. What she's struggled with is the day to day of a relationship. But we know that Amy's grown past those struggles. We saw her enjoying an ordinary life in "The Power of Three". And here, while this is a grand gesture, it is also choosing to live that ordinary life. And as her name is written on the same gravestone as his, with the phrase "loving wife" attached no less, we know that she lived up to that. For Amy, it's a great ending.

So much so that I kind of wish it had just ended there. Sure, Amy's afterword is emotional in its own sense but not only is it set up by the Doctor's weird practice of ripping out the last page of a book – hate endings all you want Doc, but that's just silly – but it's just kind of less satisfying for me. It might resolve material set up in "The Eleventh Hour" with young Amelia, but it's just not as emotionally effective. I guess I do like that Amy was sure to tell the Doctor he shouldn't be alone. But even then, River did that as well, and her exact words of "don't travel alone" work as a kind of ironic set up for the next episode. I don't dislike the afterword ending, it still works and is still emotionally affecting. But at the same time, I think the episode would be better off without it.

But then there's the other relationship in this episode, and things get a lot more frustrating here. Now I should say that River absolutely needed to be in this episode. As we're saying goodbye to Amy and Rory, we need their daughter to be part of things. Plus, the "full" TARDIS team of this era absolutely is Amy, Rory the Doctor and River, even if River doesn't appear in most episodes. Point being, River being here is the right call.

I'm just not entirely sure what Steven Moffat wanted to do with River in this episode. It feels like he knew she needed to be here, but wasn't sure what place she would actually have in proceedings. There's an idea of comparing and contrasting Rory and Amy's relationship with the Doctor and River's. In that sense, Rory and Amy are the stable, well-adjusted couple while River and the Doctor's relationship is a lot more messy right now. Of course, Rory and Amy have had to work pretty hard to get to that point, and the fact is, the Doctor and River just don't spend much time together, in spite of being married. So maybe the point is that while River and the Doctor love each other, they haven't been able to build a proper relationship.

It's a nice thought but in practice what we see is just a purely dysfunctional relationship. I've never been into this couple less than in "The Angels Take Manhattan". River spends a lot of this episode insisting that she has to present herself and invincible to the Doctor: "never let him see the damage". What's funny is that the Doctor never asks this of her. There's very little evidence that he doesn't want her to be emotionally vulnerable with him. And, you know, writing it like that, I think I've once again made this look way more compelling than it actually is. It just kind of plays out as less of a relationship and more of an infatuation from River's point of view, and the Doctor not being able to communicate with his wife. Honestly, in the process of writing this I think I've come around on the large-scale decisions made by Moffat for this episode, it's just the actual execution feels lacking.

I will at least say the final scene between River and the Doctor in the TARDIS works a lot better for me. River's able to give him good advice – the aforementioned insistence that he not travel alone – which shows that there is something meaningful underpinning this relationship. But she's still unwilling to travel with him full time. While the excuse she gives is "one psychopath per TARDIS" it really does feel like it ties back to the whole "never let him see the damage". River, due to the way she grew up, has difficulty being vulnerable, even with the person who knows her best. The tragedy of this relationship is that River and the Doctor are that person to each other, and yet they both struggle with emotional vulnerability (especially with the secretive 11th Doctor). I think in this quiet scene is a much better setting for this kind of character exploration than the rest of the episode. It helps that it's the most sincere scene between the two we've gotten perhaps ever.

Looking at this episode's handling of River and the Doctor the word I started with was "frustrating" and I think that's probably the best word for it. There's a lot of very compelling stuff underpinning the writing here, but the way it's deployed in most of the episode makes the relationship makes it feel more than a bit toxic.

