Wow, hey, the new Doctor Who episode wasn't bad. I know I kind of predicted it last week when I noted Chris Chibnall had a co-writer for it but it's still pretty surprising.
The co-writer is Maxine Alderton who also wrote "The Haunting of Villa Diodati", another one of the better episodes of the Thirteenth Doctor run. I'd say "Village of the Angels" is stronger, especially if you ignore the Bel and Vinder scenes, which I suspect were the bulk of Chibnall's contribution. I suspect this script was originally written as a standalone story before it was decided to make the whole season a connected narrative.
There were so many refreshing things about the episode. A character, Professor Jericho (Kevin McNally), is introduced who's actually kind of interesting and is allowed to develop gradually over the episode. Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop) actually spend more than two seconds together, making it believable that they're comrades. The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) gets a few funny things to say and she's shown coming up with decent strategy.
It's not perfect. The rapid cutting on the moving angel just makes it seem kind of pointless that we don't see them in real motion. Director Jamie Magnus Stone still does too many closeups. The child actor playing Peggy seems completely disengaged. When she's not sad that her grandparents died, it feels more cheap than creepy or a sobering comment on how bad the grandparents were. I noticed Mandip Gill was tearing up and I wondered if that wasn't in the script, like maybe Gill also felt the moment was inappropriately psychopathic.
All in all, this episode was definitely the high point of the season. I even like the brief little foray into Weeping Angel politics. Seeing this decent episode made the deficiencies of the other episodes this season even clearer. I really don't think Chibnall's trying anymore.
Doctor Who is available on the BBC's iPlayer.
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