How Doctor Who: “The Angels Take Manhattan” Should Have Ended

WARNING! SPOILERS for Doctor Who Series 7 follow!
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Seriously. Spoilers ahoy!
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So, a few weeks ago, we said “Goodbye!” to Amy and Rory, the Ponds. We knew it was coming; Steven Moffat had warned us that the end would be heartbreaking. He said it would be an episode full of sadness and tears.

That’s not what we got. Instead, “The Angels Take Manhattan” gave us an episode in which the Ponds live their lives out in New York from the 1930’s, with the Doctor unable to see them ever again because of a paradox or timestream crossing or “temporal no-fly zone” (thanks to Michael Wilson for that phrase) or something.

Wait, what?

So… the Doctor can’t take the TARDIS back to 1938 New York (because of the Paradox^TM), so he pleads with Amy not to go after Rory, for he won’t see them ever again if she does. However, because she uses a vortex manipulator, River Song can go back to see the Ponds. That leads one to believe it’s the TARDIS that can’t land in that particular point in spacetime, or else the Doctor would just use a vortex manipulator himself. It also absolves Amy and Rory from being the issue; if it were them, River wouldn’t be able to go back, either. So, it must be the TARDIS that’s the problem.

Sorry, I call shenanigans. Why couldn’t the Doctor take the TARDIS to New Jersey and ride a bike across the river? Or, why couldn’t he skip the 30’s altogether and visit them in some other time period, say 1948 or even 1952? Or why can’t Amy and Rory move to the opposite coast, as far away from the paradox as possible, or — as Michael suggested — have them take a boat back to England? (Personally, I’d think it’d be easier for them to start a new life posing as immigrants from England. It would be easier for immigrants to have no birth records than UK residents to have no birth records, but that’s not relevant to this discussion.)

Oh, wait, I know why the Ponds can’t leave. They’re prisoners of the Angels, so they’re stuck in that apartment building.

Wait, no. Amy wrote an epilogue to the Melody Malone book which specifically says she and Rory lived happy lives. If they were prisoners of the angels, would they be happy? No. So, it’s not the Angels keeping them there.

Look, we can argue back and forth about this, but it boils down to this: the reason Amy and Rory are stuck in New York without the Doctor is because Steven Moffat wanted a grand exit for them that was also heartbreaking. So he writes dialogue in which the Doctor says he’ll never see the Ponds again. This horribly written line of dialogue tries to wring pathos out of a nonsensical situation, and all it does is fail miserably. Once again, a grand Moffat story arc builds to a huge conclusion that falls flat and leaves the viewer trying to make sense out of an ending that generates more plot-holes the closer you look at it. (See the ending of Series 5, for example.)

I love Steven Moffat, and overall I love his take on the Doctor. His David Tennant episodes were brilliant — see “The Girl in the Fireplace” and the original River Song stories — and Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor has been enjoyable. But that doesn’t mean Moffat’s perfect. “The Angels Take Manhattan” is the latest disappointment, because it could have been a great episode if not for that whole paradox foolery.

So how could have the episode ended? Well, I’ve got an idea or two….

1) Don’t have the TARDIS be the reason the Doctor can’t visit New York. Have the Doctor himself be the reason for the paradox. Say that if he is in their proximity again, timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly-he’s-a-Time-Lord-massive-chrono-energy will cause Bad Things.

Okay, that is almost as nonsensical as what we have, but at least it’s moving in the right direction. If the Doctor himself would cause the timeline to go BOOM!, that’s a valid reason for him to not see them again.

2) Explain that if Amy and Rory try to leave via the paradox method again, it will cause the timeline to weaken. Add in a line about the Angels will keep trying to bring them back to 1938 if they escape (he did say that they’d pursue Rory, right?), and they’ll decide it’s just safer for them to stay in New York. Why run from the inevitable if you can make an attempt at a happier life?

That ending still has some weak points, but it’s better. At least it’s a step towards a valid reason.

3) Have Rory be whisked away by the Angel, but for some reason, Amy can’t follow. In a moment of pure anger, combined with sadness over losing the love her life, Amy leaves the Doctor because he caused this. She would truly hate the Doctor for losing Rory, and the Doctor could not help but be emotionally crippled by the great pain he caused to one of his closest friends. Talk about emotional endings — hatred, anger, resentment. This would haunt the Doctor for the rest of his days.

Now that would have taken guts to do this. Had it happened that way, I would have applauded Steven Moffat for his courage. However, it could be too much of a downer. So, how about…

4) Don’t do this idiotic ending at all. Have Amy and Rory choose to leave the Doctor on their own accord. The 5-part mini-series “Pond Life” and all of Series 7 had references to them needing to choose between Real Life and Doctor Life. In the previous episode, they chose Doctor Life, but imagine how sad it would be if after almost getting killed once again, the Ponds realized that they can’t be with the Doctor anymore. They want their lives, and so they must leave. You have true emotional highs and lows here, and it’s still sad but happy as well.

See? Simple. Make it their choice to leave.

Now, last week, BBC released a video showing an unfilmed coda to the episode. You can view it below. I will say — had this actually been filmed and aired, that would have gotten some tears out of me when watching the show. Those four minutes made me misty-eyed in a way that the entire full episode didn’t.

[youtube id=XWU6XL9xI4k]

See? Now that at least has some emotional weight to it.