History Recap / DoctorWhoS31E4TheTimeOfAngels

* ImminentDangerClue: The ancient ruins they're in were from a culture where the population had two heads, but nobody notices for a while that all the "statues" have only one head each.[[note]]I'm pretty sure the rest of the viewers caught on as fast as this viewer did, which was immediately.[[/note]]

* ImminentDangerClue: The ancient ruins they're in were from a culture where the population had two heads, but nobody notices for a while that all the "statues" have only one head each.

* ActionizedSequel: Moffat described this as ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' to the ''Film/{{Alien}}'' of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink Blink]]". "Blink" was a haunted house story built around a StableTimeLoop and a spooky atmosphere, with a couple of unarmed civilians trying to evade four angels. Here, we have the Doctor, River, Amy and several trained soldiers against an entire army of angels.

* AdultFear: You've done this before. It's bad, but nothing you can't handle. [[ForWantOfANail But you missed one detail...]]

The one where where Moffat gives you '''more''' reasons to be afraid of statues.

* AreWeThereYet: While on the on the fourth level of the maze, Amy asks how much farther it is to the top. River tells her it's two more levels to go.

* FantasticAesop: The Church's opposition to the Aplans' "same-person marriage" would appear to be one about gay marriage, but this is then played for laughs when Amy says that they have a point — the divorces would be ''messy''.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: This was the first Eleventh Doctor story to be written and filmed, meaning that the Doctor comes across as noticeably more short-tempered and prone to moments of {{jerkass}}ery than in the rest of Creator/MattSmith's run in the role, while Amy seems a little more subdued (outside of the final scene) compared to the rest of the season.

The one where where Mofat give you '''more''' reasons to be afraid of statues.

In the 51[[superscript:st]] Century, [[TimeyWimeyBall Not-Yet-Professor]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary River Song]] carves a message in Old High Gallifreyan onto the "home box" (like a black box) of a starliner, the ''Byzantium''. 12,000 years later, the Doctor and Amy come across the message while the Doctor's "touring" a museum, "keeping score" by laughing at all the mistakes on the plaques and noting the bits he's been involved in. It says "Hello, sweetie". (Although Amy can't read the ancient Gallifreyan it's written in, which will be important later.) They run off with it, and after watching what's happening to River at this exact moment 12,000 years ago, they travel back just in time to catch River as she [[ThrownOutTheAirlock ejects herself from the starliner via the airlock]]. Before she leaves the ship, she offers those onboard a warning that there's something in the hold that will make sure the ship never reaches its destination.

To Amy's curiosity and the Doctor's slight resentment, River takes control of the TARDIS, having "had lessons from the very best". [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler The Doctor was busy that day.]] The team follows the ''Byzantium'' to where it has landed — or, more accurately, crashed. Specifically, on top of an ancient, abandoned temple built on Alfava Metraxis. Not long after they've arrived, River is joined by a team of clerics, a [[ChurchMilitant military off-shoot of the Church]] led by a bishop, Father Octavian. They're hunting the creature that caused the ship to crash — [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink a Weeping Angel]]. River has promised the Doctor's help in catching it, as it appears to have escaped into the [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace "Maze of the Dead"]], the catacombs underneath the temple. Also, Amy quickly figures out that River has just ''got'' to be [[ShipTease the Doctor's wife]]. The Doctor honestly doesn't know, and River delights in keeping the answer a secret.

The one where the species with the '''highest''' likelihood of scaring you behind the sofa [[FromBadToWorse gets even more horrifying]].

* ActionizedSequel: Moffat described this as ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' to the ''Film/{{Alien}}'' of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink Blink]]". "Blink" was a haunted house story (and LowerDeckEpisode) built around a StableTimeLoop, with a couple of unarmed civilians trying to evade four angels. Here, we have the Doctor, River, Amy and several trained soldiers against an entire army of angels.

* ActionizedSequel: Moffat described this as ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' to the ''Film/{{Alien}}'' of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink Blink]]". Indeed, instead of a couple of unarmed civilians, we have soldiers.

