Line #20 Recap/DoctorWhoS39E4FluxChapterFourVillageOfTheAngels


1	[[WMG:[[center:[-''[[Series/DoctorWho Doctor Who]]'' [[Recap/DoctorWho recap index]]\
2	'''Thirteenth Doctor Era'''\
3	'''Series 13:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E1FluxChapterOneTheHalloweenApocalypse 1]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E2FluxChapterTwoWarOfTheSontarans 2]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E3FluxChapterThreeOnceUponTime 3]] \| '''4''' \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E5FluxChapterFiveSurvivorsOfTheFlux 5]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E6FluxChapterSixTheVanquishers 6]]\
4	'''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall <<< Series 12]]''' \| '''[[Recap/DoctorWho2022NYSEveOfTheDaleks 2022 Specials >>>]]''']]-]]]
5	!Flux Chapter Four: Village of the Angels
6	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/doctor_who_flux_village_of_the_angels_jodie_whittaker_as_the_thirteenth_doctor_transformation.jpg]]
7	[[caption-width-right:350:The terrifying birth of a '''Time Lady-Weeping Angel.''' And this [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E5FleshAndStone time]], it sticks.]]
8	->Written by Creator/ChrisChibnall and Maxine Alderton\
9	Directed by Jamie Magnus Stone\
10	'''Air date:''' 21 November 2021\
11	'''Part 4 of 6'''
12
13	JustForFun/{{The one w\|ith}}here the Doctor finds more in common with the Weeping Angels than she wanted.
14
15	The fourth installment in the ''Flux'' story arc.
16	----
17	!!Tropes:
18	* AndThenJohnWasAZombie: The Doctor herself is transformed into a Weeping Angel at the end.
19	* ArmorPiercingResponse: What gives great-uncle Gerald's wife the right to talk to him like that? 47 painful years, that's what.
20	* AssholeVictim: Nobody is particularly cut up when Gerald dies by touching an Angel for the second time, not even Peggy.
21	* AttentionDeficitOohShiny: When Jericho announces his full name to the Doctor, she marvels at the awesomeness of the name "Eustacius", before wintering on about how she can use that to win at ''TabletopGame/{{Scrabble}}''.
22	* AwesomeMcCoolname: Professor Eustacius Jericho. The Doctor even [[LampshadedTrope lampshades it.]]
23	* AwfulTruth: Mrs. Hayward has to break it to poor Peggy that she will never escape from 1901... because Mrs. Hayward is Peggy herself, having lived a full life in the village for over 66 years.
24	* BadassBoast:
25	** Jericho gives one to the Angels, and boy, it's a doozy!
26	--->'''Jericho:''' You are observed! That is my power over you!
27	** He also gives one to the Doctor and he absolutely lives up to it.
28	--->'''Jericho:''' I've seen many things beyond my comprehension, Doctor. [[GoodCannotComprehendEvil I was one of the first British soldiers into Belsen at the end of the war.]] If you think a few stone statues will disturb my equilibrium, you are mistaken.
29	* BadSamaritan: Azure is offering people salvation to a safe galaxy using a Passenger as transport. Only Bel realizes that Azure's motives aren't as pure as advertised.
30	* TheBadGuyWins: The Angels succeed in capturing the Doctor and successfully wipe out both towns during their mission. The Angel in Claire was able to trade the Doctor in exchange for its own safety.
31	* BatmanGambit: The rogue Weeping Angel inside Claire pulls one off. It knows the Doctor would try to save Claire, uses her as bait and ends up with a bargaining chip against its pursuers. Something more valuable to the Division than a rogue Angel: [[RogueAgent A rogue Time Lord.]]
32	* BigEntrance: Like the Cybermen before them, the Angels get into somewhere by smashing the door down.
33	* BodyHorror: The Doctor's graphic transformation into an Angel at the end of the episode.
34	* BreakThemByTalking: The Angels try to do this to Jericho. [[DefiedTrope It doesn't take]].
35	* CallBack:
36	** Multiple to "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E4TheTimeOfAngels The Time of Angels]]"/"[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E5FleshAndStone Flesh and Stone]]", the two-part episode that first established the Angels' abilities to appear from images and to implant themselves within people through their line of sight and take them over from the inside. Most prominently, the Doctor repeats the passage that she (he at the time) read from a book saying, "That which holds the image of an angel becomes itself an angel."