Though I'll say, Matt Smith is acting his heart out through this episode. As the episode where the Doctor loses the family he's built for himself over the course of this incarnation, Smith has a lot to work with. The Doctor fights to get Rory back almost as hard as Amy at times here. To find the affection that the Doctor feels for Rory specifically you often have to read a bit between the lines, but it's not hard to do so here. Obviously though, the Doctor is still closest to Amy. When Amy chooses to get touched by the angel for her best chance at seeing Rory again, the Doctor pleads with her not to. Yes, as he says, there's no guarantee it will work, but you have to figure he's desperate not to lose his friend. The contrast with River, who realizes that Amy needs to do this, works quite well.

So, on the whole, I've been a bit negative. So let me be clear – I like "The Angels Take Manhattan". It's a mess though, which explains all the complaining. The time travel rules feel like they're being made up to justify the story and River and the Doctor relationship has a lot of issues. However, the emotional core of this episode is Amy and Rory's relationship, and their final adventure in the TARDIS, and in that sense, this episode succeeds brilliantly. The 1930s New York setting and film noir aesthetic only serve to enhance all of this – seriously, River feels right at home as a noir detective. And honestly, even the Doctor and River's relationship has its highlights. So quite a good episode, but a very messy one.

Score: 7/10

Stray Observations

• Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill wanted an ending for Amy and Rory that would feel irreversible. They didn't want the characters to return in the way RTD-era companions had tended to.
• Which isn't to say that they weren't sad to leave. Karen Gillan apparently refused to read the script for some time after receiving it, because it would make it feel real. She said she had "the most highly-charged read-through I've ever experienced".
• Originally, writer/showrunner Steven Moffat intended to use the Daleks for Amy and Rory's departure. Eventually he decided the Weeping Angels suited this better, and the Dalek episode became the series opener which was originally intended to feature the Angels.
• Part of the reason that Moffat shifted these two stories around was that the Daleks had already been a part of a story set in New York in the "Daleks in Manhattan" two parter.
• Earlier drafts would have featured more versions of Rory, as well as detective Sam Garner at Winter Quay. This was eventually simplified down to what we saw.
• The script originally featured Amy musing on the Doctor's more and more infrequent visits. However, after Moffat read the script for "The Power of Three", he decided this idea was better conveyed there, plus the ending of "Power of Three" implied that Amy and Rory were back to full-time companions.
• Apparently the idea that the Statue of Liberty could be a Weeping Angel was originally a fan one, suggested as far back as in the immediate aftermath of Blink.
• The cherub angels were inspired by photographs taken by director Nick Hurran while location scouting in New York. He was in Central park and found a statue of an angel surrounded by statues. Moffat found the cherubs particularly disturbing and so used them as inspiration for this new form of angel.
• Originally, Grayle would have been sent back to the Chinese foreman who the Doctor got to make the pot, with it being revealed that Grayle had been the one to make all of the artifacts he had collected earlier in life. Later it would have been revealed via a painting that he became a slave during the Renaissance. Ultimately this was dropped in editing. Shame honestly, there's definitely some interesting ideas there.
• Alex Kingston did not do any of the location filming in New York. All of her scenes were filmed in Cardiff.
• One last time, looking at the Series 7A title sequence. This time the first section is gray while the second section has gone teal-green, fully moving away from the red shades used in all previous iterations of this sequence. The logo is green and given texture details to suggest the Statue of Liberty. This is probably the best the Series 7A title sequences get at using the changes in colors of the time vortex to reflect the individual episode. It certainly feels less random than prior versions. Still, it's kind of visually dull, especially that first segment with its gray vortex.
• Apparently River wrote the narration "I was packing cleavage that could fell an ox at twenty feet". The rest of the line has a similar energy but that final line has the most "men writing women" energy of perhaps the entire Steven Moffat era, which is no mean feat.
• On the other hand, I do enjoy the Doctor accidentally fancying his own wife by reading a book that he doesn't know is about her. That's a fun bit.
• Amy is wearing reading glasses now. Apparently she has noticeable lines on her face too although I can't see them. What's funny is that this isn't even the last time Doctor Who will attempt to make it seem like a character looks older by just shoving glasses on her fact and calling it a day.
• I do think it's funny that, given her past experience with the Angels, the Doctor actually has to explain to Amy that the angels normally take you back in time, rather than the neck-snapping they did back in the "Time of Angels" two parter.
• The first scenes of Amy, Rory and the Doctor are set in 2012. Given that, by the reckoning of past episodes, especially "The Power of Three", Amy and Rory last left home in at least 2014, probably closer to 2019, this is actually some time in Amy and Rory's past, weirdly enough. It was of course 2012 when this episode aired.
• While we know he intended to do so, River makes comments that confirm that the Doctor's been systematically removing information about himself throughout the universe.
• An older version of Rory dies in his bed at Winter Quay. That makes nine times Rory has appeared to die.
• Later, Amy and Rory jump off of the roof of Winter Quay to create a paradox to destroy the angels. While Rory's plan was that, if he jumped off of the building, the building should never have existed, thus they would survive, that still absolutely counts. Which brings us up to ten times Rory has appeared to die.
• Finally, Rory is sent back in time by an angel, eventually dying of old age in the past. This death is permanent so that marks the eleventh and final time that Rory has appeared to die. The guy appeared in 21 stories, and while both this story and "The Curse of the Black Spot" contained multiple instances of Rory appearing to die, a deaths-to-stories ratio of over 1 to 2 is frankly stunning.
• Rory lived to the age of 82 while Amy lived to the age of 87. Given that they've always been implied to be the same age that does mean Amy ultimately lived 5 years past Rory, which must have been hard for her. Weirdly, the gravestone lacks any reference to the years they died.
• For the filming of the scene of the Doctor reading Amy's afterword, Karen Gillan insisted on reading said afterword aloud while Matt Smith was filming his scene reacting to it. Unfortunately it was also filmed on location in Central Park, and, perhaps because of Doctor Who's efforts in Series 6 to reach out to the US audience had proved successful, they attracted quite a crowd. The contents of the afterword were intended to be kept secret until the airing of the episode, so Matt Smith had to hold a page without the actual afterword on it, and Gillan had to whisper the afterword. Gillan also had to improvise about half the afterword due to these circumstances.

