The individual volume releases of Doctor Who continue with Series 5, Volume 2, which features Episodes 3-6 of Matt Smiths surprisingly good reign as the Timelord. He may be more quick to anger and snappy than David Tennants Doctor, but hes an awful lot of fun. The disc kicks off with a double parter, The Time Of Angels and Flesh and Stone, which many will be pleased to hear sees the return of the Weeping Angels.
These villains first appeared in the Series 3 episode Blink (which incidentally also starred a pre-fame Carey Mulligan), and are basically stone statues of angels. Well, thats what they are when you look at them, except in reality theyre evil creatures intent on destruction, but turn to stone if someone if watching them (i.e. they can only move if theyre unseen). In this double parter, The Doctor and Amy reteam with the mysterious River Song (Alex Kingston), whos on a mission to an alien planet to destroy the last of the angels.
However, what seems like its going to be an easy mission gets much more difficult when they realise that rather than just a few to deal with, theres an army of them are rather than decaying, theyre getting stronger. Things get worse by the second episode of the two-parter, where Amy is mysteriously counting down from 10 to 1, but what will happen when she ends her countdown, and what does it all have to do with a rip in space and time thats exactly the same as the one the Doctor found in Amys bedroom when he first met her?
The third episode on the disc, The Vampires Of Venice is separate to the others, and features The Doctor discovering Amy actually ran off with him the night before her wedding, so he decides to go and pick up fiancé Rory and take him and Amy to 16th Century Venice for a romantic getaway. However The Doctor is incapable of going anywhere without something evil turning up, which reveals itself when he comes to think a ruling Venetian family are actually vampires, and may be something even worse thats intent on taking over the world.
While The Vampires Of Venice is a decent but slightly stopgap episode, the two-parter is great fun. The Weeping Angels have been voted the scariest Doctor Who villains in several polls, so its little surprise that with their creator, writer Stephen Moffat, taking over creative control of the show this season, he wanted to bring them back. Although not quite up to par with Blink, which benefitted not just from the unusual villains but also a clever and frenetic structure, theyre still pretty creepy and its a lot of fun. That said, there are a couple of things that stretch credibility even for Doctor Who, but thankfully the episodes resist the urge to explain the angels too much, which leaves them as rather weird and creepy.
As always with these volume-by-volume releases, you dont get much in the way of special features (most of those are held back for the full series release later this year), but the disc does include a Monster Files featurette, which takes a brief look at the return of the Angels. As well as seeing Moffat talking about their genesis and how he wanted to bring them back, perhaps most interesting is the complexities of actually filming them. That involves an array of specially made statues in various poses, as well as women in suits, who have to spend hours in makeup, with a mask eventually glued onto their face. Its well worth a look, so while there isnt much in the way of features, at least the little we get is good.
Overall Verdict: The new Doctor continues his journey with a good two-parter that sees a welcome return for the Weeping Angels, as well as a decent standalone vampiric episode.
Special Features:
Monster Files Featurette
Reviewer: Tim Isaac