A selection of fascinating details from the final days of the Ponds.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00The thing that people tend to forget about Doctor Who is its absolute ability to give pain. Just
00:05pain. With some slight trepidation, I'm Sean Farrig for WhoCulture, and here are 20 things
00:11you didn't know about The Angels Take Manhattan. 20. The Ponds Wanted a Permanent Goodbye
00:16Aside from THAT Statue of Liberty reveal, The Angels Take Manhattan is most famous for being
00:21the last regular appearance of Amy and Rory Pond. The Eleventh Doctor's first friends were snatched
00:26from the jaws of safety by a rogue angel and cast backwards in time forevermore, writing them out of
00:31the show in a tragic and permanent fashion, which is exactly what the actors wanted. Karen Gillan
00:36and Arthur Darvill requested that Amy and Rory be removed for good, as they didn't want their
00:40demise to be undercut by recurring cameos like certain other companions. Gillan did go back on
00:47her word when she appeared briefly at the end of Matt Smith's final episode, but that cameo was
00:52both incredibly short and entirely fitting, considering Amy's connection to the Raggedy Man.
00:56Darvill, meanwhile, hasn't been seen in an episode of Doctor Who since departing. 19. It Was Originally
01:01the Daleks It's difficult to imagine it being any other way, but the Weeping Angels were not
01:06the original villains of this story. Initially, it was going to be the Daleks. Writer and showrunner
01:10Stephen Moffat felt that such a devastating blow to the Doctor should be dealt by his oldest enemies,
01:15adding more heat to their eons-long feud. However, he was cautious about returning the Daleks to New
01:20York, as this had already been done, relatively recently, in Daleks in Manhattan, Evolution of the
01:25Daleks. Feeling that the Angels were a better fit for this sombre, noir setting, they were drafted
01:30in instead, and the Sons of Skaro were moved to the series' premiere, Asylum of the Daleks. The
01:36Daleks would probably have made for a much more predictable ending for the Pons, so we're glad
01:40it wasn't them. 18. Middle Name Mayhem
01:42Whovians must have been delighted when they finally learned Rory's middle name in The Angels
01:47Take Manhattan, were it not for the small fact that he had to die for them to do so. On Rory's
01:52tombstone at the end of the episode, the text reads, In loving memory, Rory Arthur Williams,
01:57aged 82. It took us until his final episode to learn that his middle name is Arthur. Poor Rory.
02:02But of course, this is the same as actor Arthur Darvill's first name, but it could also be a nod
02:07to Mark Williams, who played Rory's dad, Brian, in his role of Arthur Weasley in the Harry Potter
02:12movies. Meanwhile, Amy's inscription gets zero mention of a middle name, despite the fact that
02:17it was revealed to be Jessica way back in her second episode, The Beast Below. Why no middle
02:21name for Amy, who knows? Damn, Gravestone, double standards. 17. To Kill or Not to Kill
02:26Booting off a companion can't be an easy job for any showrunner, even if Russell T. Davis did it
02:31basically any chance he got. When the time came for Moffat to say goodbye to Amy and Rory, the
02:35weight of this decision really affected him. He told Radio Times in 2012 that he would back and
02:40forth several times over the couple's fate. How and why would they leave, and would they live or
02:45die? I wrote and rewrote. I had a completely different ending and threw it away. So many times
02:50over those mad few days, the fate of the Ponds changed. Alive, dead, alive, dead. Nothing felt
02:55right. Nothing felt inevitable. In the end, he went for a halfway house. The couple were dead
03:00in the timeline of the show, but got to live out full lives in the past. It makes you wonder what
03:04the ending he threw away was like. Can't have been any sadder, surely. 16. Grail's Grim Alternate
03:09Fate When Amy and the Doctor first find River and Rory in the past, they've been captured by
03:14Julius Grail, an avid collector of artifacts. While his fate was left ambiguous in the final
03:19cut, there were initially plans to show what happened to him, and they weren't very nice.