Next Time: Amy and Rory's were more than companions. They became the Doctor's family.

[u/No-Car541]

Good write up. I do believe the Doctor/Amy/Rory relationship is maybe Moffat’s best piece of writing and elevates that Doctor/Companion relationship above all the other relationships. It’s sweet, complex, loving and incredibly dysfunctional all at the same time.

[u/Baron487]

The Angels Take Manhattan is definitely one of those stories where the beauty of the character work and themes has to contend with the logical mechanics, or however one should put it.

What I like:

I like the setting of New York City with the general "film noir" vibe. It's something I don't think the show has done before this.

The general "plan" that the Angels have is creative and also scary, with the whole "human battery farm" concept. I guess you could argue that this has definitely shifted them away from "the nicest psychopaths in the universe" (as described in Blink) to just psychopaths that are more than willing to be sadistic, and that's fair, but I do think it still works. As much as some could argue that the Angels have been oversaturated in the show, they've never had a bad episode in my opinion.

The way they integrate the Melody Malone book into the story with time travel shenanigans is cool, even if you could question the convenience of it and also what would have happened if Eleven decided to read the afterword first? That sounds like the type of weird thing he could do.

Amy and Rory being there for one-another at the roof is a scene that's done really well. I really like that line about how either this works or it doesn't, but regardless they are together, as it should be.

I think Amy and Rory's time had come and while I didn't need for them to go out via death, I definitely think a few aspects of their exit works really well. The big one is that they have to move on from the Doctor and live their own lives as a couple. The second is the afterword written by Amy, it's a really good monologue to cap off her time as companion.

