***The following review and contains spoilers for 13.04 as well as the "next time" trailer for 13.05, so please watching them before reading.***I was impressed with tonight’s episode of
Doctor Who, titled “Village of the Angels.” Weeping Angels are one of my favorite villains/creatures of the series, but I was afraid that the episode would be ruined by having everything else jammed in it like last week. I was happy to be wrong.
Unlike the first three episodes, especially last week’s, the story was much more linear (as linear as it can be in a time travel show). There was one main story thread that was split by the characters being split up, and then there was the side story with Bel (Thaddea Graham). Whereas I would have preferred the action not stop to make room for Bel and Vinder (Jacob Anderson), it didn’t feel squashed in like last time. The episode was much more cohesive as a whole, and aside from Azure (Rochenda Sandall), there weren’t other alien creatures, and it didn’t feel like random things were happening.
The main storyline with the Angels and our characters trying to escape felt like a classic (new series) episode. I loved how they brought in the idea of an image of an Angel being an Angel, because we’ve seen that before, and they took the idea to the extreme as Claire (Annabel Scholey) was seen transforming partially in moments. I also think the writers did a really good job of explaining what Angels were to any potential new viewers, and it gave everyone else a quick reminder of the basics, without making the episode feel like there was too much exposition.