History Recap / DoctorWhoS33E5TheAngelsTakeManhattan

* WriteBackToTheFuture: The detective novel the Doctor is reading turns out to have been written by Amy in the past. She included an afterword to assure the Doctor that she and Rory lived long and happy.

* FinalDeath: Despite dying ''three times'' in this episode alone and multiple times beforehand, his last one sticks and he and Amy are both gone for good.

* FinalDeath: Despite dying ''three times'' in this episode alone and multiple times beforehand, his last one sticks and he (and Amy) are gone for good.

* FinalDeath: Despite dying ''three times'' in this episode alone and multiple times before, his last one sticks and he (and Amy) are gone for good.

And the Statue of Liberty is a Weeping Angel. And so is a statue in Central Park. And we learn Weeping Angels tykes are just as nasty as the grown-ups.

* AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever: The Statue of Liberty Weeping Angel. Oddly, since the Angels use stealth as their greatest strength, it isn't as threatening compared to the other Angels and is just background. It's also portrayed a lot smaller than the real thing.
-->'''Rory:''' I always wanted to see the UsefulNotes/StatueOfLiberty. I guess she got impatient.

** This week's logo is textured like the UsefulNotes/StatueOfLiberty.

** The Statue of Liberty being an Angel may be a reference to an AprilFoolsDay gag pulled by Wiki/SCPFoundation, where established SCP-[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-173 173]], another murderous statue that can only move when not observed, was changed into the Statue of Liberty.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: The ''Statue of Liberty'' becomes an Weeping Angel and no, ''no one'' in New York seems to notice this ''at all''. Maybe it's just a ''[[CityOfWeirdos normal]]'' [[ButForMeItWasTuesday Tuesday]]!

* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: The P.I. from the cold opening when he sees the Statue of Liberty Weeping Angel.

The one where The Ponds [[KilledOffForReal meet their maker for good.]]

** The episode ends with young Amelia still waiting in her garden for the Doctor after he disappeared near the beginning of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour "The Eleventh Hour"]].

** Amy now has the reading glasses her optician left a message about in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E4ThePowerOfThree "The Power of Three"]].

* HellHotel: Instead of their hit-and-run tactics from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink "Blink"]], the Angels have converted an apartment building into what the Doctor describes as a "battery farm".

** The mobster/collector's last name is [[Film/FarewellMyLovely Grayle]]. It might double as a MythologyGag, as the villain in the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio adventure [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho030SeasonsOfFear "Seasons of Fear"]] was also named Grayle.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E7AmysChoice Amy once again chooses]] not to live in a world without Rory.

The one where Rory jumps off a building.

--->'''Amy:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E13TheBigBang Time can be rewritten]].\\
'''The Doctor:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E8FathersDay Not once you've read it]].

--->'''The Doctor:''' [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Once you read it]], [[FridgeBrilliance it's written in stone.]]

** The newspaper being read by Amy at the beginning says "Detroit Lions win Super Bowl". For those confused Brits who didn't get this rare America-centric reference, it's a funny reference to a semi-perpetually bad NFL team that has never even ''been'' to a Super Bowl, much less won one. ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Detroit_Lions_season In 2008, the Lions got the dubious distinction of the first-ever NFL no-win season]].) It's meant to underscore the fact the episode takes place a number of years after 2012 (possibly as late as 2020, though an exact year is never given).

* PoorCommunicationKills: At first, it seems like Rory's disappearance is due to GenreBlindness. Unfortunately, he's just never faced the Angels before, unlike his wife, daughter or son-in-law ....

** The mobster/collector's last name is [[Film/FarewellMyLovely Grayle]].It might double as a MythologyGag, as the villain in the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio adventure [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho030SeasonsOfFear "Seasons of Fear"]] was also named Grayle.

* AssholeVictim: Grayle chains an Angel and cuts up its face just to see if it can feel pain . . . causing its screams to attract the other Angels, who stalk him in revenge. He also has Rory dumped in the dark basement with a number of Angels and only a box of matches to keep them at bay, seemingly just for the evulz. And also turns off the light so the chained Angel can grab River's wrist.

--->'''The Doctor:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E3VictoryOfTheDaleks Come along, Pond]] . . . ''please.''\\
'''Amy:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour . . . Raggedy Man]] . . . goodbye.

* LifeWillKillYou: The Doctor cannot prevent Amy and Rory's death in the end . . . because they lived out their lives in a past that the Doctor could not reach. It was something the Doctor was always going to have to face; the anguish comes from having to face it much sooner than he had wanted.