03:23One early draft had him banished back to a workshop, where he was forced to make the very
03:27items he had spent his life collecting. A second idea was to show him being sent to the past and
03:31then have him turn up in one of his own paintings. This painting would have revealed that the angels
03:35had sent him back to the Renaissance, where he was enslaved. The second idea was filmed,
03:39but was dropped during editing. 15. The Jump was filmed first
03:42It's no secret that TV shows and movies aren't usually filmed in story order. Sometimes,
03:47moments towards the end are among the first things captured. This is precisely what happened with The
03:52Angels Take Manhattan. The Pons think they've saved themselves when they jump off Winter Key,
03:57killing Rory twice in one night and creating a paradox that defeats the angels. The Jump was
04:01filmed on the 23rd of March 2012, the very first day of recording for The Angels Take Manhattan.
04:06Meanwhile, the climactic graveyard sequence was filmed a few weeks later on the 19th of April
04:112012, making that a very sad day in Doctor Who history indeed. 14. Cherub Inspiration
04:16The Angels Take Manhattan introduced infant versions of the stone assassins,
04:22until they sent you back to the Middle Ages. This type of angel didn't exist until director Nick
04:27Herrin went on a location scouting trip to New York. Herrin took pictures of various landmarks
04:32of the city, including the Bethsaida Fountain in Central Park, which has a huge angel statue as
04:37its centrepiece, and is surrounded by smaller cherub statues. When studying this photograph
04:42back in the UK, Moffat came up with the idea of a cherub variant of the Weeking Angels,
04:46as he felt their childlike design made them incredibly creepy. And you know what,
04:50he was bang on the money for that one. 13. Karen Gillan Read The Afterword
04:54The Angels Take Manhattan is bookended by the Doctor reading a novel written by River Song,
04:59which details the events of the episode before and after they happen. At the end,
05:03the Doctor reads the last page of the book, which turns out to be a special message written by Amy
05:08to let him know that she and Rory lived a good life and still loved him always and forever.
05:12It's a heavy scene, one of the last bits of communication between the girl who waited
05:16and her raggedy man, so Gillan felt it was important that they did as much as possible
05:20to get it right. This resulted in Gillan sitting just off screen, reading the letter aloud to
05:25Smith to get as much emotion as possible out of his performance. Amy and the Doctor,
05:30friends till the very end. 12. The Letter Scene's Crazy Filming Conditions
05:34Speaking of this scene, it was way more complicated to film than you'd think it would be. For this
05:39tearful farewell, Smith was afforded not three takes, not two, but one. One take. This is because
05:46it was shot on location in Central Park, where hundreds of people had gathered to watch it being
05:51filmed. Imagine the stress the crew must have felt, it can't have been easy. Smith was given
05:55a different page of the book to hold in case somebody photographed the real one, and Gillan
05:59was forced to read her lines incredibly quietly in case she was recorded. Despite all this pressure,
06:04Smith pulled it off, which is a testament to just how blummin' good of an actor the man really is.
06:0811. It Was Almost Wibbly-Wobblier The Angels' first episode, Blink,
06:13gave the world one of the ultimate Doctor Who memes in the form of Ten's legendary
06:17wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey speech, so it makes sense that such mind-bending concepts nearly
06:23made a return in one of the Angels' most prominent appearances. Plans for the Angels' take Manhattan
06:28originally featured a much more complex depiction of their time-manipulation powers. Audiences would
06:33have seen even more versions of Rory running about the Winter Quay, as well as different
06:38incarnations of Sam Garner, the detective from the Cold Open. Additionally, the girl Garner sees in
06:43the window was to have been staring at an older, future version of herself. Eventually, it was
06:49decided to simplify things a bit, but this was probably for the best.
