Flesh and Stone
Encyclopedia
"Flesh and Stone" is the fifth episode of the fifth series
of British
science fiction
television series Doctor Who
. Written by showrunner Steven Moffat
and directed by Adam Smith, the episode was first broadcast on 1 May 2010 on BBC One
. It is the conclusion of a two-episode story that began with "The Time of Angels
" that features the Weeping Angels
as primary villains and sees the return of the character River Song
(Alex Kingston
).
Following the cliffhanger of the previous episode, alien time traveller the Doctor
(Matt Smith), his companion
Amy Pond
(Karen Gillan
), River Song, and Father Octavian (Iain Glen
) and his militarised clerics have escaped entrapment by the Weeping Angels, creatures who only move when unobserved by others. They take refuge inside the crashed starship Byzantium, but the Angels pursue them and Amy is on the brink of dying from the imprint of an Angel in her eye. Both the Angels and the Doctor's team face danger from a widening crack in space and time which has the power to erase persons from history.
Moffat wrote the two-part story as a more action-packed sequel to his 2007 episode "Blink
", inspired by the relationship between the film Alien
and its sequel, Aliens
. The episode contains vital information concerning the main story arc of the cracks in time, and contains many instances which are character-motivated. "The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone" were the first two episodes to be filmed; filming for "Flesh and Stone" took place in late July, with location filming in Puzzlewood
and Southerndown
beach. The episode was watched by 8.495 million viewers in the United Kingdom and received generally postive reviews from critics, though many commented that it did not live up to the quality to the first part and disagreed about the decision to show the Angels moving. Additionally, a scene in which Amy attemps to seduce the Doctor generated some complaints to the BBC.
, Amy
, Dr. River Song
, and Father Octavian and his clerics to jump into the localized gravity well of the starship Byzantium and escape the horde of approaching Weeping Angels
. The Angels follow them into the ship, where the Doctor directs everyone into the ship's oxygen factory, a forest contained within the starship. Before leaving the secondary control room, the Doctor observes a growing, familiar crack, the same one from Amy's bedroom ("The Eleventh Hour
"), and determines that it is leaking time energy from which the Angels are currently feeding.
Regrouping in the forest, the Doctor and River Song find Amy struggling with an image of an Angel imprinted in her brain, which is about to kill her. The Doctor instructs Amy to keep her eyes closed to freeze the Angel's effects on her. With Amy unable to move with the rest of the group, the Doctor, River Song, and Octavian attempt to reach the primary control room on the other side of the forest, where they hope to teleport Amy and the four clerics guarding her. Song and Octavian reveal to the Doctor that she is a prisoner in Octavian's custody, with a pardon promised should she help them complete their mission. Octavian is captured and killed by an Angel as the Doctor and River enter the control room. As Amy and the clerics wait for rescue, a crack in the secondary control room opens further, causing the Angels to move away from it. When some of the clerics approach it to investigate, they disappear completely; while Amy remembers them, the remaining clerics have no knowledge of their existence. Amy is soon left alone, as the remaining clerics also disappear investigating the crack. The Doctor instructs Amy to begin moving towards the primary control room, keeping her eyes closed but acting as if she is still able to see in order to fool the Angels. Amy trips, revealing her blindness to the Angels, but before they get her, Song teleports Amy to join her and the Doctor.
The Doctor reveals that the crack is due to an explosion somewhere in time, a date that he and River are able to determine. The Doctor warns that anything that falls into it, such as the clerics, is erased from time; this is why the Angels fear the crack. The only way of temporarily closing the crack is to have some "complicated space-time event" enter it, either the Doctor himself or the whole of the Angels. As the Angels drain power from the ship and seek to use the Doctor to close the crack, the Doctor warns River and Amy to hold onto the controls, as the upended ship's gravity field fails, causing the Angels in the forest to fall into the crack and close it. With the Angels gone, the Angel in Amy's mind never existed, and she is able to recover. Song is recaptured by the clerics; she tells the Doctor that her crime was killing "the best man [she's] ever known", and promises him they will meet again soon when the "Pandorica" opens
, which is dismissed by the Doctor as a fairytale.