** River's wrist is trapped in a Weeping Angel's hand. The Doctor is about to break her wrist to get her free, because it was written in the book when Amy skipped ahead, then changes his mind and tells her to get free without breaking any bones. Cut to a bit later, it seems like she's managed just that . . . and then the Doctor grabs her hand to run off and she cries out in pain.

* PoorCommunicationKills: At first, it seems like Rory's disappearance is due to GenreBlindness. Unfortunately, he's just never faced the Angels before, unlike his wife, daughter or son-in-law . . .

* TimeyWimeyBall: The reasons for the Doctor not being able to go back in time to rescue the Ponds is . . . convoluted.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory visit modern-day New York. The Doctor has found a nice trashy detective novel about one "Melody Malone" in his jacket pocket, and Amy teases him about how he's obviously started to fancy the lead FemmeFatale. The Doctor rips out the last page, claiming that he hates endings. While they banter, Rory goes to get coffee and, in the grand tradition of ''Series/DoctorWho'' companions wandering off, gets himself into trouble almost immediately. He encounters a Weeping Angel and is zapped back to FilmNoir-era New York, where he runs into Professor River Song, who's investigating the angels while posing as a private detective.

The Doctor starts to properly panic when his novel suddenly starts describing exactly that. He puts two and two together and realises that Melody Malone is Melody Pond, and that Rory's in a whole lot of trouble. By the time he and Amy have managed to land the TARDIS near River (after an initial failure caused by heavy time distortions in that space-time region), Amy has already read ahead just a bit too far in the book, and there are far too many mentions of deaths, and endings, and goodbyes. The Doctor tells her to stop reading, but they do need to comply with what's already been read. River, who hasn't even ''written'' the book yet, finds herself forced to break her own wrist.

She and the Doctor engage in SlapSlapKiss for a while, and both try very hard to be what they think the other wants them to be. River tries to hide her broken wrist so as not to scare him and remind him that his loved ones can break, the Doctor gets extremely sad that she lied to him and uses some regeneration energy to heal her wrist, and she slaps him hard in the face for his senseless waste of regeneration energy[[hottip:spoiler:Which it turns out wasn't actually senseless because he's already on his last regeneration]] and tells him it's so, so hard to love an ageless god with the face of a twelve-year-old who can't cope with the idea of change. It's also revealed that River was eventually pardoned from Stormcage when the man she killed turned out to have never existed -- the Doctor has been systematically removing himself from every database in the universe.

Meanwhile, Rory has been zapped around again by a nest of Weeping Angels, but this time just spatially. The rest of the group catches up with him, and they find the Angels' harvesting grounds: a building where people who are sent back in time are forced to live out the rest of their lives, to be fed on by the Angels forever. Rory arrives just in time to watch his withered old self die, saying goodbye to a heartbroken Amy one final time. Really, properly scared, he escapes to the roof, where the Statue of freaking Liberty is waiting to feed on him. Rory decides to kill himself to create a paradox, poisoning the Angels' temporal energy and preventing his future death from happening in the first place. (He also reasons that he may even survive -- he usually does.) After a very emotional exchange, Rory and Amy jump off the building's roof, clinging to each other. With that, the harvesting grounds never existed, the Statue of Liberty never moved about New York and Rory never died of old age in that small room.

River knows she must visit her parents with her vortex manipulator one last time to complete the StableTimeLoop, and sets about writing her novel to get Amy to publish it. River then tells the Doctor that she'll tell Amy to write an afterword for the Doctor, and the Doctor [[ChekhovsGun remembers about the last page of the novel he ripped apart right at the start of the episode]]. He then proceeds to race back to the park and reads the page that contains Amy's last words:

* AssholeVictim: Grayle chains an Angel and cuts up its face just to see if it can feel pain... causing its screams to attract the other Angels, who stalk him in revenge. He also has Rory dumped in the dark basement with a number of Angels and only a box of matches to keep them at bay, seemingly just for the evulz. And also turns off the light so the chained Angel can grab River's wrist.

* BittersweetEnding: In the end, Amy and Rory are sent to the past with the Doctor being utterly powerless to go back for them. However, they still get to live out a full and happy life together and Amy leaves a message of hope to the Doctor in the end.

--->'''The Doctor:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E3VictoryOfTheDaleks Come along, Pond]]... ''please.''\\
'''Amy:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour ...Raggedy Man]] ...goodbye.