37	** The Doctor once again utters two distinct classic phrases:
38	*** "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow." The first part has been uttered by past incarnations and companions every once in a while during the Classic and New Who eras, while the last time the Doctor said the full line was in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E5TheGirlWhoDied The Girl Who Died]]".
39	*** She tells Jericho, "When I say run, run!" (And, as a variation, also uses "When I say blink, blink".) Another classic line that many Doctors have uttered, but made the most famous by the Second Doctor.
40	** We once again see the results of the Angel's powers of sending people back in time to "live to death" through Mrs Hayward, the elderly version of Peggy who was sent back to 1901 and stayed in that time for 66 years.
41	* CommonalityConnection:
42	** Despite the danger, Professor Jericho is mainly interested in gathering data and analysing the situation, an attitude the Doctor can appreciate.
43	** Averted with the rogue Weeping Angel who is fleeing the Division. The Doctor has little sympathy, and [[EvilAllAlong it turns out rightly so]].
44	* CreepyMonotone: The Angels mimic Jericho's voice in a very cold tone when taunting him.
45	* EqualOpportunityEvil: The Division is said to employ beings of every species on every planet across every moment in time, even Weeping Angels.
46	* EvilUncle: Not strictly evil, but Peggy's great-uncle Gerald comes across as very unfeeling and harsh to her, showing a lack of care. Sadly TruthInTelevision, as seniors in the 60s often treated children in such a way; even Peggy isn't particularly broken up at seeing him being killed.
47	* FiveSecondForeshadowing: The Doctor instinctively blinks in front of the Weeping Angel ''just'' before she realizes that it's not coming after her.
48	* FloatingContinent: The Angels use quantum extraction to displace the entire town in a bubble and slowly collapse it, leaving nowhere to run.
49	* ForcedTransformation: The Doctor's transformation into an Angel at the end of the episode.
50	* ForTheEvulz: The Angels draw out their chase of the Doctor and company... because they want to give her time to puzzle out what's happening before she realizes that it's pointless. Likewise, they spare a few people because it amuses them to do so; Mrs. Hayward explicitly says that they do this because they're cruel.
51	* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: A Weeping Angel slips into the show's credits. Don't blink!
52	* GrudgingThankYou: Namaca thanks Bel indirectly through Vinder when he comes to the belated realization that she was right about Azure and her Passenger.
53	* HisNameIs: The hologram recording that Bel leaves for Vinder runs out just when she's about to reveal her coordinates.
54	* HypocriticalHumor: The Doctor tells her companions not to wander off, then (as Dan notes) promptly wanders off elsewhere.
55	* ItWontTurnOff: The torn-up picture of the Angel reassembles itself, and the TV that Jericho smashed continues to broadcast the taunting Angel voice.
56	* KillItWithFire: Zig-zagged. When an Angel manifests as a projection through Claire's drawing, the Doctor quickly crumbles the paper to break the projection, then chucks it in the fireplace and sets it on fire to destroy any trace of the image. As the burning paper unfolds in the flames, the Angel reappears as a ''[[InfernalRetaliation flaming]]'' projection, so the Doctor has to douse the flames to get rid of it permanently.
57	* LiterallyShatteredLives: Gerald and Jean suffer this fate when they're touched by a Weeping Angel a second time, causing them to petrify and crumble into dust.
58	* LivingDrawing: The drawing that Claire made of a Weeping Angel, which starts to manifest through this. Another Angel manifests by manipulating the readings on the EEG to draw an angel on the paper.
59	* LivingStructureMonster: Images of the Angels on the walls in the escape tunnel become hands that reach out to grab people. Even the dust is itself an Angel, with the bit that gets into Jericho's eye becoming an Angel that then displaces him.
60	* MirrorReveal: While washing her face at the sink, Claire has a vision of herself with the wings of a Weeping Angel.
61	* NervesOfSteel: Professor Jericho, a WWII veteran. As he tells the Doctor, "If you think a few stone statues will disturb my equilibrium, you are mistaken."
62	* NoSympathy: Peggy sheds no tears for her great-aunt Jean, even though she comes across as much nicer than Gerald.
63	* OhCrap: Bel knows to run when Azure refers to the being next to her as a Passenger, as she has experience with the beings and recognizes the term.
64	* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: The Angels ''not'' attacking the Doctor at the episode's climax when she turns her back on them, which leads into the reveal that the Angels have made a deal to capture the Doctor for the Division.
65	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: The Angels give one of these to Professor Jericho, claiming that he only throws himself into his academic work to distract himself from it being the only thing that gives meaning to his loveless, childless, and otherwise pointless life. He doesn't let them get to him.