Aboard the TARDIS
, Amy asks the Doctor to return her to Earth on the night they left because she wants to show him something. In her room, she shows the Doctor her engagement ring and wedding dress, telling him that she is to wed Rory
the next day; she then attempts to seduce
the Doctor, at which he is very alarmed. However, the Doctor realises that the next day, 26 June 2010, is the same day as the time explosion epicenter, and forcibly takes Amy away so that he can figure out what is going on.
came up with the concept for "The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone" when he was thinking of the worst possible situations to be in with the Weeping Angels and thought of the inability to see. His first idea was blindness, though this developed into the situation that Amy ends up in. Moffat designed the two-part story to be a more action-oriented sequel to "Blink
", an episode he wrote for the third series
that introduced the Weeping Angels. He was inspired by the relationship between the film Alien
and its sequel, Aliens
, which he referred to as "the best conceived movie sequel ever", describing it as being more "highly coloured" as opposed to Alien more low-key tone. He also intended for the Angels to have a plan that could become "almost like a war", in contrast to the way they were struggling to survive in "Blink". The title "Flesh and Stone" was suggested by Moffat's son.
The episode is also important in the main story arc concerning the cracks in time and space. The idea of the crack was inspired by a similar crack in the wall of Moffat's son. As the crack reappears, several facts about it are revealed. In the episode, the Doctor speculates that the are connected to the fact that Amy could not remember the events of several previous episodes. He also discovers that the time explosion that caused the crack is 26 June 2010, which is also the original airdate of the final episode of the series, "The Big Bang
". Before the Doctor, River, and Octavian leave Amy and the other clerics, the Doctor briefly returns to console Amy and to ask her to trust him and remember what he told her when she was younger; however, the Doctor in this scene is shown wearing his jacket, which he had lost to the Angels earlier in the episode, as well as a different wristwatch. It is revealed in "The Big Bang" that this was in fact the Doctor from later in his timeline, setting up events in Amy's past to try and help her remember him after he has rebooted the universe. River Song tells the Doctor she will see him again when the Pandorica Opens; the Pandorica was previously referred to by Prisoner Zero in "The Eleventh Hour
" and is revealed in "The Pandorica Opens
", which also sees the return of River Song.
Many instances in the episode were character-driven. The action of the Angel to torture Amy "for fun" was met with anger from the Doctor but also gave him courage to defeat the Angels and save Amy. Moffat stated that in the scene in which the Doctor must figure out how to save Amy in a matter of seconds he was "very basic...very pure, simple Doctor" and did not have time to comfort Amy because his compassion would get in the way of his thinking process. River was also meant understand this and explain to Amy that he needed to think. Moffat believed that Amy was "passionate and a fighter and...also really smart" which he showcased in the scene where Amy could not open her eyes for more than a second but was determined to do it for less than one. Moffat also believed that Amy's decision to attempt to seduce the Doctor was consistant with the character he had built up from her first episode
. It was also a reflection of how the two had just escaped from death and shared a hard time together, and Amy's tendency to do things "in the heat of the moment". The Doctor's reaction was intended to be a reflection of how he often acted embarrassed and flustered when women behaved that way.
"The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone" were the first two episodes to be produced in the series. The read-through
for "Flesh and Stone" took place on 15 July 2009 following the read-through of "The Time of Angels". The forest scenes in the Byzantium were filmed at Puzzlewood
, in the Forest of Dean
over nine nights in July 2009. The final scenes on a beach were shot at Southerndown
, Vale of Glamorgan
in Wales during 20-21 July 2009, the first filming done for the new series.
Most of the Weeping Angels are not statue props but young women wearing masks, costumes, and paint that took two to three hours to apply. Director Adam Smith called them "an absolute nightmare to film with" because it took a long time for them to get ready and they had to stand still for long periods of time. In the climactic scene Gillan had to walk with her eyes closed, which she said was difficult and challenging as the ground was uneven and muddy. She stated that "it was the most scary thing" when she had to trip over a step and fall, even though she was aware of the crash mat. As she was not able to express herself through her eyes, Gillan had to make herself more animated to convey emotion. The scene in which the Doctor, Amy and River are horizontal in mid-air when the gravity field fails on the Byzantium was achieved by using wires and powerful wind machines. The blue in Amy's bedroom was an idea of Adam Smith to show that it was inspired by the TARDIS from Amy's encounter with the Doctor when she was young.