** The chapter titles in the Melody Malone are spoilers.

'''The Doctor':''' I don't know! We're in New York.
* CollectorOfTheStrange: Grayle, the art collector who wants to add an Angel to his collection. River says he has a fetish.

** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong Doctor Who?]]"

** [[BlatantLies River claims]] to have escaped the Angel without needing to break her wrist, but she is holding both her book and her computer in one hand, while her unbroken wrist hangs limply at her side.

** The newspaper being read by Amy at the beginning says "Detroit Lions win Super Bowl". For those confused Brits who didn't get this rare America-centric reference, it's a funny reference to a semi-perpetually bad NFL team that has never even ''been'' to a Super Bowl, much less won one. ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Detroit_Lions_season In 2008, the Lions got the dubious distinction of the first-ever NFL no-win season]].) It's meant to underscore the fact the episode takes place a number of years after 2012 (possibly as late as 2020 though an exact year is never given).

* LifeWillKillYou: The Doctor cannot prevent Amy and Rory's death in the end... because they lived out their lives in a past that the Doctor could not reach. It was something the Doctor was always going to have to face; the anguish comes from having to face it much sooner than he had wanted.

* MeaningfulName: The building the angels are using as a battery farm is right on Battery Park (so named for gun batteries there in the city's early years).

** River's wrist is trapped in a Weeping Angel's hand. The Doctor is about to break her wrist to get her free, because it was written in the book when Amy skipped ahead, then changes his mind and tells her to get free without breaking any bones. Cut to a bit later, it seems like she's managed just that... and then the Doctor grabs her hand to run off and she cries out in pain.

* TimeyWimeyBall: The reasons for the Doctor not being able to go back in time to rescue the Ponds is ... convoluted.

** Just after The Doctor comments that reading the future makes it "written in stone", there's a shot of Rory's grave and the inscription on it.

Written by Steven Moffat.

* HellHotel: Instead of their hit-and-run tactics from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink "Blink"]], the Angels have converted an apartment building into what the Doctor describes as a "battery farm".

* InformedDeformity: Making jokes about Amy's supposed wrinkles doesn't work when you show close-ups of Karen Gillan's smooth baby-face a few seconds later. It looks like Rory was right after all.

* MeaningfulName: The building the angels are using as a battery is right on Battery Park (so named for gun batteries there in the city's early years).

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E6TheAlmostPeople The Doctor does indeed have a tendecy to say "Yowza"]]

* AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever: The Statue of Liberty Weeping Angel. Oddly, since the angels use stealth as their greatest strength, it isn't as threatening compared to the other Angels and is just background. It's also portrayed a lot smaller than the real thing.

Meanwhile, Rory has been zapped around again by a nest of Weeping Angels, but this time just spatially. The rest of the group catches up with him, and they find the Angels' harvesting grounds: a place where people who are sent back in time are forced to live out the rest of their lives, to be fed on by the Angels forever. Rory arrives just in time to watch his withered old self die, saying goodbye to a heartbroken Amy one final time. Really, properly scared, he escapes to the roof, where the Statue of freaking Liberty is waiting to feed on him. Rory decides to kill himself to create a paradox, poisoning the Angels' temporal energy and preventing his future death from happening in the first place. (He also reasons that he may even survive -- he usually does.) After a very emotional exchange, Rory and Amy jump off the building's roof, clinging to each other. With that, the harvesting grounds never existed, the Statue of Liberty never moved about New York and Rory never died of old age in that small room.

And the scene shifts back to when [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour the little Amy Pond waited for the Doctor]], and as was already briefly seen in "The Eleventh Hour", she hears the sound of TARDIS.

* AssholeVictim: Grayle chains an Angel and cuts up its face just to see if it can feel pain... causing its screams to attract the other Angels, who stalk him in revenge. He also has Rory dumped in the dark basement with a number of Angels and only a match-book to keep them at bay, seemingly just for the evulz. And also turns off the light so the chained Angel can grab River's wrist.
* AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever: The Statue of Liberty Weeping Angel. Oddly, since the angels use stealth as their greatest strength, it isn't as threatening compared to the other angels and is just background. It's also portrayed a lot smaller than the real thing.

