Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan Review

The end of the Ponds has come- was it worth the wait?
It's been a brilliant run for Doctor Who- the five blockbuster adventures Steven Moffat teased throughout the run-up to Series Seven Part One have certainly arrived in full force, providing a thoroughly satisfying send-off season for the Ponds. And The Angels Take Manhattan? It's perhaps the most tasty possible icing on the already succulent cake of one of the best incarnations of the modern era yet.

We opened with a creepy pre-titles sequence where an FBI agent finds himself hunted by the ever-haunted Weeping Angels, his older dying self and the Statue of Liberty itself. If ever there were a need for some more fear to be injected back into the Angels after Blink, it was now, and in this respect the Moff didn't disappoint. Contrary to some of our expectations, the Lonely Assassins were integral to the departures of Amelia and Rory Williams, adding a number of shocks and twists in this masterful timey-wimey tale. Perhaps the Statue of Liberty twist may have been one step slightly too far in terms of plot feasability, but it's really hard to care when the rest of the episode was so damn brilliant.

It was always going to be interesting to see how the Moff handled the return of the rather-infamous River Song onto the scene after Series Six's intense character-led arc. Thankfully, the executive producer and head writer made great use of his much-loved character, placing River in multiple positions of power, from the tempting fictitious character of Melody Malone to a wife determined to save her beloved from making a mistake that would plunge him into darkness to a daughter of two parents whose effect on her she must hide to 'save' our favourite Time Lord. The more you think about it, the more credit you must give to Alex Kingston for a truly fantastic, underplayed performance this time around.

If we're giving credit to actors, though, then we must return to our three leads for the ultimate accolades. Karen Gillian and Arthur Darvill have given plenty of fantastic performances on the show, but Angels took things to new heights, as they remained truly convincing in their seemingly final moments of leaping from one of NYC's towering spires. That it seemed the Williams had survived against all the odds made the tragic final act of the Angels all the more terrifying and moving for us viewers. We'll miss these sacred companions, yet at least we've got the incredible Matt still on board. His pleading "Come along, please, Pond" as he realised he was about to say his 'final farewell' to his most faithful companion was beautiful, as was his earlier reaction to discovering his future and indeed his reactions towards River in the moments straight after the deaths of his friends. "River, they were your parents...I never even asked" perfectly summarised the Doctor's selfishness at only wanting to protect his own friendship rather than anything else, a sublime evolution of the darker Eleventh incarnation that's beginning to emerge.

Coupled with the fantastic direction, soundtrack and CGI, Steven Moffat's fateful final storyline for the Ponds stands as one of the standout best episodes of Doctor Who since its resurrection in 2005, quite possibly ever if we're really thinking of the fourty-nine years as a whole of the programme. We will miss Amy and Rory deeply, yet they've gone out with the biggest bang possible, and we know already that with Jenna-Louise Coleman there are very exciting days to come!
5/5