and simulcast
on BBC HD
on 1 May 2010. Overnight figures showed that "Flesh and Stone" was watched by 6.87 million viewers; 6.53 million watched on BBC One, with a further 0.34 on BBC HD. This was a slight increase from the previous episode, but "Flesh and Stone" was still second for the night behind Britain's Got Talent
. Final consolidated ratings showed that 8.495 million viewers had watched the episode, with 8.019 on BBC One and 476,000 on BBC HD, the fifth and first most-watched programme on each channel respectfully. It achieved an Appreciation Index
of 86, considered "excellent".
A Region 2 DVD and Blu-Ray containing "Flesh and Stone" together with the episodes "The Time of Angels
" and "The Vampires of Venice
" was released on 5 July 2010. It was re-released as part of the complete series five DVD on 8 November 2010.
guardian.co.uk
, saying that it "can lay credible claim to being the greatest episode of Doctor Who there has ever been". He went on to declare: "It's just ridiculously good - so much that there's scarcely any point in picking out moments because there was an iconic sequence every couple of seconds." In particular he praised Father Octavian's death scene, noting how "despair creeps over Matt Smith's face as he realises he is going to have to leave him to die; Octavian's final speech weeps with honour and elegance". IGN
's Matt Wales gave the episode a 10 out of 10 rating, saying it was "packed with huge, iconic moments" and stated, "by the end of it, we were left with more questions than answers and a far better sense of Moffat's meticulous planning".
Gavin Fuller, writing for The Daily Telegraph
s website, described the episode as "a rollercoaster ride of thrills and spills". He praised the forest scenes, saying they were "easily the highlight of the episode, taking in a whole range of emotions as the nature and scale of the threat facing the Doctor, Amy, River and the clerics shifted as the episode progressed." However he expressed uncertainty over Amy's "attempted seduction of the Doctor", claiming that it "did seem out of keeping with the usual tone of the series", and that "Given the number of young children who watch, it may not have been the most appropriate of scenes to screen".
Patrick Mulkern, writing for the Radio Times
, gave the episode a positive review, describing it and its predecessor "The Time of Angels" as "two episodes of Who that deserve 10 out of 10 in anybody's scorebook", although he felt that of the two "The Time of Angels" was "marginally more dazzling", as he found the Angels in that episode more "macabre", but he still thought that "Flesh and Stone" "bombards us with shudders and tension". He also stated that he was "much amused by Amy's amorous antics at the end".
Steven Cooper of Slant Magazine
called it "an exciting, action-packed roller coaster" and praised director Adam Smith's "top-notch visuals" as well of the performances of Smith, Gillan, and Kingston. He noted the difference between Moffat's more obvious story arc as opposed to others in the revived series, believing it to be possibly a "long-overdue innovation" for the show. Though he praised the final defeat of the Angels for making use of what the viewer had forgotten, he thought that being able to see the Angels moving was "creepy and well-done", but made them "much less original and interesting" and the reason behind it weak, considering that the scene had "no significance at all" and was just to fill up time. SFX Magazine Dave Golder agreed, callling the scene "very creepy" and the Angels moving "effective", but feeling that "these once great monsters come across a bit wussy and stupid". He also thought that it did not live up the "brilliant first part", feeling "a bit one-note" and lacking "a really good jawdropping revelation". However, he thought it was "a solid, exciting, pulse-pounding 45 minutes" that was "tense, action-packed, and stuffed with memorable one-liners and touching character moments", particularly praising Amy's countdown and Octavian's death, and gave the episode four out of five stars.
The Daily Mail
claimed that the seduction scene led to complaints from some viewers who accused the BBC of trying to "'sex up' the show to attract more adult viewers." The article quotes a representative from pressure group Mediawatch-uk
and an anonymous contributor to an internet message board. A BBC spokesman confirmed they had received 43 complaints of the scene out of the millions who watched the episode.