06:5210. An Important Last-Minute Edition The final recording for the Angels' take
06:56Manhattan was supposed to be a few pickup shots on the 30th of April 2012, but at the last minute,
07:01an extra day of filming was penciled in for the 28th of June. It was decided that the Doctor needed
07:05to say why he couldn't take the TARDIS back to 1938 New York, so lines were written explaining
07:11how the timelines were all scrambled. This pickup was filmed at Box Cemetery in Llanelli, Wales,
07:16where the rest of the graveyard scene was shot. It was directed by Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and
07:20A Town Called Mercy's Saul Metzstein, as the Angels' take Manhattan director Nick Herron
07:25was unavailable. It's a good job these lines were added, otherwise fans would have been even more
07:29confused why the Doctor couldn't go back and rescue the Ponds all over again.
07:349. Pond River Publishing Spoiler alert, but everybody knows that River Song's real name
07:39is Melody Pond, and there's a subtle reference to both these monikers in the Angels' take Manhattan.
07:44The book that starts this whole mess, Melody Malone, Private Detective in Old New York Town,
07:49is written by River and published by Amy. As a result, the name of the publishing company
07:54is Pond River Publishing, a neat little nod to both mother and daughter. This detail isn't
07:58visible in the episode, but it was confirmed by some production artwork. The actual text
08:02inside the book was taken from a real novel called The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett.
08:07Hammett was a famous detective writer in the 20s and 30s and was responsible for penning The
08:10Maltese Falcon, the film version of which heavily inspired the Angels' take Manhattan's tone and
08:16setting. 8. A Story of Lasts
08:18Amy and Rory weren't the only ones saying goodbye in this episode. It was also the final appearance
08:23of the title sequence that had been used from The Eleven Doctor's first outing, with the next
08:27episode, the 2012 Christmas special The Snowmen, introducing a redesign. The Angels' take Manhattan
08:32is also the last time we saw Eleven's tweed jacket and his first TARDIS console room,
08:37both of which were also replaced in The Snowmen. The loss of the Ponds truly was the end of an
08:42era. 7. The Epilogue That Almost Never Was
08:45In The Power of Three, Rory's dad Brian makes the Doctor promise that he'll bring his son and
08:50daughter-in-law back safely. The Time Lord agrees, only to betray that trust one adventure later.
08:55Poor Brian had his entire world turned upside down with seemingly no explanation. That is,
09:00until you watch P.S. Premiering online shortly after The Angels' take Manhattan's broadcast,
09:06P.S. is a short animated scene of Brian receiving a letter from Amy and Rory delivered by their
09:11adopted son. This sequence, which was written by Chris Chibnall, was supposed to be filmed in live
09:16action, but Brian's actor Mark Williams was unavailable for the shoot. Rather than scrapping
09:20it entirely, the story birds were animated and Arthur Darville was brought in to narrate,
09:24resulting in a heartfelt epilogue to the Ponds' journey. 6. It's Fans' Favourite Episode of Series
09:307 Series 7 was a strange time for Doctor Who, as it was split into two distinctive parts,
09:35one with the Ponds and one without. There were some great episodes either side of the divide,
09:39but the one that Whovians thought was the best of the bunch was, you guessed it, The Angels'
09:43take Manhattan. On IMDb, the episode is the joint highest ranked along with The Name of the Doctor,
09:49both of which scored 9 out of 10. Though, if you count the specials as part of the series,
09:53The Day of the Doctor tops them both with 9.3 out of 10. While the contenders for the top spot were
09:58Asylum of the Daleks at 8.5, The Bells of St. John at 7.8 and Hyde at 7.6. 5. Brightwell & Hyman
10:06No, Brightwell & Hyman is not a firm of lawyers or estate agents, but rather the name of a company
10:11that makes matches. Rory uses a box of Brightwell & Hyman matches to fend off the cherub statues,
10:16but what you almost certainly didn't know is that this brand would appear in Doctor Who again.
10:21A few episodes later in The Crimson Horror, a poster can be seen in the background of a shot
10:26advertising Brightwell & Hyman quality matches. This makes sense seeing as how the setting of
10:30Sweetville centres around a giant match factory. Brightwell & Hyman is never once spoken on screen,
10:35making this quite possibly one of the most obscure connections in the show.
