raven | Doctor Who

Oh god. Oh, god. Oh god, you guys, I live in Oxford. I live in Oxford.

Yes. One thing I am very grateful for is that I arrived home from London two hours early and so, rather than downloading this and watching it on my own - erk - I sprinted up to Magdalen, gathering

foulds and

jacinthsong on the way, and pretty soon we found ourselves in the TV room, being treated to a feast of vodka, Malibu and TARDIS cake (with added Doctor). "What's the occasion?" I asked, and everyone chorused, "Doctor Who!", as if it was obvious, which, I suppose it was. There was a brief altercation about who got to eat which bits of the Doctor. I got his Chucks, and Laura slowly, happily savoured the fact she was eating David Tennant's crotch.

Blink. Oh, that was beautiful. I was spoilered from the very beginning, because there's a story in last year's Doctor Who Annual that I read over the counter at the bookshop, and that's about a small girl called Sally Sparrow who finds messages from the Doctor behind her wallpaper. But it was great to actually see it - "love, the Doctor" - and besides, after that the episode took a sharp right from the short story, so it was only brief.

Stuff I liked:

-The cinematography. Which is the wrong word, I suppose, but I can't think of any other way to describe it; it's so beautifully shot, in every single scene. The foliage and the dim, rosy light; the ivy; the initial shots of the statues in the garden - they're all beautiful.

-The surreal brief encounter between Sally and Lawrence - heeee. He's naked and the Doctor is unexplainedly in the background! Heeeeee.

-Awww, Kathy and Sally so in love. They're adorable. But that first scene made me wonder if the angels were just a plant; they weren't the point of the story, or they were just ordinary aliens in disguise or something. Which is not a bad thing, because I enjoy being wrong. An interesting point about the angels in this scene - when Kathy's not looking, you do see one of them move. So the camera is not an observer, apparently; which seems sensible, as no one character is the POV of this episode.

-I had much love for Sally's line by the gravestone - "You told him you were eighteen, you lying cow!" - but I also wondered if the plot was going to run out of steam with Sally having received the letter. But I changed my mind when it seems as though the Doctor's talking to her in the back of the shop. (And, based on later events, that is just a coincidence!)

-The guy whose only line is to wonder why no one ever goes to the police - LOVE.

-Billy Shipton, "Because life is short and you are hot." I have so much love for that entire scene, and there were a few gasps of fear when the angels are all gathered around, and a general sense that this was going to end badly.

-Which it does, but... not as badly as you would think. There is no violence in this episode, I've just noticed. No blood, no violent death. Just the fear, and it's beautifully done. I like this brief scene of the Doctor and Martha in 1969, though; the only piece of "standard" Who in the whole thing, and it really does gel with the rest of it.

-"I have until the rain stops." Oh, perfect. Perfect dialogue, perfect image of the light through the water crossing the opposite wall, oh, perfect.

-Billy married a girl called Sally. At which point I jumped up and down and said, "It's her, it's her!", to complete bafflement from most. But I am right, aren't I? Billy marries Kathy's Sally, her youngest daughter named after Sally Sparrow.

-The scene with the DVD, the transcript, the... portable DVD player? (Why didn't they just use a laptop? It wouldn't have needed plugging in.) Anyway, I love it. The delightful comments about the people on teh intarwebs.... awww. "The angels have the phonebox!" (I want that t-shirt so badly I can't tell you.) Love. Love the way they work out how the Doctor has the transcript in the future, love the "timey-wimey.... ball" thing, just love.

But the bit that comes after, the revelation of what the angels are, what they can do, don't blink, don't blink, and the angel has its mouth open...

Well. I watch Doctor Who with about ten people, usually. They are undergraduates at Oxford, their average age is about twenty. And we screamed. Oh, my god, I don't think I've ever screamed at television before, nor have I ever been part of a giant collective scream like that.

-And the rest of the scene, I can't really remember because I was screaming. Intermittently, yes, and in occasional chorus, but oh god, the terror. So much terror.

-The lightbulb! The lightbulb! Oh, god. At that point I think we were all getting collectively hysterical.

-The TARDIS dematerialises around Lawrence and Sally, leaving the angels in a circle around them, looking at each other, but as several people pointed out there, surely when the light goes out, they can move again. But as was also pointed out, that doesn't matter, because basically, the Doctor wants his TARDIS back and for them to have enough time to get away. He's not trying to get them stuck there forever.

-"Sparrow and Nightingale." Awwwwww. Poor, poor Kathy.

-The Doctor! And Martha! And a quiver of arrows and a lizard! Oh, I love Doctor Who, and this bit here is how Love and Monsters ought to have been, but wasn't.

And then the lovely, resonant hand-holding ending. That was just... perfection. Just perfect. And we all sat there and finished off the TARDIS cake - my tongue is blue, now - and shrieked at each other and how good it was, and people sat very still with their hands over their eyes and made other people scream, and it was good.

And then. And then. And then, and then,

foreverdirt opened the shutters, letting light into the room all at once, and we're, we were above Magdalen Cloisters and right outside the window there was... well.

Cue a mass-hysterical scream of fear and jerk away from the window, because, aaaaargh. And we all walked home with our eyes on the tops of the buildings, because, as I said, we only live in the statue-and-gargoyle capital of the Western Hemisphere.

And the Balliol ones... are weeping.

Thank you, Steven Moffatt. I shall never sleep again.

Edited to add: The Doctor mentioned his own wedding! Oh, there needs to be fic. Doctor/Susan's granny for the win.

Current Mood: scared
Current Location: THE GARGOYLE CAPITAL OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
Current Music: Keane; Fields of Gold