Sunday, November 21, 2021

My Review of Doctor Who: Flux - Chapter Four: Village Of The Angels

 


Written by Chris Chibnall And Maxine Alderton
Directed by Jamie Magnus Stone

Claire (to Jericho): "The Angels have the TARDIS."

Last week might mot have been my favourite episode of this Flux saga so far but it certainly landed quite the cliffhanger with the Weeping Angels taking control of the TARDIS. Of course, the Doctor along with some help from Yaz and Dan did manage to get out of that tricky predicament. Or at least that was what the Doctor was led to believe.

Remember in the first episode how we met a mysterious woman named Claire (Annabel Scholey) who seemed to know the Doctor and Yaz before being zapped by a Weeping Angel? Well, she's back and has been living in the Cursed Village, otherwise known as Medderton, Devon for the last two years. She's also been participating in Professor Jericho's (Kevin McNally) psychic experiments and it's not long before she's reunited with the Doctor while Yaz and Dan are occupied elsewhere.

There was a fun theory that Claire was going to be revealed as a Timeless Child, but that's quietly dismissed here. It turned out that not only was Claire revealed to be a seer but because she saw a Weeping Angel, it's now residing in her and the Angel in question now had a bargaining chip with the Doctor, who attempted a contact of her own in order to free Claire from the Angel.

The biggest reveal wasn't just an Angel residing inside Claire, it was the fact that that Weeping Angels themselves are operatives of The Division and like the Doctor, this one went rogue. It also had knowledge of the Doctor's removed memories from The Division and the latter was as desperate to retrieve them as she was to save Claire.

The ultimate slam dunk of the episode however was those final few minutes. Once the Doctor had sort of reunited with Yaz and Dan and some of the other guest characters and it looked like she was about to defeat the Angels, the rogue one traded her to The Division. Not to jump on the hyperbole train but seeing the Doctor transformed into a Weeping Angel has got to be one of the best cliffhangers the show has done in it's fifty eight year history. I genuinely couldn't believe what I was witnessing and I hope Chibnall can resolve it well next week.

As for Yaz and Dan, they were largely stuck without the Doctor. It didn't take long for them to go from 1967 to 1901 in the same village and the twist with missing girl, Peggy and grave counting Miss Hayward (Penelope McGhie) was executed pretty well, though expected. Yaz, Dan and Peggy got a horrible taste on the level of cruelty the Weeping Angels could dish out just for the sake of it.

Elsewhere and slightly divorced from the central plot this week, we got more of Bel looking for Vinder. Naturally she didn't find him (I genuinely wasn't expecting her to this week) but she did manage to save poor Namaca (Blake Harrison) from becoming a prisoner of Azure and Passenger. That theory about who Bel and Vinder will be revealed definitely will happen, won't it? You know the one I'm talking about.

- Claire Brown was born May 13th 1985, though claimed 1935 in order to not draw more attention to herself. Jericho also got one hell of a character dressing down from an Angel using his voice.
- For the second time in the show's run, we got a credit scene. This one involved Vinder meeting Namaca and getting a tiny bit closer to tracking Bel.
- I knew the Ood were returning but I'm surprised the trailer revealed another returning character the way they did.
- Maxine Alderton is the only other writer for this series, and both this episode and her previous one should be enough for Russell T. Davies to bring her back.
-  Kevin McNally who played Jericho here  previously appeared in The Twin Dilemma. 
- Chronology: Both November 21st 1967 and 1901 in Medderton, Devon as well as 2021 on Puzano. 

Village Of The Angels not only will be seen as the best episode of this particular series but it's undoubtedly one of the best from Chibnall's era so far. I was wary that Chibnall could add to the excellence that Steven Moffat did with the Weeping Angels but both him and Maxine Alderton truly knocked it out of the park with this one. A genuinely sublime episode.

Rating: 9 out of 10

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