'''Bob:''' I didn't, sir. The Angels killed me too.

** "I didn't escape, sir. The Angel killed me too."

* ScrewYourself: This was a problem with the two-headed Aplan race, which commonly made out with themselves and even self-married before the Church stepped in.

* ResolvedNoodleIncident: River mentioned the "crash of the ''Byzantium''" in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary "Silence in the Library"]], and now we get to see what she was talking about.

* SchmuckBait: "Come and see this!"[[note]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/The_Time_of_Angels_8637.jpg Whoops[[/note]]

* MistakenForAnImposter: Father Octavius yells at Sacred Bob when he fires at a "statue" when he thinks it moved. Turns out, it probably did.

** Sacred Bob shoots a statue which he says he thought looked at him. He's promptly told off for panicking and shooting at the décor. We later find out that all these statues ''are'' Angels.

The one where the species with the '''highest''' likelihood of scaring you behind the sofa [[FromBadToWorse gets even more horrifying.]]

* BerserkButton: The Angels taunted the Doctor.

->''What if we had ideas that could think for themselves? What if, one day, our dreams no longer needed us? When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us: the time of Angels.''

To Amy's curiosity and the Doctor's slight resentment, River takes control of the TARDIS, having "had lessons from the very best". [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler The Doctor was busy that day.]] The team follows the ''Byzantium'' to where it has landed -- or, more accurately, crashed. Specifically, on top of an ancient, abandoned temple built on Alfava Metraxis. Not long after they've arrived, River is joined by a team of clerics, a [[ChurchMilitant military off-shoot of the Church]] led by a bishop, Father Octavian. They're hunting the creature that caused the ship to crash -- [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink a Weeping Angel]]. River has promised the Doctor's help in catching it, as it appears to have escaped into the [[IDontLiketheSoundofThatPlace "Maze of the Dead"]], the catacombs underneath the temple. Also, Amy quickly figures out that River has just ''got'' to be [[ShipTease the Doctor's wife]]. The Doctor honestly doesn't know, and River delights in keeping the answer a secret.

As the clerics work on breaking into the temple, the Doctor and friends work on decoding the mystery of the Angels with a four-second clip of the Angel in the ''Byzantium''. They also use an old book which, ominously, does not include any images of the Angels. The Doctor and River eventually realise that the book is trying to tell them that any image of the Angels essentially ''becomes'' an Angel, and is imbued with the qualities that make them so dangerous. Something that Amy is well ahead of them in discovering, having become trapped in the room with the recording of the Angel, which is gradually coming out of the screen towards her. Amy manages to defeat it by stopping the looped recording at the exact point where the image of the Angel is glitched out, but not before she looks into the Angel's eyes despite the Doctor's instructions. As the clerics manage to access the temple, Amy complains of something in her eye ...

As the party investigates deeper into the temple, the Doctor and River [[FridgeHorror realise something terrible which has been staring them in the face all this time]] -- the Aplans were two-headed beings, whereas the statues in the Maze of the Dead are all humanoid. They're ''all'' Angels, emaciated and weakened from centuries underground. The radiation from the crashed ship is giving them strength and reviving them, exactly what the Angel on board had intended. The Doctor has unwittingly led everyone into danger.

Finding themselves directly under the hull of the ''Byzantium'', the party's torches are failing as the Angels continue to draw power and grow stronger. The Angels appear over the radio to taunt the Doctor for failing them all, hoping to make him angry. Unfortunately for them, it seems to work -- after asking everyone whether they trust him, the Doctor grabs a gun from Octavian and aims it at the gravity well, warning the Angels that they've made a mistake, because there's one thing that should never, ever be put in a trap:

* ActorAllusion: Creator/KarenGillan's previous role on ''Doctor Who'', [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E2TheFiresOfPompeii "The Fires of Pompeii"]], also involved people turning into stone (including the small part she played) albeit for a different reason.

** The "Crash of the ''Byzantium''" is one of the future events that River alluded to in passing in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary Silence in the Library]].