Doctor Who (series 5)
The fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 3 April 2010 with "The Eleventh Hour" and ended with "The Big Bang" on 26 June 2010. The series was led by head writer and executive producer Steven Moffat, who took over after the departure of Russell T Davies. The...
of British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
. Written by showrunner Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat is a Scottish television writer and producer.Moffat's first television work was the teen drama series Press Gang. His first sitcom, Joking Apart, was inspired by the breakdown of his first marriage; conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based upon the development of his...
and directed by Adam Smith, the episode was first broadcast on 1 May 2010 on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
. It is the conclusion of a two-episode story that began with "The Time of Angels
The Time of Angels
"The Time of Angels" is the fourth episode in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast on 24 April 2010 on BBC One. It is the first episode of a two-part story written by showrunner Steven Moffat and directed by Adam Smith; the second episode was...
" that features the Weeping Angels
Weeping Angels
The Weeping Angels are a fictional ancient race of aliens from the Doctor Who television series, featured in the Tenth Doctor episode "Blink", and the Eleventh Doctor episodes "The Time of Angels", "Flesh and Stone" and in a cameo appearance in Series 6's "The God Complex"...
as primary villains and sees the return of the character River Song
River Song (Doctor Who)
River Song is a fictional character played primarily by Alex Kingston in the British science-fiction series Doctor Who. River Song was introduced to the series as an experienced future companion of series protagonist the Doctor, an alien Time Lord who travels through time in his TARDIS...
(Alex Kingston
Alex Kingston
Alexandra Elizabeth "Alex" Kingston is an English actress. She is most widely known for her roles as Dr. Elizabeth Corday on the NBC medical drama ER and as River Song in Doctor Who.-Early life and education:...
).
Following the cliffhanger of the previous episode, alien time traveller the Doctor
Eleventh Doctor
The Eleventh Doctor is the eleventh incarnation of the protagonist of the BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. Matt Smith plays this incarnation, replacing David Tennant's Tenth Doctor in the 2010 episode "The End of Time, Part Two"...
(Matt Smith), his companion
Companion (Doctor Who)
In the long-running BBC television science fiction programme Doctor Who and related works, the term "companion" refers to a character who travels with, and shares the adventures of the Doctor. In most Doctor Who stories, the primary companion acts as both deuteragonist and audience surrogate...
Amy Pond
Amy Pond
Amelia Jessica 'Amy' Pond is a fictional character portrayed by Karen Gillan in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
(Karen Gillan
Karen Gillan
Karen Sheila Gillan is a Scottish actress and former model who is best known for her current portrayal of Amy Pond in the British science fiction series Doctor Who.-Early life:...
), River Song, and Father Octavian (Iain Glen
Iain Glen
Iain Glen is a Scottish film and stage actor.Iain Glen was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and trained at RADA where he won the Bancroft Gold Medal. He was married to Susannah Harker from 1993 to 2004; they have one son, Finlay...
) and his militarised clerics have escaped entrapment by the Weeping Angels, creatures who only move when unobserved by others. They take refuge inside the crashed starship Byzantium, but the Angels pursue them and Amy is on the brink of dying from the imprint of an Angel in her eye. Both the Angels and the Doctor's team face danger from a widening crack in space and time which has the power to erase persons from history.
Moffat wrote the two-part story as a more action-packed sequel to his 2007 episode "Blink
Blink (Doctor Who)
"Blink" is the 10th episode of the third series of the new production of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on 9 June 2007, and is the only episode in the 2007 series written by Steven Moffat; the episode is based on a previous short story written by...
", inspired by the relationship between the film Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
and its sequel, Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
. The episode contains vital information concerning the main story arc of the cracks in time, and contains many instances which are character-motivated. "The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone" were the first two episodes to be filmed; filming for "Flesh and Stone" took place in late July, with location filming in Puzzlewood
Puzzlewood
Puzzlewood is an ancient woodland site, near Coleford in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England. The site, covering 14 acres, shows evidence of open cast iron ore mining dating from the Roman period, and possibly earlier....
and Southerndown
Southerndown
Southerndown is a village in South Wales to the southwest of Bridgend, close to St Brides Major, Llantwit Major and Ogmore-by-Sea. It is mostly known for its beach , which is a popular tourist destination during the summer months and since 1972 has been designated a Heritage Coast and is part of...
beach. The episode was watched by 8.495 million viewers in the United Kingdom and received generally postive reviews from critics, though many commented that it did not live up to the quality to the first part and disagreed about the decision to show the Angels moving. Additionally, a scene in which Amy attemps to seduce the Doctor generated some complaints to the BBC.
