{"id":7527,"date":"2021-11-21T20:15:50","date_gmt":"2021-11-21T19:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1515384"},"modified":"2021-11-21T21:01:28","modified_gmt":"2021-11-21T20:01:28","slug":"doctor-who-village-of-the-angels-review-this-chapter-is-a-stone-cold-classic","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/doctor-who-village-of-the-angels-review-this-chapter-is-a-stone-cold-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Who \u2013 Village of the Angels review: This chapter is a stone-cold classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Patrick Mulkern\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Sunday, 21 November 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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<\/div> 5.0 out of 5 star rating<\/span> <\/span> <\/div> <\/div>

After last week\u2019s needlessly complicated, off-putting concoction, it is a relief to turn to Chapter Four and heap praise: thrilling storytelling, faultless production, terrific performances and a jaw-dropping conclusion\u2026 in sum, or by multiplication, this is several orders of magnitude greater than anything that has Fluxed before. Expertly directed by the fittingly named Jamie Magnus Stone, Village of the Angels is an hour of drama that is coherent despite its complexity, exciting and satisfying as a slice of TV sci-fi.<\/p>\n

Showrunner Chris Chibnall and his co-writer for one week, Maxine Alderton, make a strong partnership. (She wrote the 2020 episode The Haunting of Villa Diodati<\/a>, one of Jodie Whittaker\u2019s finest outings.)\u00a0It must have been both daunting and a buzz to be the first Doctor Who writers other than Steven Moffat to be allowed to play with his nightmarish creations, the Weeping Angels. Not only to honour what\u2019s been established in the past but to flutter their wings further.<\/p>\n

These \u201cquantum-locked\u201d statues gain more mobility and agency. An Angel has hijacked the Tardis! They\u2019re in alliance with the Division (shady Gallifreyan operatives from the Doctor\u2019s forgotten past). We\u2019ve long known \u201can image of an Angel becomes an Angel\u201d \u2013 now one can emerge from a 1960s telly, even from a torn-up pencil sketch. A cluster of Angels have the power to take the whole village of Medderton \u201cout of space, out of time\u201d, while mounting an attack on Professor Jericho\u2019s house, bashing down his doors. \u201cAre they really ringing my doorbell?\u201d he gasps. We also learn what happens if you\u2019ve already been Angel-zapped into the past but, like elderly couple Gerald and Jean, are foolish enough to stray near an Angel again. Instant petrification and disintegration.<\/p>

There are reminders of The Time of Angels<\/a> in Matt Smith\u2019s first season 11 years ago, when Amy Pond had an Angel in her mind\u2019s eye and saw her arm turning to stone, and when the Angels first found a means to speak (through dead cleric Bob). These aspects are developed through Claire Brown, a \u201cpercipient\u201d with second sight \u2013 as the Doctor says, \u201cYou had a premonition of an Angel in your mind and now it\u2019s living there.\u201d Claire\u2019s arms turn to stone and she sprouts Angel wings.<\/p>\n

The blue-stonewashed encounter between Angel-Claire and the Doctor is riveting (superb performances from Annabel Scholey and Jodie Whittaker). Here the imagery starts to become biblical. This rogue Angel is like Satan, the fallen angel, tempting the Christ-like Doctor, if not in the desert, on a beach where the sea is parting. She dangles the one prize the Doctor desires: her erased memories. Temptation also comes elsewhere in the form of Azure (Rochenda Sandall), high on a mountain, enticing the dispossessed masses, while Bel (Thaddea Graham) leads Namaca (Blake Harrison) not into temptation and is his saviour. Here endeth the lesson.<\/p>\n

Kevin McNally is strong as Professor Eustacius Jericho and is no stranger to Doctor Who. He was one of the few plus points in Colin Baker\u2019s debut stinker, The Twin Dilemma<\/a>, 37 years ago.\u00a0Jericho is steadfast in the face of unimaginable horror, having been \u201cone of the first British soldiers into Belsen\u201d, albeit insulted by an Angel via his TV set as \u201cloveless, childless, hiding in academia for fear of the real world\u2026 a life of failure\u201d. He and Claire are like a 20th-century Doctor\/companion pairing, also extremely close to Dougray Scott and Jessica Raine\u2019s characters in the 2013 episode Hide<\/a>. They\u2019re people we\u2019ll want to spend more time with as Flux enters its latter stages.<\/p>\n

\""Doctor\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\n

Village of the Angels presents the quaint English setting of Medderton cut off from the outside world and is very John Wyndham (The Midwich Cuckoos). It is of course redolent of 1971-vintage Doctor Who. The Jon Pertwee classic The Daemons<\/a> saw the village of Devil\u2019s End isolated and beset by a living statue that vaporised the locals. (Bok the gargoyle, who terrified me as a nipper, was a clear antecedent for the Weeping Angels.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve no qualms about referencing Who\u2019s ancient past when Chibnall does it freely himself. He peppers Whittaker\u2019s dialogue with the fan-pleasing catchphrases of her predecessors: Pertwee\u2019s \u201cI reversed the polarity of the neutron flow\u201d and Patrick Troughton\u2019s \u201cWhen I say \u2018run\u2019, run!\u201d.<\/p>\n

Chapter Four brims with tense sequences (the Angels\u2019 pursuit of the Doctor\u2019s party in Jericho\u2019s \u201cassignation tunnel\u201d) and impressive visuals. The illusion of Medderton teetering on the edge of space, and the split-screen between day and night and 1901\/1967 are excellently achieved by CGI. There are smaller, precise FX such as Claire\u2019s pupils suddenly dilating \u201con camera\u201d. The most striking image is saved to last with the hideous petrification of Whittaker\u2019s Doctor into a Weeping Angel. It elevates this segment into \u201cstone-cold classic\u201d.<\/p>\n

As a final Flux flourish, the credits roll is interrupted (a rare event; Nick Frost\u2019s Santa did it at the close of Death in Heaven<\/a> in 2014). It bleeds into an extended scene<\/a> with Vinder (Jacob Anderson). Finally, the trailer for Chapter Five flings out a mini-reveal of Jemma Redgrave as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart<\/a>, the Unit leader introduced by Chibnall in 2012<\/a> and last seen six years ago. More on her next time\u2026<\/p>\n