From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated   
   From Address: arromdee@rahul.net (Ken Arromdee)   
   Subject: Angels take Manhattan plot holes   
      
   I wrote this just after seeing the episode, and before reading any Usenet   
   messages or other messages on the subject:   
      
   -- Exactly what do the Angels gain by sending someone to the past and keeping   
   them locked up?  They gain energy by sending someone to the past.  Keeping them   
   locked up only does any good if they send them to the past again a second time   
   once they lived the decades back up to the present.   
   -- You can't go back to 1938?  What?  First of all, you can always go back to   
   1937 and wait.  Second, the Doctor has clearly been able to go back to that   
   general time period before without noticing there was a big section of 1938   
   that was off limits.  Third, if you just can't go to 1938 Manhattan but can go   
   somewhere else, travel to England and take a boat.   
   -- Since when can a human being hurt an Angel?  That made nonsense out of past   
   appearances, particularly Flesh and Stone where a mook is caught by an Angel;   
   if you can hurt Angels, why couldn't he escape?  And you'd think that nothing   
   a 1938 human can do would beat shooting one with a ray gun or a missile, so   
   people should have been destroying them right and left in previous appearances.   
   -- Regeneration energy to fix River Song?  What?  Really, that was totally out   
   of left field (and raises the question of why the Doctor never did that to   
   help anyone else, including people who were actually dying).   
   -- Also, exactly why couldn't they break the Angel's wrist?  It was never clear   
   whether they weren't willing or weren't able, but I see no reason for either   
   one; it was self-defense, and we've just established in the *same scene* that   
   people can hurt Angels.   
   -- The book was written by River Song.  River Song is, you know, there to talk   
   to.  There is no reason to expect bad things from the book to come true--just   
   tell River "okay, when you get to this part, write some lies in the book".   
   -- You don't need to kill Rory to cause a paradox.  Cut off one of his   
   fingertips.  Painful but it beats death.  If you don't have the tools for that,   
   then let him get taken, then go back and rescue him, then knock him out, *then*   
   cut off one of his fingertips.   
   -- The Statue of Liberty being an Angel makes no sense.  First of all, everyone   
   knows that it was built.  It's not like a random statue in the street whose   
   history nobody knows.  Second, we were reminded *in the same episode* that New   
   York is the city which never sleeps--there's always going to be someone looking   
   at it.   
   -- Why in the world does the one Angel left attack only Rory, and then Amy,   
   but doesn't even try to do anything to the Doctor or River?  (If you say that   
   they were looking at it, remember that everyone had to look away for it to   
   attack even one person.)  For that matter, why is there even one Angel left   
   at all (especially in walking distance)?   
   -- It wasn't clear whether the Doctor couldn't go back to get Amy and Rory   
   because saving them would cause a paradox or because he can't even visit the   
   time period.   
   1) If he can't even visit the time period, see previous remarks about 1938, but   
   worse.  Not being able to visit a decades-long period that begins in 1938 would   
   even retroactively erase Totter's Lane in 1963.  (Did it retroactively   
   erase The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe?  If not, go to England in   
   Christmas 1938, and take a boat.)   
   2) If he can't save them because saving them causes a paradox, the only   
   thing we actually know about what happened to them is the book and the   
   tombstone.  Both of those could easily be faked (and again, tell River to write   
   some lies in the book.)  Furthermore, Amy getting taken already changed   
   things--   
   it added a name to the tombstone.  Removing a name from the tombstone is no   
   more causing a paradox than adding one.  And if saving them causes a paradox,   
   that wouldn't prevent *visiting* them, or even visiting them and taking them   
   on Tardis trips, as long as he returned them to the same time period again.   
   -- We've established that the future has great medical technology; that should   
   mean that there should be no problem with 1) infertility, or 2) companions   
   aging.  (How many years did Cassandra live before becoming a piece of skin?)   
      
   And by the way, what's this Steven Moffat has about 1938?  There are *three*   
   stories he wrote that take place in that year, at least partly.   
   --    
          Ken Arromdee / arromdee_AT_rahul.net / http://www.rahul.net/arromdee   
      
   Obi-wan Kenobi: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."   
   Yoda: "Do or do not.  There is no 'try'."   
      
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