Saturday 23 June 2018

FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES - QUICK FIXES 6: WEEPING ANGELS STUFF

Since we just finished up with a Probable History of Weeping Angels (http://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/06/chronologies-and-timelines-brief.html), I figured we should stay in this thematic vein and look at a few problems that have occurred in the stories I just arranged in chronological order. Let's see if we can sort a few things out: 


HOW DOES AMY GET PAST THE ANGELS IN FLESH AND STONE IF HER EYES ARE CLOSED?    

As we reach the latter part of Flesh and Stone, Amy finds herself in a serious predicament. The energy of the Crack in Time that was found aboard the Byzantium is expanding. She must run from it or it will engulf her and she'll be erased from time. Unfortunately, because of something the Angels did to her, she cannot open her eyes. The Doctor manages to jury-rig a homing device for her and she stumbles through the Byzantium's Infrastructure Forest trying to get back to the Doctor and River. 

It's a moment of great tension that then goes a bit weird. To heighten the suspense, Amy runs into a group of Weeping Angels. They think that she's looking at her even though her eyes are closed and they become quantum locked. She must get past them without letting them know her eyes are closed. 

Since when do Angels work this way? Shouldn't they be able to tell that Amy's eyes are closed? 

"They're scared." is the cryptic explanation that the Doctor offers. Really?! That's all you can tell us?! There's got to be more to it than that.

And I'm going to try to come up with something: 

Weeping Angels, more than likely, have a very different perception threshold than we do. They probably still see on a regular visual spectrum but they can also see time energy in some way. After all, they do feast on it so they would need a way to detect it. More than likely, they sense it telepathically. But it might also register visually for them, too. 

So, with all kinds of extra time energy surging out of the Crack, it's confusing their senses. They can't actually see properly. Panic and fear are dominating their instincts as they try to make their way to safety. So the Doctor claiming they're scared is accurate.

Partially blind, they still sense Amy in their midst as they come upon her. They can't truly tell if she's looking at them because they can't see well so they make a hasty assumption. They just decide she's staring at them and go into quantum lock mode. As Amy starts behaving in a way that seems to insinuate that she isn't looking at them, they start to disengage their protective stance. Again, they still can't see all that well because the Crack in Time is messing with their senses. So they don't disengage from stone mode completely. They're hesitant. 

Hesitant enough that River can get the teleporter working and pull Amy out in the nick of time.




HOW CAN THE STATUE OF LIBERTY TRAIPSE THROUGH MANHATTAN WITHOUT BEING SEEN? 

This is one that even Moff doesn't bother to offer an answer for. In The Angels Take Manhattan, we discover that the Statue of Liberty, herself, is a Weeping Angel of sorts. She visits Winter Quay on a fairly regular basis to help trap newcomers in vicious time loops to build up potential energy in their battery farm.

The Big Question, of course, is: how does a statue of that size travel from Liberty Island to Winter Quay without being seen? Surely, someone would notice Lady Liberty moving along through the streets of Manhattan. Something that big can't be missed! And if someone is seeing the Statue of Liberty then she should become quantum locked. She should never get anywhere near to her destination because people would be noticing her all the time and keeping her locked.

The answer, I think, lies in the ability certain Angels have with building up power. I think one of the principal reasons we see the one Weeping Angel displaying hitherto unseen abilities (coming through the video screen to attack Amy, causing Amy to turn into an Angel by making eye contact) in The Time of Angels is because she built up a lot of energy to accomplish the feats that she did. She's only able to snap necks for a bit afterwards cause she used up so much power to accomplish those tricks.

So the more energy an Angel stores up, the more abilities she can develop. I'm guessing a huge Angel like the Statue of Liberty has saved up all kinds of power. This is probably why she has grown to such enormous size. Which means, of course, that she has extra skills that regular Angels don't have.

One of those skills might be a temporary cloaking ability of some sort. I'm more inclined to believe that she can exhibit huge bursts of speed (even regular Angels move quite fast) for limited periods of time that can enable her to move past people without being noticed. We still hear the occasional loud footstep but we don't actually perceive her. Only when she wants to legitimately attack someone does she need to slow down and/or de-cloak. At that point, the regular rules apply. If someone sees her, she quantum locks. But when she's not in attack mode, Lady Liberty can move unseen for short periods of time.

Even when she's actually on Liberty Island, she needs only a nano-second of not being noticed to slip into stealth mode and head out to Winter Quay. Once at the Battery Farm, she stops and can be seen by anyone looking in her direction. Again, if she can just get a split second of being unnoticed, she can return to Liberty Island.

It would have been nice if we had gotten such an explanation right in the episode. But, alas, sometimes we fans must just work this out for ourselves. 



WHY CAN'T THE DOCTOR JUST GO MEET AMY AND RORY IN OMAHA? 

Many fans felt the tragic ending of Angels Take Manhattan wasn't really so tragic. They were sure that they had found a simple solution for the Doctor to be able to see Amy and Rory again. He just needed to arrange to meet them at some place outside of New York. Then all the time distortion and suchlike that was making Manhattan so impenetrable during the 1930s wouldn't be in the way, anymore. 

I suggest that this problem isn't something geographical. But, more specifically, temporal. Rory and Amy created a huge paradox within the temporal mess the Angels had made of Manhattan Island in the 30s. They had only just managed to escape it by returning to the TARDIS in 2012. If they got sent back to that period then the paradox they had made during their last visit would cause a sort of time field around them that would make it impossible for the TARDIS to penetrate. Or even someone as time sensitive as the Doctor to approach. He would just be repelled by the time field. Or might become deathly ill from it. Or something like that.

So, no matter where Amy and Rory go, this time field follows them and makes them unapproachable for time travelers. It's almost like a time lock of some sort that stays with them til the end of their lives. That's why the Doctor can never see them again.



Hope my explanations are satisfactory. I know some of the mis-steps Angels Take Manhattan made irritate fans to this day. Maybe this will help make sense of things....



A few other Quick Fixes: 

Five: 
http://robtymec.blogspot.com/2017/10/fixing-continuity-glitches-quick-fixes-5.html

Four: 
http://robtymec.blogspot.com/2017/05/fixing-continuity-glitches-quick-fixes.html

Two: 
http://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/02/fixing-continuity-glitches-quick-fixes-2.html

I did specify "a few" so I won't bother listing all of them. If you want to read them all, they're out there. Have a look around....


  







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