Plot
Continuing from the cliffhanger of the previous episode, the destruction of the gravity globe allows the DoctorEleventh Doctor
The Eleventh Doctor is the eleventh incarnation of the protagonist of the BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. Matt Smith plays this incarnation, replacing David Tennant's Tenth Doctor in the 2010 episode "The End of Time, Part Two"...
, Amy
Amy Pond
Amelia Jessica 'Amy' Pond is a fictional character portrayed by Karen Gillan in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
, Dr. River Song
River Song (Doctor Who)
River Song is a fictional character played primarily by Alex Kingston in the British science-fiction series Doctor Who. River Song was introduced to the series as an experienced future companion of series protagonist the Doctor, an alien Time Lord who travels through time in his TARDIS...
, and Father Octavian and his clerics to jump into the localized gravity well of the starship Byzantium and escape the horde of approaching Weeping Angels
Weeping Angels
The Weeping Angels are a fictional ancient race of aliens from the Doctor Who television series, featured in the Tenth Doctor episode "Blink", and the Eleventh Doctor episodes "The Time of Angels", "Flesh and Stone" and in a cameo appearance in Series 6's "The God Complex"...
. The Angels follow them into the ship, where the Doctor directs everyone into the ship's oxygen factory, a forest contained within the starship. Before leaving the secondary control room, the Doctor observes a growing, familiar crack, the same one from Amy's bedroom ("The Eleventh Hour
The Eleventh Hour (Doctor Who)
"The Eleventh Hour" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 3 April 2010....
"), and determines that it is leaking time energy from which the Angels are currently feeding.
Regrouping in the forest, the Doctor and River Song find Amy struggling with an image of an Angel imprinted in her brain, which is about to kill her. The Doctor instructs Amy to keep her eyes closed to freeze the Angel's effects on her. With Amy unable to move with the rest of the group, the Doctor, River Song, and Octavian attempt to reach the primary control room on the other side of the forest, where they hope to teleport Amy and the four clerics guarding her. Song and Octavian reveal to the Doctor that she is a prisoner in Octavian's custody, with a pardon promised should she help them complete their mission. Octavian is captured and killed by an Angel as the Doctor and River enter the control room. As Amy and the clerics wait for rescue, a crack in the secondary control room opens further, causing the Angels to move away from it. When some of the clerics approach it to investigate, they disappear completely; while Amy remembers them, the remaining clerics have no knowledge of their existence. Amy is soon left alone, as the remaining clerics also disappear investigating the crack. The Doctor instructs Amy to begin moving towards the primary control room, keeping her eyes closed but acting as if she is still able to see in order to fool the Angels. Amy trips, revealing her blindness to the Angels, but before they get her, Song teleports Amy to join her and the Doctor.
The Doctor reveals that the crack is due to an explosion somewhere in time, a date that he and River are able to determine. The Doctor warns that anything that falls into it, such as the clerics, is erased from time; this is why the Angels fear the crack. The only way of temporarily closing the crack is to have some "complicated space-time event" enter it, either the Doctor himself or the whole of the Angels. As the Angels drain power from the ship and seek to use the Doctor to close the crack, the Doctor warns River and Amy to hold onto the controls, as the upended ship's gravity field fails, causing the Angels in the forest to fall into the crack and close it. With the Angels gone, the Angel in Amy's mind never existed, and she is able to recover. Song is recaptured by the clerics; she tells the Doctor that her crime was killing "the best man [she's] ever known", and promises him they will meet again soon when the "Pandorica" opens
The Pandorica Opens
"The Pandorica Opens" is the twelfth episode, and first in a two-part story, in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, broadcast on 19 June 2010. The Doctor's friends send him a warning; he deals with a message on a cliff, a mysterious box and a love story that...
, which is dismissed by the Doctor as a fairytale.
Aboard the TARDIS
TARDIS
The TARDISGenerally, TARDIS is written in all upper case letters—this convention was popularised by the Target novelisations of the 1970s...
