
After three weeks of episodes that have divided fandom in the extreme, Steven Moffat has finally delivered the kind of story we were expecting from him since he was named as Russell T Davies' replacement.
In a word,
The Time Of Angels was fantastic. If only all
Doctor Who were this good there would be no need for any other programmes on television!
Through some very clever timey-whimey shenanigans River Song (Alex Kingston) - last seen in
Forest Of The Dead - gets The Doctor to rescue her from starship Byzantium just before it crashes.
She is working with Bishop Octavian (Iain Glen), and his small band of 51st Century fighting priests, to retrieve the contents of the Byzantium's hold - the last of the Weeping Angels, as seen in
Blink.
Unfortunately, the crashed ship has buried itself in a six-level underground labyrinth - a 'Maze Of The Dead' - and The Doctor and his party have to try and recover the Angel.
Yes, The Doctor is going on an old school
Dungeons & Dragons expedition with a party of clerics. I don't think I could have been deeper in geek Nirvana if I'd tried.
Along the way we learn a lot more about the nature of Weeping Angels and the people who built the catacombs (
the Aplan's had two heads, you know), and Amy shows us her chutzpah both by facing down the Angel and challenging The Doctor and River about the nature of their future relationship.
While there are echoes of
Silence In The Library in the Angels method of communicating with The Doctor, it doesn't really matter as this tense, thrilling tale is almost like a 'Steven Moffat Greatest Hits' album anyway, but ramped up to 11.
Everything about this episode - the first of a two-parter - is perfect, making
The Time Of Angels one of the strongest since the show returned in 2005... and possibly in the show's lengthy history.
We've got a pre-credit sequence that plays with the essence of time travel, great villains, cryptic books, underground expeditions, a creepy sequence straight out of a Japanese horror movie, crashed spaceships, the enigma that is River Song (
she can write Gallifreyan and fly the TARDIS better than The Doctor), The Doctor and Amy sparking off each other... we really couldn't have asked for anything more.
Let's hope part two -
Flesh And Stone - doesn't let the side down and delivers the ending that this story deserves.
My nagging doubts about Moffat and Matt Smith from the last couple of weeks have been totally dispelled and finally Amy has been given an active role in a story, rather than just hanging around in the background smoldering gorgeously.
In fact, great play is made, early on, of the fact that everyone is getting on with their allocated jobs and Amy is just on the sidelines - until matters take a terrifying turn.
Not only has Moffat delivered with the story, but Matt Smith has finally shaken over the spectre of David Tennant and, for me, made the character of The Doctor his own. Up until now I'd been afraid that he was simply making the character simply more manic than its Tenth incarnation, but now I'm starting to get a handle on his interpretation of the Gallifreyan time traveler.
Part two of this story can't come soon enough.