*Cliffhanger spoilers for “Once, Upon Time.”*
In the first half of series 13, the Weeping Angel stuff has felt a bit like the odd plot out, random and creepy but not particularly tied to the larger story of the Flux and Swarm/Azure. This episode brings the Angels to the forefront, and it’s interesting to see how it connects to the rest of the season.
Last week, an Angel hijacked the TARDIS—the Angel literally has the phone box! This week, the Doctor, Yaz, and Dan land in a Devon village in 1967, where everything has taken a turn for the unnerving. A little girl has gone missing, there’s an extra statue in the graveyard, and a professor is studying the psyche of a young woman with irreconcilable knowledge. Elsewhere in the universe, Bel’s search is interrupted when she discovers that a post-Flux safehaven is not everything it seems.
I doubt Who will ever recapture the freakout factor of “Blink” when it comes to the Weeping Angels, but this is a pretty good story for them. It incorporates some of the additional lore they’ve accumulated over their appearances in ways that feel relatively organic, while of course also hearkening back to the old standbys. Plus, we get some new tidbits about them that tie them into the wider season arc, so this is ultimately less of a tangential episode than I was expecting. (Which, I suppose, makes sense—given their unique relationship to time, it stands to reason that the current universal goings-on would be relevant to them, much like their interest in the Crack back in “Flesh and Stone.”)
All of our heroes make a good showing here. This is the first chance Dan has had to feel like a “proper” companion, and he acquits himself well. Like Yaz, the Weeping Angels are new to him, but he catches on quickly, keeping his head as he follows the rules to stay alive. Meanwhile, Yaz’s police experience really comes out in this episode. Naturally, she’s on top of the Angels and the creepiness they’re unleashing on the village, but she’s also focused on the very human issue of the missing girl amid this sci-fi adventure, and she brings practical knowhow and professionalism to trying to rescue young Peggy.
The Doctor remains both a delight and a boss. This episode closes the loop on Claire, which was opened back in the season premiere, and the Doctor responds thoughtfully to this mystery as she juggles the questions of the suspicious professor and the obvious immediate danger everyone is in. Between cobbling together inventions on the fly, probing into the greater mystery, and being her frank, quick-witted self, this is kind of peak Thirteen. I absolutely adore this exchange between her and the professor, who demands to know how she got into his house: “Your door was open.” “It most certainly was not!” “Well, it was when I opened it, but let’s not get bogged down in the order of things.”
There are certain implications of this plot that I’m going to save for my end-of-the-season spoilery posts, but for now, my main complaint is that we again see the Doctor separated from her companions. Yaz and Dan are together this time, at least, so they’re not all dropped into completely-separate plots like they have been the last two episodes, but what’s up with the resistance to actually showing the Doctor with her companions? Dan has now been in several trips in the TARDIS with her, but he has yet to have a full, regular adventure with her, since they’re constantly being pulled apart. And after “The Halloween Apocalypse,” we’ve had regrettably little of Yaz and the Doctor together. It’s like Chris Chibnall is actively resisting cultivating Doctor-companion relationships at this point, and I don’t get it.
On a final note, I’ll say that Bel continues to be awesome. She and Vinder are definitely my favorites for the new characters who’ve been introduced throughout this arc. She’s tough and smart and badass, but there’s something wistful and poetic about her too. I love her voiceover, “Oh, my universe. Look what you’ve been through.” It’s such a compassionate, Doctory line that gives me a wonderful window into her. I’m not expecting to see more of her on the show after this storyline is over, but I’m savoring every scene I have with her.
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