, Amy asks the Doctor to return her to Earth on the night they left because she wants to show him something. In her room, she shows the Doctor her engagement ring and wedding dress, telling him that she is to wed Rory
Rory Williams
Rory Williams is a fictional character portrayed by Arthur Darvill in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Having been introduced at the start of the 5th series, Rory joins the Eleventh Doctor as a companion in the middle of Series 5...
the next day; she then attempts to seduce
Seduction
In social science, seduction is the process of deliberately enticing a person to engage. The word seduction stems from Latin and means literally "to lead astray". As a result, the term may have a positive or negative connotation...
the Doctor, at which he is very alarmed. However, the Doctor realises that the next day, 26 June 2010, is the same day as the time explosion epicenter, and forcibly takes Amy away so that he can figure out what is going on.
Writing
Writer Steven MoffatSteven Moffat
Steven Moffat is a Scottish television writer and producer.Moffat's first television work was the teen drama series Press Gang. His first sitcom, Joking Apart, was inspired by the breakdown of his first marriage; conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based upon the development of his...
came up with the concept for "The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone" when he was thinking of the worst possible situations to be in with the Weeping Angels and thought of the inability to see. His first idea was blindness, though this developed into the situation that Amy ends up in. Moffat designed the two-part story to be a more action-oriented sequel to "Blink
Blink (Doctor Who)
"Blink" is the 10th episode of the third series of the new production of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on 9 June 2007, and is the only episode in the 2007 series written by Steven Moffat; the episode is based on a previous short story written by...
", an episode he wrote for the third series
Doctor Who (series 3)
The third series of British science fiction series Doctor Who was preceded by the 2006 Christmas special "The Runaway Bride". Following the special, a regular series of thirteen episodes was broadcast, starting with "Smith and Jones" on 31 March 2007...
that introduced the Weeping Angels. He was inspired by the relationship between the film Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
and its sequel, Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
, which he referred to as "the best conceived movie sequel ever", describing it as being more "highly coloured" as opposed to Alien more low-key tone. He also intended for the Angels to have a plan that could become "almost like a war", in contrast to the way they were struggling to survive in "Blink". The title "Flesh and Stone" was suggested by Moffat's son.
The episode is also important in the main story arc concerning the cracks in time and space. The idea of the crack was inspired by a similar crack in the wall of Moffat's son. As the crack reappears, several facts about it are revealed. In the episode, the Doctor speculates that the are connected to the fact that Amy could not remember the events of several previous episodes. He also discovers that the time explosion that caused the crack is 26 June 2010, which is also the original airdate of the final episode of the series, "The Big Bang
The Big Bang (Doctor Who)
"The Big Bang" is the 13th and final episode in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is the second part of a two-part season finale started with "The Pandorica Opens", at the end of which The Doctor is trapped, the TARDIS destroyed, and Amy Pond has been shot...
". Before the Doctor, River, and Octavian leave Amy and the other clerics, the Doctor briefly returns to console Amy and to ask her to trust him and remember what he told her when she was younger; however, the Doctor in this scene is shown wearing his jacket, which he had lost to the Angels earlier in the episode, as well as a different wristwatch. It is revealed in "The Big Bang" that this was in fact the Doctor from later in his timeline, setting up events in Amy's past to try and help her remember him after he has rebooted the universe. River Song tells the Doctor she will see him again when the Pandorica Opens; the Pandorica was previously referred to by Prisoner Zero in "The Eleventh Hour
The Eleventh Hour (Doctor Who)
"The Eleventh Hour" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 3 April 2010....
" and is revealed in "The Pandorica Opens
The Pandorica Opens
"The Pandorica Opens" is the twelfth episode, and first in a two-part story, in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, broadcast on 19 June 2010. The Doctor's friends send him a warning; he deals with a message on a cliff, a mysterious box and a love story that...
", which also sees the return of River Song.
