 This is the final story of the first half of Season Thirty Three (New Series 7) - before the 2012 Christmas Special - and is the final story that features Amy Pond (played by Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (played by Arthur Darvill) both of whom have been the main travelling companions, since the 2010 story "The Eleventh Hour".
This story was written by head writer Steven Moffat and directed by Nick Hurran whose previous credits include "The Girl Who Waited", "The God Complex" and "Asylum of the Daleks".
It was announced in December 2011, by Steven Moffat, that Amy and Rory would leave mid-way during Season Thirty Three (New Series 7) due to heartbreaking circumstances. Amy's exit was a mutual decision between Steven Moffat and actress Karen Gillan - who has revealed that she wanted her character to have a final ending, and ruled out returning to the show in the future as she felt it would take away from the impact of her final scene.
Head writer Steven Moffat has stated that he felt tremendous pressure writing Amy and Rory's ending. He later revealed that he completely changed the ending as he was writing it, feeling the emphasis was wrong. It has also been reported that Karen Gillan refused to read the script for a few weeks after she received it because she didn't want to make it real. She also later revealed in an interview, I literally couldn't read it without crying. It was the most highly-charged read-through I've ever experienced. But I couldn't have asked for a better exit. I don't think it'll be what people expect.
This may have been the last story for Amy and Rory but the final story Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill recorded was actually the previous story, "The Power of Three".
This story also stars Alex Kingston as River Song - The Doctor's wife, occasional companion, and daughter of Amy and Rory - and the return of the Weeping Angels who were first seen in the 2007 Tenth Doctor story "Blink", which was also written by head writer Steven Moffat.
This is the first story to feature River Song that is not a two-parter or is at least following a cameo appearance by River Song in a previous story.
This story takes place in New York, in the United States of America, and parts of it were actually filmed in Central Park in New York City in April 2012. Other scenes were shot at night in the city.
This marks the second time Doctor Who has filmed principal photography in the United States of America, the first being the 2011 story "The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon".
Steven Moffat was in New York when he came up with the story, and thought it was appropriate for a Weeping Angels story. He has described the city as a different backdrop to shoot a Doctor Who story in, and made use of its architecture. Fellow executive producer Caroline Skinner felt that the location has such scale and romance which gave it a real atmosphere and a very different tone for Doctor Who.
The week spent filming in the city was done by a small unit by American standards according to producer Marcus Wilson. They did not take any props of Weeping Angels or the TARDIS, which were instead added in post-production.
Other filming locations included University of Bristol, Cardiff University and a cemetery in Llanelli. The New York skyline was added into the cemetery also in post-production.
Amy Pond is heard calling The Doctor Raggedy man (see "The Eleventh Hour", "The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang" and "The Girl Who Waited").
While on the roof contemplating suicide, Rory makes a reference to his history of having died multiple times and coming back to life each time (see "Amy's Choice", "The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood", "The Curse of the Black Spot" and "The Doctor's Wife").
River Song is heard telling Rory that the TARDIS Translation Circuit sticks around when he sees writing on ancient Chinese vases being translated.
The year The Doctor visits in ancient China, to have a message placed on a vase to alert River Song, is 221 BC. This coded message is the exclamation Yowzah, as River Song had done with him on Planet One, in "The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang", and through the black box of the Byzantium in "The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone".
The title of the book River Song writes is "The Angel's Kiss". An e-book version of the novel was released on the 4th October 2012.
River Song is heard to say that she was pardoned from prison because the man she killed never existed. (see "The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon" and "The Wedding of River Song"). Oswin erased The Doctor from the Daleks' memories in "Asylum of the Daleks". However, it is unclear how exactly The Doctor was erased from other networks and memories. The conversation between River Song and The Doctor (and the fact that Solomon couldn't find information about The Doctor in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship") implies The Doctor is responsible for the other erasures, as he was getting too big. River Song states it in a coy tacit way of telling The Doctor she knows what he has been doing.
It is revealed that River Song is now a professor (see the 2008 Tenth Doctor story "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead").
The Doctor used some of his regenerative energy to repair River Song's hand. He did something similar before when recharging the last power source in the TARDIS after it travelled to a parallel world in the 2006 Tenth Doctor story "Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel".
