After 3 very flawed chapters of the Flux story we suddenly get this outstanding gem of a story of a village invaded by Angels. It thankfully mostly works as a standalone without much of the ongoing Flux arcs (which for me were mistly nonsense) and it manages to make the Weeping Angels the scariest and best they have been since Blink, in my opinion.
The only negative is that there are scenes from one of the overarching story threads involving Bel going to a planet where Swarm and Azure are capturing people. Those scenes add zero quality to the episode and take us away from the great village scenes. Bel is pleasant and the scenes are only a small part of the episode but I really wish they weren't in this episode at all. They are an unwanted distraction which end up slightly detracting from an otherwise terrific episode for me.
The major part of the episode set in the village with Angels attacking people is tremendous. Professor Jericho is a wonderful guest character, beautifully acted by the excellent Kevin McNally. He was a character many fans, me included, wanted more of after this story. The return of Claire is very welcome too as she is another very well acted, strong character. All the other villagers are good. The scenes are nearly all full of quality, tension and thrills as well as nice humour.
I think that writer Maxine Alderton is the greatest thing in Chibnall's era. She wrote some of the best material of this era. It is quite clear, I think, she is most likely responsible for all the great stuff in this episode while Chibnall writes the weak bits with Bel that link to his overall arc.
The exhilerating scenes with the Angels are compelling and the story is clever and fun. The cliffhanger is thrilling and powerful.
The mid-credits scene when Vinder sees a recording of Bel at the very end is the weakest bit of the episode. Why oh why did Chibs have to shove that in?! It spoils the incredible end of the episode by distracting from the cliffhanger's impact with a pointless scene tacked on afterwards. It also features a cheesy, cliched bit of silliness with Bel chatting away needlessly and running out of time to give her co-ordinates. That is a stupid annoyance for me. Why wouldn't she say the co-ordinates first or just talk less and more quickly? So contrived.
Without the scenes from Bel and Vinder's journey this would be an easy 10/10 classic but those scenes and especially the mid-credits scene very sadly drops it to a 9.5/10 for me.
I don't require perfection for a 10, nothing is perfect, but I expect extremely high quality that can stand alongside other great TV. This nearly achieved that but I feel like Chibnall's insistence on pushing his poorly devised, poorly written story arc into the episode just takes the shine off a bit.
Still, overall this is a cracking episode. I only mention the negative to explain my frustration and why it is 9.5 not 10/10. But I really want to focus on the positives because amidst a divisive era which was often let down by things a lot of us didn't like, this episode was superb quality. It would grace any season of the show.
My Rating: 9.5/10.
Series 13 Episode Ranking: 1st out of 6.
The only negative is that there are scenes from one of the overarching story threads involving Bel going to a planet where Swarm and Azure are capturing people. Those scenes add zero quality to the episode and take us away from the great village scenes. Bel is pleasant and the scenes are only a small part of the episode but I really wish they weren't in this episode at all. They are an unwanted distraction which end up slightly detracting from an otherwise terrific episode for me.
The major part of the episode set in the village with Angels attacking people is tremendous. Professor Jericho is a wonderful guest character, beautifully acted by the excellent Kevin McNally. He was a character many fans, me included, wanted more of after this story. The return of Claire is very welcome too as she is another very well acted, strong character. All the other villagers are good. The scenes are nearly all full of quality, tension and thrills as well as nice humour.
I think that writer Maxine Alderton is the greatest thing in Chibnall's era. She wrote some of the best material of this era. It is quite clear, I think, she is most likely responsible for all the great stuff in this episode while Chibnall writes the weak bits with Bel that link to his overall arc.
The exhilerating scenes with the Angels are compelling and the story is clever and fun. The cliffhanger is thrilling and powerful.
The mid-credits scene when Vinder sees a recording of Bel at the very end is the weakest bit of the episode. Why oh why did Chibs have to shove that in?! It spoils the incredible end of the episode by distracting from the cliffhanger's impact with a pointless scene tacked on afterwards. It also features a cheesy, cliched bit of silliness with Bel chatting away needlessly and running out of time to give her co-ordinates. That is a stupid annoyance for me. Why wouldn't she say the co-ordinates first or just talk less and more quickly? So contrived.
Without the scenes from Bel and Vinder's journey this would be an easy 10/10 classic but those scenes and especially the mid-credits scene very sadly drops it to a 9.5/10 for me.
I don't require perfection for a 10, nothing is perfect, but I expect extremely high quality that can stand alongside other great TV. This nearly achieved that but I feel like Chibnall's insistence on pushing his poorly devised, poorly written story arc into the episode just takes the shine off a bit.
Still, overall this is a cracking episode. I only mention the negative to explain my frustration and why it is 9.5 not 10/10. But I really want to focus on the positives because amidst a divisive era which was often let down by things a lot of us didn't like, this episode was superb quality. It would grace any season of the show.
My Rating: 9.5/10.
Series 13 Episode Ranking: 1st out of 6.