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{{quote| ''What if we had ideas that could think for themselves? What if, one day, our dreams no longer needed us? When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us: [[Title Drop|the time of Angels]].''}}
 
In the 51st Century, [[Timey-Wimey Ball|Not-Yet-Professor]] [[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S4 E8 Silence in The Library|River Song]] carves a message in Old High Gallifreyan onto the "home box" (like a black box) of a starliner, the ''Byzantium''. 12,000 years later, the Doctor and Amy come across the message while the Doctor’s [[Troll|trolling]] a museum, "keeping score" by laughing at all the mistakes on the plaques and noting the bits he’s been involved in. It says [[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S4 E8 Silence in The Library|"Hello, sweetie"]]. (Although Amy can't read the ancient Gallifreyan it's written in, which will be important later.) They run off with it, and after watching [[Timey-Wimey Ball|what's happening to River at this exact moment 12,000 years ago]], they travel back just in time to catch River as she [[Thrown Out the Airlock|ejects herself from the starliner via the airlock]]. She offers a warning that there’s something in the hold that will make sure the ship never reaches its destination.
 
Much to Amy’s curiosity and the Doctor’s resentment, River takes control of the TARDIS. She learned how to pilot it from the best pilot there is. The Doctor was sick that day. The team follows the Byzantium to where it has landed -- or, more accurately, crashed. Specifically, on top of an ancient, abandoned temple built on Alfava Metraxis. Not long after they’ve arrived, River is joined by a team of ‘Clerics’, a [[Church Militant|military off-shoot of the Church]] led by a 'bishop', Father Octavian, who are hunting the creature that caused the ship to crash -- [[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S3 E10 Blink|a Weeping Angel]]. River has promised the Doctor’s help in catching it, as it appears to have escaped into [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|'The Maze Of The Dead’]], the catacombs underneath the temple. Also, Amy quickly figures out that River has just ''got'' to be the Doctor's wife. The Doctor honestly doesn't know, and River delights in keeping the answer a secret.
 
As the clerics work on breaking into the temple, the Doctor and friends work on decoding the mystery of the Angels with a four-second clip of the Angel in the Byzantium and an old Alfava text -- which, ominously, does not include any images of them. The Doctor and River eventually realize that the text is trying to tell them that any image of the Angels essentially ''becomes'' an Angel, and is imbued with the qualities that make them so dangerous -- something that Amy is well ahead of them in discovering, having become trapped in the room with the recording of the Angel, which is gradually coming out of the screen towards her. Amy manages to defeat it by stopping the looped recording at the exact point where the image of the Angel is not on-screen, but not before she looks into the Angel’s eyes despite the Doctor’s instructions.<ref>To be fair, she'd been looking into its eyes way before the Doctor realized that she shouldn't.</ref> As the clerics manage to access the temple, Amy complains of something in her eye...
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Bang. The Doctor shoots the gravity globe. Cut to credits.
 
To be continued in "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S31 E05 Flesh and Stone|Flesh and Stone]]".
 