In response to The Doctor healing her hand, River Song exclaims You embarrass me! much like The Doctor did in the story "The Wedding of River Song".
When River Song asks The Doctor whether the bulb on top of the TARDIS needs changing, he says that he has just changed it. Flickering light bulbs have been a common motif throughout the current series, as well as a tactic used by the Weeping Angels in their previous appearances.
River Song is heard telling Amy that The Doctor doesn't like to see his companions age. The Doctor once indicated the same in the 2006 Tenth Doctor story "School Reunion".
As well as the standard looking Weeping Angels, Steven Moffat was interested in coming up with a new form for them and so he introduced the cherubim. The Statue of Liberty is also revealed to be possessed by a Weeping Angel.
This is Amy's fourth encounter with the Weeping Angels and her fifth story with them. She previously met them in "The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone", the special script-to-screen mini-story "Good as Gold" (that was broadcast as part of Blue Peter on the 24th May 2012) and in the BBC Books Eleventh Doctor stories "Touched by an Angel" and "Magic of the Angels".
While in this story a paradox leads to the Weeping Angels' destruction, in the BBC Books Eleventh Doctor story "Touched by an Angel", the Weeping Angels try to purposely create a paradox to feed on its energy.
Rory uses Brightwell & Hyman matches to defend himself from the cherubic Weeping Angels.
When trying to materialise in 1938, the TARDIS makes the same malfunctioning sound it made in the 1970 Third Doctor story "Spearhead from Space", the 2010 Eleventh Doctor story "The Eleventh Hour" and The Sarah Jane Adventures story "The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith".
When The Doctor is seen adjusting his hair before exiting the TARDIS, a plaque references that TARDIS was manufactured by Rolls Royce.
The Doctor uses the extractor fans once more (see "Let's Kill Hitler").
It is revealed that if someone learns of their personal future by reading about it, this future event becomes a fixed point in time and therefore cannot be changed.
Due to the paradox created by Amy and Rory, The Doctor cannot travel back in time to visit them without destroying New York City.
The afterword Amy wrote in Melody Malone's book was a message for The Doctor, which made reference to various adventures The Doctor and Amy have had together: saving a whale in space ("The Beast Below"), fighting pirates ("The Curse of the Black Spot"), inspiring a great artist ("Vincent and The Doctor"), and falling in love with a man who would wait two thousand years for her. ("The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang").
The final scene has The Doctor returning to meet a young Amelia Pond the morning after he left her waiting in the garden in "The Eleventh Hour" to tell her about the adventures they will have together. The older Amy was dreaming about that morning when The Doctor came back to pick her up the night before her wedding at the end of "The Eleventh Hour". Steven Moffat said of the scene, After showing Amelia Pond in the garden as a young girl in "The Eleventh Hour", Karen's first episode, the final shot in Saturday's "The Angels Take Manhattan" is a punch line I have been waiting to tell for two and a half years.
This story contains a number of errors. Namely: As The Doctor examines River Song's broken wrist, she says it is pretty bad, too. In this shot, The Doctor has his mouth open as if showing the pain of seeing her hand. But in the next shot, his mouth is closed; The Winter Quay is located near Battery Park on the south side of Manhattan, however several shots from the roof show the Chrysler Building nearby in the background, a building located miles north and is not visible from Battery Park; The map that The Doctor uses to locate Rory, in 1938, shows both the Battery Park, as well as the Battery Tunnel. These were not in existence in 1938; Just after Amy and Rory jump off of the roof, and The Doctor is looking down at them, River Song is in the background standing normally looking at The Doctor. In the very next shot she is leaning on the ledge, looking down at Amy and Rory; the credits include Photoshoot PA but this character does not appear in this story, but instead in "Asylum of the Daleks" where there was no credit.
As with the previous stories of this season this story includes a unique logo in the title sequence. This time it resembles the Statue of Liberty in colour and pattern. The production team have confirmed that the title sequence for every story in this season will have slightly different stylized versions of the Doctor Who logo. For this story the vortex also had a change of colour this time to blue and grey.
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The Firsts:
The first story to feature River Song that is not a two-parter or is at least following a cameo appearance by River Song in a previous story.
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(Position = 1 out of 5)
(Position = 67 out of 241)