66	* RetiredBadass: Professor Jericho, a war veteran.
67	* TheReveal: Claire [[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E1FluxChapterOneTheHalloweenApocalypse recognised the Doctor and the Weeping Angel]] because she has psychic visions of the future.
68	* RogueSoldier: The Weeping Angel inside Claire. The other Angels aren't trying to ''rescue'' it -- they're trying to ''capture'' it.
69	* SeriesContinuityError: When Gerald and Jean are grabbed by the Angel in 1901, they petrify and [[LiterallyShatteredLives shatter]] instead of going back in time again, and Peggy grimly remarks that no one survives it twice. However, in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E5TheAngelsTakeManhattan The Angels Take Manhattan]]", Rory, who had been sent back to 1938 by an Angel, encountered a future version of himself who had been sent back a second time and was dying of old age. This could be explained as being a result of the quantum extraction only having 1901 as a past destination and there's nowhere else to go before that time, whereas being touched twice by an angel per se in a normal timeline of events, the Angels can usually keep a hold of their prey and continue to feast on their potential energy.
70	* ShellshockedVeteran: Professor Jericho was one of the British soldiers who liberated [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust Belsen concentration camp]] at the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. He doesn't go into detail about what he found there, but states that it prepared him for dealing with unexplained horror.
71	* ShutUpHannibal: The Angels try to [[BreakThemByTalking get into Jericho's head]] by emotionally manipulating him, but he has none of it.
72	* SignificantReferenceDate: The 1967 parts of the episode take place on 21 November, the same date as the episode's airdate in 2021.
73	* TheSlowPath: Mrs. Hayward is Peggy, who never returned from 1901 and lived back to 1967.
74	* SniffSniffNom: The Doctor sniffs Gerald's coat and establishes that they have landed in 1949. He indignantly points out that it's 1967. Turns out he's had the coat for a while.
75	* SpareAMessenger: The Angels like to spare a few people during their rampages, just so there's someone to remember what happened.
76	* TheStinger: The final scene of the episode begins shortly after the credits roll, where Vinder encounters Namaca and receives a message from Bel before the credits resume.
77	* TakenForGranite:
78	** Getting grabbed by an Angel twice when in the space of a quantum extraction is lethal, causing the victim to petrify and then shatter.
79	** The Doctor at the end of the episode, after the Angels capture her, is converted into an Angel.
80	* TelevisionPortal: An Angel attempts to manifest through the crude security camera that the Doctor rigged up out of a period television. Jericho smashes the screen to stop it.
81	* TemptingFate: Dan and Yaz will be safe from the Weeping Angel as long as they have light. First the moon goes behind a cloud, then their torch batteries go out.
82	* TentativeLight: Electric torches are unreliable in the presence of the Angels. Yaz and Dan suspect (accurately as we know from past episodes) that an Angel can drain their power.
83	* TimeIsDangerous: The temporal barrier between the two concurrent instances of the town allows sound and light to pass through, but solid objects are vaporized. This is demonstrated on a stick as a test, as the group was savvy enough not to cross immediately.
84	* TooDumbToLive: Gerald and Jean continue to ignore Yaz and Dan's warnings and insist the Weeping Angel is just a statue even though one of them already displaced them (Gerald before Jean, so she ''saw'' him disappear into thin air from touching it) and they've noticed it's now suddenly day instead of night (but apparently [[FailedASpotCheck not noticed]] that the streets are deserted and everything is in disarray), and even though Yaz and Dan are supposedly affiliated with the police. It gets them killed when they make second contact with the Angel.
85	* UniformityException: The Weeping Angel which hijacked the TARDIS and communicates with the Doctor has a distinguishing crack running across its face.
86	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: We do not see what happens to Reverend Shaw after the Angel sends him back in time, though it is possible that he met the same fate as Gerald and Jean, since Peggy already knows what happens when an Angel catches someone twice.
87	* WhyIsntItAttacking: The Doctor wonders this when she tries to outrun an Angel and isn't grabbed, knowing beforehand that it was a fool's errand when she did it. Even blinking doesn't move them. She realizes too late that it's because more are above the exit of the tunnel, and they don't want to displace her, but capture her.
88	* YourMindMakesItReal: The rogue Angel is able to [[DemonicPossession manifest inside Claire]] because, as a [[{{Seers}} seer]], she saw its image in her mind.
89	----

Context Recap / DoctorWhoS39E4FluxChapterFourVillageOfTheAngels