Many instances in the episode were character-driven. The action of the Angel to torture Amy "for fun" was met with anger from the Doctor but also gave him courage to defeat the Angels and save Amy. Moffat stated that in the scene in which the Doctor must figure out how to save Amy in a matter of seconds he was "very basic...very pure, simple Doctor" and did not have time to comfort Amy because his compassion would get in the way of his thinking process. River was also meant understand this and explain to Amy that he needed to think. Moffat believed that Amy was "passionate and a fighter and...also really smart" which he showcased in the scene where Amy could not open her eyes for more than a second but was determined to do it for less than one. Moffat also believed that Amy's decision to attempt to seduce the Doctor was consistant with the character he had built up from her first episode
The Eleventh Hour (Doctor Who)
"The Eleventh Hour" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 3 April 2010....
. It was also a reflection of how the two had just escaped from death and shared a hard time together, and Amy's tendency to do things "in the heat of the moment". The Doctor's reaction was intended to be a reflection of how he often acted embarrassed and flustered when women behaved that way.
Filming and effects
Read-through
The read-through, table-read, or table work is a stage of film and theatre production when an organized reading around a table of the screenplay or script by the actors with speaking parts is conducted....
for "Flesh and Stone" took place on 15 July 2009 following the read-through of "The Time of Angels". The forest scenes in the Byzantium were filmed at Puzzlewood
Puzzlewood
Puzzlewood is an ancient woodland site, near Coleford in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England. The site, covering 14 acres, shows evidence of open cast iron ore mining dating from the Roman period, and possibly earlier....
, in the Forest of Dean
Forest of Dean
The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. The forest is a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and north, the River Severn to the south, and the City of Gloucester to the east.The...
over nine nights in July 2009. The final scenes on a beach were shot at Southerndown
Southerndown
Southerndown is a village in South Wales to the southwest of Bridgend, close to St Brides Major, Llantwit Major and Ogmore-by-Sea. It is mostly known for its beach , which is a popular tourist destination during the summer months and since 1972 has been designated a Heritage Coast and is part of...
, Vale of Glamorgan
Vale of Glamorgan
The Vale of Glamorgan is a county borough in Wales; an exceptionally rich agricultural area, it lies in the southern part of Glamorgan, South Wales...
in Wales during 20-21 July 2009, the first filming done for the new series.
Most of the Weeping Angels are not statue props but young women wearing masks, costumes, and paint that took two to three hours to apply. Director Adam Smith called them "an absolute nightmare to film with" because it took a long time for them to get ready and they had to stand still for long periods of time. In the climactic scene Gillan had to walk with her eyes closed, which she said was difficult and challenging as the ground was uneven and muddy. She stated that "it was the most scary thing" when she had to trip over a step and fall, even though she was aware of the crash mat. As she was not able to express herself through her eyes, Gillan had to make herself more animated to convey emotion. The scene in which the Doctor, Amy and River are horizontal in mid-air when the gravity field fails on the Byzantium was achieved by using wires and powerful wind machines. The blue in Amy's bedroom was an idea of Adam Smith to show that it was inspired by the TARDIS from Amy's encounter with the Doctor when she was young.
Broadcast and reception
Flesh and Stone was first broadcast on BBC OneBBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
and simulcast
Simulcast
Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...
on BBC HD
BBC HD
BBC HD is a high-definition television network provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007...
on 1 May 2010. Overnight figures showed that "Flesh and Stone" was watched by 6.87 million viewers; 6.53 million watched on BBC One, with a further 0.34 on BBC HD. This was a slight increase from the previous episode, but "Flesh and Stone" was still second for the night behind Britain's Got Talent
Britain's Got Talent
Britain's Got Talent is a British television talent show competition which started in June 2007 and originated from the Got Talent series. The show is produced by FremantleMedia's TalkbackThames and Simon Cowell's production company SYCOtv. The show is broadcast on ITV in Britain and TV3 in Ireland...
. Final consolidated ratings showed that 8.495 million viewers had watched the episode, with 8.019 on BBC One and 476,000 on BBC HD, the fifth and first most-watched programme on each channel respectfully. It achieved an Appreciation Index
Appreciation Index
The Audience Appreciation Index is a score out of 100 which is used as an indicator of the public's appreciation for a television or radio programme, or broadcast service, in the United Kingdom. Until 2002, the AI of a programme was calculated by BARB, the organisation that compiles television...
of 86, considered "excellent".