** The Doctor has been [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E2DinosaursOnASpaceship erasing himself from every database in the universe]] because [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar River said he had got too big]]. River has also been [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary released from prison and become a Professor of Archaeology]].
** The final scene in the graveyard

** The book itself was written by Amy.

* CityOfWeirdos: New York is ''full'' of Weeping Angels and ''no-one'' notices. They don't even notice the Statue of Liberty! It's {{lampshade| hanging}}d:
-->'''Amy''': He went to get coffee and turned up in a book. How does that happen?\\
''' Doctor''': I don't know! We're in New York.

* CreepyChild: Weeping Cherubs are ''more'' terrifying than the adult angels based on how it was done. The giggling in the darkness; you can't see them but they're hunting you.

** River teases an arc about the Doctor being fogotten.

* HellHotel: Instead of their hit-and-run tactics from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink "Blink"]], the Angels have converted a hotel into what the Doctor describes as a "battery farm".

** Mrs. Williams and Mr.Pond stick together through Angel attacks and being trapped in the past. Amy declares that their marriage is powerful enough to create a paradox, change the future, and kill the Angels.

* KillEmAll: Everyone except the Doctor and River are taken by the angels.

* LikeAnOldMarriedCouple:The Doctor says he started reading the book because he liked the cover. When he shows it to River, she says she hates it.

** They all get one when River notices that one of the angels is ''smiling'', and it then escalates when they look into Rory's room, and realise just how screwed they are.

* PoorCommunicationKills: At first, it seems like Rory's disappearance is due to GenreBlindness. Unfortunately, he's just never faced the Angels before, unlike his wife, daughter or son-in-law....

** The Statue of Liberty being an Angel may be a reference to an AprilFoolsDay gag pulled by Wiki/SCPFoundation, where established SCP [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-173 173]], another murderous statue that can only move when not observed, was changed into the Statue of Liberty.

* StealthPun: The angels' battery farm looks to be located in [[https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&q=battery+park&fb=1&gl=us&hq=battery+park&hnear=battery+park&cid=0,0,13722545436693339154&ei=FcdnUMijDZPa9ASpxYCICg&ved=0CKEBEPwSMAM Battery Park]].
* TemporalParadox: Deliberately breaking one of the time-loops the Angels create will poison all the other loops in the vicinity ++ of which there are plenty. Unfortunately, one can only do this so many times, and when Rory gets caught after the fact, that time-frame cannot handle another paradox.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: The ''Statue of Liberty'' becomes an Weeping Angel and no, ''no-one'' in New York seems to notice this ''at all''. Maybe it's just a ''[[CityOfWeirdos normal]]'' [[ButForMeItWasTuesday Tuesday]]!

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: So what happened to the angel that took Amy and Rory at the end of the episode? The Doctor and River head back into the TARDIS as if it's not an issue.

** The newspaper being read by Amy at the beginning says "Detroit Lions win Super Bowl". For those confused Brits who didn't get this rare America-centric reference, it's a funny reference to a semi-perpetually bad NFL team that has never even ''been'' to a Super Bowl, much less won one. ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Detroit_Lions_season In 2008, the Lions got the dubious distinction of the first-ever NFL no-win season]].)

** Mrs.Willaims and Mr.Pond stick together through Angel attacks and being trapped in the past. Amy declares that their marriage is powerful enough to create a paradox, change the future, and kill the Angels.

* KilledOffForReal: Amy and Rory are confirmed dead by their tombstones. However, they lived a full life in the past, and Amy's final note assures the Doctor that they lived HappilyEverAfter there.

** Blink and you'll miss it; the title also shows up as the second chapter in the book.

* HeroicBSOD: When the Doctor read the ominous final chapter title "Amelia's Last Farewell" and realises that [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E4ThePowerOfThree the first face he saw will be fading from him a lot sooner than he thought.]] He does not take it well and in a raging fit of denial demands that River change the future. He doesn't care how she does it as long as she [[ScrewDestiny Gets. It. Done.]]

* TogetherInDeath: They share a tombsone! "In loving memory, Rory Arthur Williams, and his loving wife, Amelia Williams."

** Just after The Doctor comments that reading the future makes it "written in stone", there's a shot of [[spoiler: Rory's grave]] and the inscription on it.

* DeletedScene: The script let us see how Rory's father was affected, in a scene that was unfortunately not filmed, but there is an animation.

** The Statue of Liberty being an Angel may be a reference to an AprilFoolsDay gag pulled by Wiki/TheSCPFoundation, where established SCP [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-173 173]], another murderous statue that can only move when not observed, was changed into the Statue of Liberty.