Most of the time, the five day moving average is my friend. Today, however, it is working against me. The good news is that after a week of being sick with a flu or virus or something, I am finally feeling mostly back to normal. The bad news is that while I was sick I also bloated up like a German sausage. Although I have lost more than five pounds in the last two days (purely from losing all the fluids my body was stockpiling), that won't show up in the moving average for a few more days. I just keep reminding myself that this has never been about weight per-se, it is about feeling better and more healthy. Temporary illness aside, I feel fantastic and my clothes have never fit better than they do right now. So, it's all good. It's just galling to see it mapped out on a graph. I'll get over it.

I also watched the second half of the army of Angels story today, and I liked it far less this time around then when it originally aired. Let's talk about that.

Flesh and Stone

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Here's the thing about this story: I would have liked it much better if the baddies were literally anything else besides Weeping Angels. When Moffat created the Angels in Blink their premise was both simple and terrifying. A race of creatures who are quantum-locked if any living thing gazes upon them, but who move like lighting when unobserved. It's a brilliant story mechanic that turns any statue into a potential fearsome predator, and it made for a brilliant hour of television. Remember that the entire crux of the plot solution in that story was that the Doctor tricked the four Angels into surrounding the TARDIS before dematerializing. leaving them all staring at each other and quantum locked forever. "The Lonely Assassins" they are called, because they can't even look at each other without turning to stone.

So now here we are with this story, where Moffat just seems to be winging it by "expanding" the Angel mythology with new rules that just don't make any sense. "Any image of an Angel becomes an Angel" the book says. So a drawing of a Weeping Angel, or a video recording, can apparently infect the viewer if looked upon for too long. Another new rule: don't look directly into their eyes, which of course Amy did in the first half of the story and winds up with the essence of an Angel infested in her visual cortex slowly taking over her mind.

Now hey, that creates a nifty sequence in which Amy must spend half of this episode with her eyes closed, because if she opens them again the Angel will finish taking over her mind and manifest physically. Which leaves Amy stuck wandering blind through a cybernetic forest running through the spine of the wrecked starship Byzantium (another nifty idea). 

But those rules make absolutely no sense, when taken in concert with Blink. Both Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale spent a significant amount of time staring directly at the Angels with no issues regarding the eyes. They both lived happily ever after.

Another thing: A great big deal is made about a major supporting character sacrificing himself and being killed by an Angel. But remember from Blink, the Angels are "...the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely. No mess, no fuss, they just zap you into the past and let you live to death." So, he's not really dying is he? I mean, sure, it sucks that he is going to lose all of his potential in the world as he knows it, and have to rebuild a live from scratch somewhere in the past, but that's not quite like dying is it?

Also another thing: "Their greatest asset is their greatest curse. They can never be seen. Loneliest creatures in the Universe." And yet, here we have a literal army of Angels, all swarming together first to pursue the Byzantium's energy source, and later to consume the time energy from the Crack in the Universe. There are multiple scenes with groups of Angels all moving together in swarms, and yet surely they would constantly see each other and become quantum locked. I mean, ok, maybe the dude in the very back of the formation might be ok, with no other Angels behind him to lock him, but they just shouldn't be able to move in numbers like that. Going back to Blink, sure, there were four of them. But they hunted separately, never in force until the last scene when they had the protection of darkness to move.

And yes, here is yet another another thing: The the supposed rule is that they become quantum locked if any living thing sees them. But then towards the climax of this story they become quantum locked because they think Amy might see them. Except she has her eyes closed. She is supposed to walk like she can see to trick them into freezing, but surely that can't be how it works. The rule isn't "unless they see themselves being seen", it's just "unless they are seen". Someone with a good set of binoculars from a mile away should be able to freeze them in place if necessary, without them ever knowing why. But here we are, a group of Angels turned to stone because Amy pretends (badly) that she can see despite her eyes being screwed shut.

Argh. The more I think about it, the more frustrated I get with the writing in this story. There are so many other great ideas mixed in here, and I can't even think about them because I am constantly distracted by Angelic Inconsistencies.

Argh.

Anyway, tomorrow will be much better. Tomorrow will have Venetian vampires. How cool is that?

STATS:

Doctor(s): Eleventh
Companion(s): Amy Pond, River Song
Episode(s): Flesh and Stone
Steps Walked: 7,553 today, 3,032,604 total
Distance Walked: 4.03 miles today, 1,581.77 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 100 today, 3,964 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 929 total
Is Anything Cool?: Still nothing cool
Weight: 255.38 lbs (five day moving average), net change -51.92 lbs