Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

"He went to get coffee, and turned up in a book. How does that work?"

"I don't know. We're in New York."

Damn you, Moffat. You sadistic evil genius, you. You distract us with scares, timey-wimey cleverness and a story title that makes us think of Muppets, and then you go and make us have all these damn feelings, damn you. Even those of us who like to think we have hearts of stone. The Angels Take Manhattan is twisted, evil, and possibly the best thing in Doctor Who since, well, the last story you wrote with the Weeping Angels. Once again: DAMN YOU!!!

Let's leave Amy and Rory until we've talked about the other stuff, because I won't be able to talk about the other stuff otherwise. Bloody feelings…

This is a much, much better use of New York than the last time. We get iconic locations, including the Statue of Liberty being used as a Weeping Angel (!). Everything looks great. There's a definite Raymond Chandler / Dashiell Hammett influence, what with the private eye in the opening teaser and, ahem, "Melody Malone", whose identity, I'm sure, was never intended to surprise anyone.

Speaking of River, she and the Doctor are, of course, married, meaning that the heroes of the episode are two married couples. And it's fun to see River and the Doctor acting just like a married couple. There are the witty lines alluding to this, of course ("Sorry I'm late, honey. Traffic was Hell"), but there are also fault lines in this very strange marriage. River loves the Doctor, which is why she slaps him for using his regenerative energy to heal her broken wrist. But she's terrified of his seeing her aging and becoming aware of her mortality. The Doctor hates endings, and is therefore unlikely to be keen on commitment, hardly a deep observation given his lifestyle.

Oh, and River alludes to the long-running season thread, namely that the Doctor has been deleting all records of himself. It means that the man she's supposed to have murdered no longer exists, so she's been freed and made a professor. There's one ripple from the Doctor's "absence": what about the others, I wonder?

The Angels are horribly scary, too. The baby Angels, with their terrible giggling, are well scary, especially when Rory is trapped alone with them in a darkened cellar with a match. And all throughout the story the set pieces, and the excellent direction, keep making you jump. Scares along with heartbreak- damn you once again, Moffat!

The typically Moffat-esque timey-wimeyness is gobsmackingly clever here, probably the cleverest we've seen since Blink. The concept of the Doctor and Amy possessing a book, from their personal future, recounting the adventure they're having now, is devilishly clever. And the fact that they can't read ahead without fixing their futures is even more so. It's hard to talk about the way this is used without getting all emotional about Amy and Rory, but the bit where the Doctor accidentally sees the last two chapter titles ("Death at Winter's Quay" and "Amy's Last Farewell") is a hugely clever moment, as well as being pure evil.

But let's get back to the elephant in the room, shall we? There are all sorts of ominous signs. It's constantly reiterated that the Doctor doesn't like endings, hence the fact that Amy and Rory are still around even after being officially dumped in The God Complex. This is where he has to face up to what he doesn't like.

Of course, Moffat being evil, he tortures us with three endings, all of them heart-breaking. First, we're told that Rory is fated to be sent back in time, to spend the rest of his miserable life in a little room, without Amy. Worse, the only way out for him is to destroy the Angel by creating a paradox, and he can only do this by jumping off a building to his death. This sequence just breaks your heart, and then Amy goes and jumps too because she can't bear to be without him. DAMN YOU, MOFFAT.

Except there's one more, equally evil, timey-wimey twist. All of that has been un-happened, everyone's ok, and they will all live happily ever after. Except they won't, because the one remaining Angel sends them back in time, one by one, with lots of tears. The Doctor has to face it: this is an ending. It's also unbelievably good telly. But still evil.

We end with a final message from an unreachable Amy to the Doctor: don't be alone. As Donna once said, he still needs someone to stop him. As for who that someone is, and how we resolve the puzzle that was set by Asylum of the Daleks… we have to wait until Christmas. Damn you, Moffat.