Features// TV: Doctor Who: The Time of Angels Review

Yes, we know, TV isn't normally SPOnG's thing. But, every so often, this strange industry throws something off-topic and a little bit awesome into our path and it's quite difficult not to spill at least a little of our guts about it. In this instance I went to Sheffield to see City of the Daleks, first episode in Doctor Who: The Adventure Games, and wound up seeing Saturday's episode of the TV show, dubbed The Time of Angels.

First up: Mild Spoilers. You've been warned.

So, The Time of Angels starts exciting and just keeps going. In fact, it starts with River Song in space, the Doctor and Amy in a museum and a quite awesome escape. If you've been watching Doctor Who for a while the most interesting part of that sentence was probably 'River Song' – kind of Indiana Jones in an evening dress with a bit of time travel know-how, she's been described as “sort of the Doctor's wife” by Russell T. Davies. Song drags the Doctor in front of Father Octavian, a military commander, to track a weeping angel through the cheery Maze of the Dead.

Yeah, weeping angels. The name of the episode's a bit of a give-away, huh? These horrible quantum wafeform bastards are easily some of my favourite sci-fi/fantasy monsters/villains of the last few years. I mean, they're up there with Eyjafjallajoekull, Destroyer of UK Comics Deliveries. They're crazy-fast, but can only move when no-one's looking at them (on account of being quantum-locked or some such thing) – the rest of the time they're just super-creepy statues. If they weren't inspired by those guys who paint themselves up and stand really still in the street for money, I'll eat my Joy Division oven gloves.

Anyway, what follows is a very taut search for the angel through a labyrinth of statues of the dead. Where Victory of the Daleks felt a bit like one for the kids, The Time of Angels has a lot of the trappings of survival horror. While the search itself (and several resulting complications) provides plenty of tension, the questions surrounding River Song provide a huge great extra helping of mystery.

And Alex Kingston as River Song is a delight. A perfect foil for the Doctor, she frequently reduces Matt Smith to a slapped-down, husbandly sulk. At one point she lands the Tardis and the Doctor tells her she's done it wrong because it doesn't make the... erm, 'Tardis noise' (if anyone knows how to write that noise, please let us know in the forum). She tells him he's been leaving the brakes on. Brilliant.

But, the greatest thing about River Song being in this episode is the dynamic between her and Amy Pond. Amy is at once enamoured with, intrigued by and wary of Song. Trying to divine the nature of Song's relationship with the Doctor, she forms a bond with her based on mutual mild antagonism of the Doctor. Beyond that, however, Karen Gillan lays a discreet but very tangible streak of jealousy beneath Pond's apparent amusement at Song's belittlement of the Doctor. The chemistry between the three is great fun.

The episode written by Steven Moffat, current showrunner for Doctor Who, and directed by Adam Smith. While my love of Doctor Who is relatively newfound, I was told by a Whovian of longer standing than myself at the screening that The Time of Angels is 'classic Moffat'. It's certainly, for me, the strongest episode of the series so far.

Below's a trailer for the episode, if you haven't seen it.