10:394. Why the Doctor Can't Visit the Ponds One of the biggest bugbears fans have with
10:44The Angels Take Manhattan is that, in theory, the Doctor could just hop in the TARDIS,
10:47choose a random city in the past and tell the Ponds to meet him there. But unfortunately for
10:51a Fez-loving hero, he's played fast and loose with the rules of time and Amy and Rory's history
10:56was too wibbly-wobbly to interfere with. At least, that's the explanation offered by Stephen Moffat,
11:01who said he can't interfere. In normal circumstances, he might have gone back and
11:05said, look, we'll just put a headstone up and you'll write the book. But there is so much
11:08scar tissue and the number of paradoxes that have already been inflicted on that nexus of timelines
11:13that will rip apart if you try and do one more thing. He has to leave it alone. Considering how
11:17often Doctor interferes with those timelines and fixed points, it's an explanation that's
11:21unlikely to satisfy many fans. But over a decade later, it's the only explanation we're ever gonna
11:25get. 3. It Has a Sequel
11:27During the COVID-19 pandemic, Whovians around the world came together to watch old episodes
11:32of the show. To coincide with a screening of The Doctor's Wife, a short film was produced called
11:37Rory's Story. Written by Neil Gaiman, it featured Mr. Pond talking to his soon-to-be-adopted son
11:42Anthony from 1946. He's filming himself on a smartphone he'd carried from the future,
11:47just don't worry about how he might have charged it, okay? Rory recounts several of his and Amy's
11:51adventures, including how they ended up in the past, before his wife calls for him to come help
11:55paint the baby's room. It was lovely to check in on the Ponds after so many years away, especially
12:00during those gloomy pandemic times. 2. Yowza
12:03The Doctor has said and done many unfashionable things over the years, but uttering the word
12:08Yowza ranks up there with the cringiest. Eleven says it while reading Melody Malone,
12:12prompting Amy to call out his choice of words. She shouldn't have been too surprised, though,
12:16as he'd actually said it before. In The Almost People, when looking for an escape route,
12:20the Doctor exclaims Yowza when he finds one, much to Amy's confusion. Then, in The Name of
12:25the Doctor, he says it again after avoiding the Great Intelligence's minions, the Whispermen.
12:30They've never said it since, though. Probably realised how uncool it was.
12:321. Amy's Ending Was Years in the Making
12:35In December 2011, it was announced that Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill were exiting Doctor
12:40Who, nearly an entire year before it actually happened. Moffat tried to throw viewers off the
12:45scent by introducing new companion Jenna Coleman early, but we all knew the inevitable was coming.
12:50Interestingly enough, Amy's swan song had actually been foretold much earlier. And by
12:54much earlier, we mean her very first episode. When a young Amelia is waiting for the Doctor
12:59to return in the eleventh hour, there's a shot of her looking up at the sky as she
13:03hears the sound of the TARDIS. This seems a bit random at the time, as it was established that
13:07the Doctor never came back for her. And, in fact, that was an important part of Amy's character.
13:13She was the girl who waited, after all. In The Angels Take Manhattan, however, we learn that
13:17the Doctor did eventually go back for her, but only after Amy asks him to in her final letter.
13:23This is something Moffat had been planning to reveal from day one, as he revealed to the press
13:27before The Angels Take Manhattan debuted. After showing Amelia Pond in the garden as a young girl
13:32in the eleventh hour, the final shot in The Angels Take Manhattan is a punchline I've been
13:37waiting to tell for two and a half years. One of the great things about The Eleventh Doctor's era
13:41is that it's one giant story arc from the first episode to the last. This payoff, in particular,
13:46was incredibly emotional for fans who'd stuck with Amy's journey from that very first shot
13:51of her lonely old house. That's everything for our list, folks. What did you think of this episode,
13:55and what did you think of this list? Let us know in the comments below. Please don't forget to
13:59follow us over on Twitter at WhoCulture, we're on Instagram at WhoCulture as well,
14:02and we're also on TikTok. Thank you so much for your ongoing support, you are wonderful,
14:07you are brilliant, look after yourselves, and above all else until I'm talking to you again,
14:10keep things Wibbly Wobbly.