** The Angels communicated with the voice of one of their victims, just like the Vashta Nerada did.
* ChurchMilitant: The Bishop, along with Sacred Bob, Angelo, Christian and crew are clerics and they're soldiers. In the 51[[superscript:st]] century, "the church has moved on". They're a very nice group of soldiers -- no KnightTemplar behaviour at all. Their armbands, white cross on maroon field, mark them as the Knights of Malta.

** Those fans watching on Creator/{{BBC}}1 in many regions were presented with [[MoodWhiplash a brightly-coloured animated banner complete with a caricature of Graham Norton]] for yet another talent show ''during the cliffhanger.'' They might as well "[[Creator/CharlieBrooker just wipe s*** all over the screen during the final scene of Dr. Who next week]]".

** Moffat does several nods to his previous episodes; besides the obvious (the Angels and River), there's people's voices being recorded and played back by the thing that killed them, à la the Vashta Nerada.

* DrivesLikeCrazy: The Doctor leaves the TARDIS brakes on when landing[[labelnote:*]]Well, according to WordOfGod River was actually pulling his leg with that one.[[/labelnote]], and calls the blue stabilizers "blue boringers".

* FantasticAesop: The Church's opposition to the Aplans' "same-person marriage" would appear to be one about gay marriage, but this is then played for laughs when Amy says that they have a point -- the divorces would be ''messy''.

* HappilyMarried: Amy assumes that the Doctor and River Song are married and interprets their banter as proof that they have been married for a long time. [[note]] The truth is complicated. She's married to him but, he isn't to her, ''yet''; and the ceremony happened in an alternate reality that was aborted and on a world that never existed. But, since both remember it, it is real to them.[[/note]]

--->'''Amy:''' She's like "Heel, boy".

'''River:''' It's not supposed to make that noise. ''You'' leave the brakes on.[[note]]According to WordOfGod she's pulling his leg. Given that ''every other'' TARDIS ever seen makes the same noise, it's clearly just the engine sound -- which can be muted.[[/note]]\\

* MeanwhileInTheFuture: The opening sequence jumps to 12,000 years in the future where the Doctor finds the homebox that River Song left a message on.

* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound: InUniverse, the TARDIS' *rnnnnnt* or *vworp* is explained by River as the Doctor leaving the brakes on; normally, it lands silently. However, the Doctor claims that he keeps the brakes on specifically to hear it. [[invoked]][[note]]Except that ''[[WordOfGod actually]]'', River's winding him up -- if the noise really was because of the brakes, then why does every other TARDIS ever seen make it too?[[/note]]

* NeckSnap: Horrifying in their own way: obviously, you'd never be able to ''show'' something like that in ''Doctor Who'''s time-slot, but you get a fleeting shot of a Weeping Angel that [[GoryDiscretionShot cuts to black]] [[SoundOnlyDeath and a crunching noise]].

* NoodleIncident: It's implied that the Doctor and River have met a few more times between "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead Forest of the Dead]]" and this episode. And that their latest meeting from his perspective may have ended somewhat disastrously.

* {{Retcon}}: Back in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd Journey's End]]" it was stated that the reason the TARDIS tended to be so shaky and wildly unpredictable during flight was because [=TARDISes=] have to be operated by six people in order to fly stably. This episode does away with that and establishes the existence of "Blue Stabilizers", which allow the TARDIS to fly entirely smoothly with one pilot with the simple touch of a button, presumably meaning that the Ninth and Tenth Doctors either didn't bother using said stabilizers, or they were non-functional and conveniently got fixed after the Tenth Doctor's regeneration blew up the console room.

** And [[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey River throws herself out]] of the ''Byzantium'' to get into the TARDIS.
** Also a ChurchMilitant group in a sci-fi setting? Using dropships? With names like Octavian? Exterminating an amoral alien menace to humanity with extreme prejudice? After all it's the Fifty-First Century and the church has moved on. [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} In the Fifty-First Century there is only war.]]

* TitleDrop: "When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us: ''the time of Angels.''"

The one where the species with the '''highest''' likelihood of scaring you behind the sofa [[FromBadToWorse gets scarier.]]

The one where River turns the TARDIS brakes off.