----
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* [[Colonel Badass|Colonel ]][[Badass Preacher|Bishop Badass:]] Bishop Octavian, natch!
* [[Commercial Pop-Up]]: Those fans watching on [[BBC 1]] in many regions were [[Sarcasm Mode|uniformly delighted]] to be presented with [[Mood Whiplash|a brightly-coloured animated banner complete with a caricature of Graham Norton]] for yet another talent show. ''During the cliffhanger.'' They might as well "[[Charlie Brooker|just wipe s*** all over the screen during the final scene of Dr. Who next week]]".
** It's the second time Graham Norton has turned up in ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' when he's not wanted, the first time being some wire mix-up leaking sound from BBC3 during "[[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S1 E1 Rose|Rose]]".
** [[The BBC]] [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8643684.stm reported] the incident (which attracted ''thousands'' of complaints) as "Doctor Who fans want Graham Norton Ex-ter-min-ate-d!"
** Norton [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnpZS_54uoA later engaged] in some [[Self-Deprecation]] for the incident.
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'''Matt''': ''Absolutely'' I’m going to bite her arm! Yeah, for sure! }}
* [[Everybody Lives]]: Subverted; this is an episode where you don't expect someone to die on screen (the Angels just send you back in time, not kill you), especially as it's a Steven Moffat episode. Explicit body count? Seven: Alistair and the three known ''Byzantium'' crew in the crash; and Bob, Angelo, and Christian, of a quick snap of the neck. And that's to say nothing of the people who were retroactively erased from existence.
** The neck-snaps are horrifying in their own way: obviously, you'd never be able to ''show'' something like that in ''Doctor Who'''s time-slot, but you get a fleeting shot of a Weeping Angel that [[Gory Discretion Shot|cuts to black]] [[Sound -Only Death|and a snapping noise]]
* [[Everything's Better With Bob]]: ''Sacred'' Bob, no less.
* [[Failed a Spot Check]]: The doctor and River fail to notice the discrepancies between the statues the Aplans supposedly left and the physical attributes of the Aplans until it's just a bit too late.
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{{quote| '''Doctor:''' I mean what's all that about? But then that's the church for you! ... No offence ... bishop.<br />
'''Bishop:''' Quite a lot taken if that's alright, Doctor. }}
* [[Follow That Car!|Follow That Ship]]!
* [[Foreshadowing]]: Sacred Bob shoots a statue that he claims turned and looked at him. He's promptly told off for panicking and shooting at the decor. {{spoiler|Of course we later find out that all these statues ''are'' Angels.}}
** In the beginning of the episode, the Doctor makes an off-hand remark about the museum being the final resting place of the [[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S32 E7 A Good Man Goes to War|Headless Monks]].
* [[Freeze Frame Bonus]]: When the Doctor's keying in the coordinates, you can see that there's a red {{smallcaps| panic}} button on his keyboard.
** If you look closer, there's a green one just below it that says {{smallcaps| smith}}.
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** Ever wonder how the Tenth Doctor, with all his knowledge about the Angels, and Martha, got caught by them in "Blink"? {{spoiler|Sally Sparrow gave them the image of an Angel.}}
** The Aplans {{spoiler|have two heads}}. This makes them ''ideal'' for facing Weeping Angels - {{spoiler|each head can take turns blinking}}.
* [[Have We Met Yet?]]: River has a spotter's guide and a diary just to find out where she is in the Doctor's timeline. She's actually surprised, however, to learn she'll be a Professor one day.
** The last time we saw River, she asked the Doctor if they'd done the crash of the Byzantium yet.
* [[I Lied]]: River gives Amy an immune booster, promising that it "won't hurt a bit". She follows Amy's complaint with this, word for word.
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* [[It Can Think]]: In "Blink", the Angels are predators that sneak up when you're not looking and leave you stranded elsewhere in time. Here, they work together to lay traps, {{spoiler|break necks and steal voices as bait}}. [[It Got Worse|Gets worse in the second part]].
* [[It Won't Turn Off]]: This happens to the video recording of the Weeping Angel.
* ''(spoiler for the following season)'' {{spoiler|[[Like Father, Like Son|Like Mother, Like Daughter]]: River and Amy both say the Doctor goes to museums in order "to keep score." It's not revealed for another whole season that River is Amy's daughter.}}
* [[Make It Look Like an Accident]]: When River is caught snooping about at the beginning: "Wait until she starts running. Don't make it look like an execution."
* [[Meanwhile in The Future]]: The opening sequence.
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* [[New Powers As the Plot Demands]]: In "Blink", the Angels' MO and abilities were fairly straightforward. In this outing they get a whole raft of new powers that were never mentioned before. Possibly excused by [[Rule of Scary]], though.
** Although it's [[Handwaved]] that the Angels in "Blink" were starving and possibly dying, hence their reduced abilities.
* [[Noodle Incident]]: It's implied that the Doctor and River have met a few more times between "[[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S4 E9 Forest of the Dead|Forest of the Dead]]" and this episode.
* [[Odd Name Out]]: Octavian, Christian, Angelo, and Bob. Sacred, Scared, {{spoiler|Angelic}} Bob.
* [[Oh Crap]]: "Just something in my eye..."
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* [[Screw Yourself]]: This was apparently a problem with the two-headed Aplan race, which commonly made out with themselves and even self-married before the Church stepped in.
* [[Schmuck Bait]]: "Come and see this!"<ref>[[File:The_Time_of_Angels_8637.jpg|frame]] Whoops</ref>
* [[Shout -Out]]: Let's see, there's [[Star Trek (Franchise)|warp drives, a Galaxy Class starship]], {{spoiler|[[The Ring|Angels coming out of TV screens]], and [[Predator|Angels using the voices of their victims to lure in more victims]].}}
** And [[A Space Odyssey|River throws herself out of the Byzantium to get into the Tardis]].
** Also a [[Church Militant]] group in a sci-fi setting? Using dropships? With names like Octavian? Exterminating an amoral alien menace to humanity with extreme prejudice? After all it's the Fifty-First Century and the church has moved on. [[Warhammer 40000|In the Fifty-First Century there is only war.]]
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* [[Thrown Out the Airlock]]: River airlocks herself to escape the ''Byzantium''... right into the TARDIS.
* [[The Virus]]: {{spoiler|That which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel. Including humans, if they look an Angel in the eye.}}
* [[Wham! Line]]: {{spoiler|"I didn't escape, sir. The angel killed me too."}}
** {{spoiler|"[The Aplans have two heads] ''So why don't the statues?''"}}
** {{spoiler|''That which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel''}}
* [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?]]: invoked with the Church members, who take their own names and naturally have names like Angelo and Christian. [[Odd Name Out|And Bob]].
** '''Sacred''' Bob, mind you!
* [[WomaninWoman in Black]]: River.
* [[The X of Y]]
* [[Your Mind Makes It Real]]: Amy believes her hand is stone, thus it is stone. The Doctor therefore bites her hand to make her aware of it.
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