Discussion Recap / DoctorWhoS33E5TheAngelsTakeManhattan

Lots of people don't.

Didn't The Big Bang establish it as Jessica? Maybe the production designers couldn't fit it on the gravestone?

She might have dropped the middle name when establishing her new identity in the past, just as Sally Sparrow's friend changed her age. A good way to get rid of it if she did not like it.

Much as the episode numbering's messed up now, we have a page for it on Recap.Doctor Who S 33 E 06 PS.

Thanks, I didn't see that.

Thank you. I needed that.

First time a companion's stayed dead since Adric (and I suppose, later River)

Don't say "stayed dead" with a show like Doctor Who until they've gone at least a full two serieses without turning up again. Even then, it's only a 'probably'.

Apparently, Karen Gillan wanted to leave the series in a way that made sure it was final. So, unless she changes her: mind later, I expect the "stayed dead" is here to stay (and that is sad indeed)

@C105: Considering the way former Doctor Who actors have changed their minds on this issue, Tom Baker first and foremost - yeah, I think there's a pretty good chance they'd leap at it when asked a few years down the road. Even Christopher Eccleston seems to be softening up from what I've read.

You're not the only one. It doesn't make a lot of sense...

I thought their deaths were a fixed point now and undoing it would create another paradox that would cause more problems. I'll have to rewatch it again when I get time but something like that was mentioned.

Maybe he can't prevent their deaths, but what's keeping him from seeing them again? Apart from the whole "Chicago 50 years ago" thing mentioned above, how come they can't simply use River's Vortex Manipulator to go there? It's established that she can (and does), so why can't the Doctor simply tag along, as he did at the end of "Utopia"?

Maybe the problem is more psychological than technical. The Doctor does not like to see people age (River made that clear) and now that he precisely knows the time of their death he simply can't bear seeing them again. Add to that his hatred of ends...

You could also add that the Doctor has repeatedly shown his fear of paradoxes (from Father's Day to The Girl Who Waited), and Amy and Rory are close to become living ones.

River can only go back because she wrote the book in the past. it's Timey Wimey. Doctor can't go back because he directly saw that those people were already dead, and thus directly seeing them alive again would cause a paradox. it's also Timey Wimey, plus a bit of the Doctor's psychology as C105 suggested.

He hasn't seen them DEAD, he's seen their tombstone. Why can't he just plant a tombstone there the day before they show up? Is it because it changes while the doctor's looking, or perhaps because he's too wracked with grief to think straight?

@ashlay: I'm pretty certain it doesn't work that way. Knowing that someone is dead doesn't prevent you from encountering them at an earlier point in their timeline - after all, the Ninth Doctor must have known that Charles Dickens was dead, same for Ten and Agatha Christie, or Eleven and Vincent Van Gogh. This also raises the issue of what point you use to define them as "dead" - in other words, what time is "the present" here? From, say, Jack Harkness' point of view, all the humans in Blitz London have been dead for millennia, seeing as how he's from the 51st century. And that's before all the weird timeline shenanigans with the Doctor and River Song.

The psychological issue, on the other hand, I can easily accept. The Doctor took thirty years to see Sarah Jane again, after all, and even then it was basically an accident.

I have to agree here, especially as the trope "Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever" is unspoilered and it doesn't take too much of a leap to guess to what that refers!

It's not really a spoiler in the same way that other events of the episode are.

The lone Angel at the end is though, which was unspoilered (I've covered it up now).

It also doesn't make sense. The weeping angels were explicitly stated as being STONE when observed. THAT statue is BRONZE.

Though, if it is one, it probably doesn't get out much - it's probably the most observed statue in the city.

Maybe the statue was a normal statue, but the angels did something to it to give it the image of an angel (Like look at their reflection in it, maybe?) and thus create a humongous angel. Also, I'm pretty sure people noticed it when it was up against the building, which is why when nobody was looking it didn't move.