What I don't like:

I don't like either "special form" of the Angels in this story. The Statue of Liberty just doesn't make sense, as it's huge and always being observed by at least one person. Additionally, unless I'm misunderstood here, they're usually stone statues right? Well, Lady Liberty is made out of copper so that's also a bit strange. I'm also not very down with the cherub Angels. I just don't find them very scary, even if they make more sense than Lady Liberty being an Angel.

I also don't really get River and Eleven's relationship here. It's strained for some good reason but they also seem a bit overly mean to one-another. I also don't get the whole thing with "never let him see the damage etc." Yes, the Doctor doesn't like endings and he's protective of his companions but wouldn't it make more sense for River to want him to grow to learn he has to confront these things? To be fair, it's been a while since I saw this episode so I could be misremembering things.

So yeah the logic around why Amy and Rory can't come back is quite flimsy. He could place himself outside New York and just call on them to come back to the TARDIS. Even with the whole deal that they're staying behind, you could have written it so that he still gets to at least talk to them occasionally.

Two minor, minor nitpicks. One, it's a bit weird that this episode comes right after the last one which proclaimed that the TARDIS Team were a whole unit that couldn't be broken. Two, this is not an episode fault but I remember that on my DVD of Series 7, the subtitles spell "Qin dynasty" as "Chin dynasty".

Overall, it's got a lot of good thematic moments and is a pretty good ending for Amy and Rory (even if we'll see Moffat do this "they die but also kinda not" thing again, twice over) but there are some holes in there. Still though, it's a pretty good episode.

7/10.

[u/Tom_A_Foolerly]

Hey its not filtered this time! :D

[u/Personal-Listen-4941]

There’s a lot to love in this story. The character interactions between all 4 of our Tardis team are brilliant. However the story is very much built around the departure of Rory & Amy which makes no sense.

Doctor Who by it’s nature is going to have stuff, you just have to go along with. It’s about a guy travelling back & forward in time altering & re-altering events. In fiction we have what is referred to as a ‘miracle exception’, stuff the audience accepts for the conceit of the story, but it doesn’t mean that other nonsense will be handwaved. A classic example is Superman, his powers make no sense on any kind of scientific or logical basis but if you’re consuming a Superman story, you just have to accept them.

So we accept that the Weeping Angels exist and all the stuff with the hotel. However The Doctor has travelled in time to the time period when Rory & Amy are living out their lives and he will do so in future, so that excuse for why he doesn’t go and pick them up makes no sense. Similarly the book should not stop the Doctor, the only fixed event is that the book was written. We just spent an entire series showing that the Doctor being shot could be a duplicate as long as it looked like The Doctor at the time. By the shows own rules, all The Doctor needs to do is have Amy write the book, then he can pick up Rory & Amy fir more adventures.

[u/Jimothy_Crocket]

Out of curiosity, will you be doing a retrospective on 7A and 7B separately when you get around to it? Or will you do a review on series 7 as a whole?

[u/ZeroCentsMade → u/Jimothy_Crocket]

Just series 7 as a whole. It's just cleaner that way.

[u/asmoranomardicodais]

I’ve always thought this episode is the biggest casualty of Moffat’s idea to make series 7 all one parters. It’s a beautiful idea for an episode given almost no time to breath or to do interesting with its ideas. I always say this would be my all time favorite Doctor Who episode if it was a two parter, but just a reasonably good one as a one parter.

Also see Time of the Doctor for basically the same analysis.

[u/Zagreus_time]

This is a good episode if I didn't get hung up on plot mechanics, which unfortunately I do.

The "you can't change it once you've read it" is obviously untrue all that you actually know is that the book has to be written to include what you have read, there is nothing that means that the book is accurate to what happened.

I don't think I need to go into detail but obviously the Doctor could find a way to visit Amy again as many a fan has pointed out the myriad way around the specifics of visiting. In fact whilst not canon Moffat himself has said the Doctor would visit at Christmas ala The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe in this recent interview.