A Region 2 DVD and Blu-Ray containing "Flesh and Stone" together with the episodes "The Time of Angels
The Time of Angels
"The Time of Angels" is the fourth episode in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast on 24 April 2010 on BBC One. It is the first episode of a two-part story written by showrunner Steven Moffat and directed by Adam Smith; the second episode was...
" and "The Vampires of Venice
The Vampires of Venice
"The Vampires of Venice" is the sixth episode in the fifth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was broadcast on 8 May 2010. It was written by Toby Whithouse, who previously wrote "School Reunion". Rory Williams returns to the series in this episode, this time...
" was released on 5 July 2010. It was re-released as part of the complete series five DVD on 8 November 2010.
Critical reception
"Flesh and Stone" received mainly positive reviews. Daniel Martin gave the episode a positive review on The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
guardian.co.uk
Guardian.co.uk
guardian.co.uk, formerly known as Guardian Unlimited, is a British website owned by the Guardian Media Group. Georgina Henry is the editor...
, saying that it "can lay credible claim to being the greatest episode of Doctor Who there has ever been". He went on to declare: "It's just ridiculously good - so much that there's scarcely any point in picking out moments because there was an iconic sequence every couple of seconds." In particular he praised Father Octavian's death scene, noting how "despair creeps over Matt Smith's face as he realises he is going to have to leave him to die; Octavian's final speech weeps with honour and elegance". IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
's Matt Wales gave the episode a 10 out of 10 rating, saying it was "packed with huge, iconic moments" and stated, "by the end of it, we were left with more questions than answers and a far better sense of Moffat's meticulous planning".
Gavin Fuller, writing for The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
s website, described the episode as "a rollercoaster ride of thrills and spills". He praised the forest scenes, saying they were "easily the highlight of the episode, taking in a whole range of emotions as the nature and scale of the threat facing the Doctor, Amy, River and the clerics shifted as the episode progressed." However he expressed uncertainty over Amy's "attempted seduction of the Doctor", claiming that it "did seem out of keeping with the usual tone of the series", and that "Given the number of young children who watch, it may not have been the most appropriate of scenes to screen".
Patrick Mulkern, writing for the Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
, gave the episode a positive review, describing it and its predecessor "The Time of Angels" as "two episodes of Who that deserve 10 out of 10 in anybody's scorebook", although he felt that of the two "The Time of Angels" was "marginally more dazzling", as he found the Angels in that episode more "macabre", but he still thought that "Flesh and Stone" "bombards us with shudders and tension". He also stated that he was "much amused by Amy's amorous antics at the end".
Steven Cooper of Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
called it "an exciting, action-packed roller coaster" and praised director Adam Smith's "top-notch visuals" as well of the performances of Smith, Gillan, and Kingston. He noted the difference between Moffat's more obvious story arc as opposed to others in the revived series, believing it to be possibly a "long-overdue innovation" for the show. Though he praised the final defeat of the Angels for making use of what the viewer had forgotten, he thought that being able to see the Angels moving was "creepy and well-done", but made them "much less original and interesting" and the reason behind it weak, considering that the scene had "no significance at all" and was just to fill up time. SFX Magazine Dave Golder agreed, callling the scene "very creepy" and the Angels moving "effective", but feeling that "these once great monsters come across a bit wussy and stupid". He also thought that it did not live up the "brilliant first part", feeling "a bit one-note" and lacking "a really good jawdropping revelation". However, he thought it was "a solid, exciting, pulse-pounding 45 minutes" that was "tense, action-packed, and stuffed with memorable one-liners and touching character moments", particularly praising Amy's countdown and Octavian's death, and gave the episode four out of five stars.
The Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
claimed that the seduction scene led to complaints from some viewers who accused the BBC of trying to "'sex up' the show to attract more adult viewers." The article quotes a representative from pressure group Mediawatch-uk
Mediawatch-uk
Mediawatch-uk, formerly known as the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, is a pressure group in the United Kingdom, which campaigns against the publication and broadcast of media content that it views as harmful and offensive, such as violence, profanity, sex, homosexuality and...
and an anonymous contributor to an internet message board. A BBC spokesman confirmed they had received 43 complaints of the scene out of the millions who watched the episode.