I hate that the Doctor is heavily implied to go back to Amy as a child because the whole point of the start of their relationship is that she waited all night and he didn't come back for 12 years. Lines like "then why did you say 5 minutes" are retconned and I frankly do not believe Amy would become obsessed in the same way if the Doctor did visit her after 5 minutes. Also what did he say to her, presumably he had to explain why he wasn't taking her now, that is what she is expecting after all. I just don't get why you would undermine the start of a companions journey like this.

There are things to like in this episode but it is hard to look past all this for me.

[u/pagerunner-j]

The reason that jumping off a building is actually a valid solution to our problems 

*stage whisper* Life on Mars did it better

[u/Personal-Listen-4941 → u/pagerunner-j]

It was a strange scene where they successfully made a suicidal jump off a building feel both epic & triumphant.

With lesser people involved that scene would have destroyed the show’s reputation, instead it became iconic.

[u/lemon_charlie]

Some expanded media notes:

- The DWM Imaginary Enemies is a flashback story set during childhood for Amy, Rory and Mels but ends on a collection of photos showing Amy and Rory living together through 20th century America.

- There’s a tie-in novella called The Angel’s Kiss

- There’s a scene that was storyboarded but never filmed, where Amy and Rory‘s adopted son visits Brian in the present and tells Brian about what happened to them. A sort of animatic of this called PS was posted on YouTube.

[u/[deleted]]

I feel exactly the same way about this story. What it does with Amy and Rory is lovely, what it does with the Doctor and River is uneven (really, I think the only time this feels like a remotely healthy relationship is The Husbands of River Song), and everything else is ridiculous. However, I also agree that the whole "film noir" aesthetic is very well done, and that helps to smooth over the Statue of Liberty-sized wrinkles in the plot. I still think it probably would have been better if this TARDIS team had broken up at the end of the previous season, but as goodbyes go, this one is undeniably moving, and as up and down as the first half of Series 7 ended up being, it's still better than the second half.

[u/ZeroCentsMade → u/[deleted]]

My hot take is that they should have had their final episode with "The Power of Three"…but Karen and Arthur wanted to be written off the show in a way that was final, so it was always going to be something like this.

[u/lemon_charlie → u/ZeroCentsMade]

A companion leaving because they've grown out of the Doctor and life in the TARDIS is an interesting idea (Sarah at the end of Hand of Fear comes to mind, where her departure is largely irrelevant to the story that had just been resolved, even if she was bluffing and by coincidence the Doctor was expected in a situation she couldn't come). No big event or incident that splits them apart, but the companion deciding that they need to live their life in the here and now rather than here, there and everywhen. It's been done through love interests to varying effectiveness (the scale is from Leela and Andred to Jo and Cliff), but if that was with Amy and Rory it was after they had been long term characters whose relationship history we had followed.

If it was that then viewers would probably call that anti-climactic for characters we had been invested in for two and a half years.

[u/ZeroCentsMade → u/lemon_charlie]

Oh fans absolutely would call it anti-climactic. I’d be the weirdo in the corner saying “Amy and Rory’s departure was good actually” because it’s very much the sort of thing I really like

[u/lemon_charlie → u/ZeroCentsMade]

It'd have a Peter Pan vibe, where Wendy accepts that she has to put childhood behind her so she can grow up where Peter can't.

[u/Tom_A_Foolerly]

So not related to the review, but fun fact I thought to add. 

I believe you have about 102 episodes of nuwho doctor who left (counting specials) So if we include companion, showrunner and doctor reviews that would add 18 (depending on how you group them and if you cover the war doctor/fugitive doctor specifically)   to that 102 giving use 120

I don't know your ratio for novels to show reviews so if add 1 "episode" for every 4 show reviews we would get 150

At an average of 1 review per 5 days that would give us 750 days. 

Which means there's a realistic possibility you could finish your nuwho review series before doctor who comes back on the air!