(Photo: BBC America) 
The story so far: Time has been unleashed and most of the universe is being eaten by space fire. A Weeping Angel has taken the helm of the TARDIS and is steering it to an unknown destination, much to the horror of the Doctor and her companions.
“Village of the Angels” is a story steeped in the creepiness of Doctor Who. Some stories are about whooshy space stuff, some are about the failings of humanity, but this is a story in which the bucolic English villages of the mythic past (as in the classic Third Doctor tale “The Daemons”) are plagued by living statues who can steal your future. Which is about as much ick as a family audience should be expected to bear. 
Here are a few things to keep in mind, the next time you watch:
1. This is the only script in the entire season that wasn’t solely written by Chris Chibnall. And it’s only the second script Maxine Alderton has (co)written for Doctor Who. It’s already pretty clear that her speciality is historical gothic horror. Her previous script was the story that established the link between Frankenstein and the Cybermen – “The Haunting of Villa Diodati."
2. One of the things this story does to extend the canon of the Weeping Angels is show what happens when they die. Previously, they have been quantum-locked (“Blink”), starved, eaten by a crack in the fabric of space-time (“The Time of Angels”/”Flesh and Stone”) and poisoned by paradox (“The Angels Take Manhattan”).
3. Also, we’ve now seen two different accounts of what happens when an Angel touches a human more than once. In Medderton, Gerald and Jean crumble to stone after being touched a second time, whereas in “The Angels Take Manhattan,” Rory Williams was transferred across New York, then sent to Winter Quay, then sent back in time again, and he was physically fine. Fans have wondered whether it’s down to the Angel in question as to who crumbles and who disappears.
4. There’s a lovely moment in this official behind the scenes video in which Jamie Magnus Stone explains how he managed to get some of the Angels to move in real time, rather than shifting them using film edits. His contribution is around the three-minute mark, but be warned, once you realize they’re human from the waist down — or at least their performers are — it might affect the creepiness somewhat:

5. Blake Harrison’s appearance as Namaca isn’t the first crossover between the worlds of Doctor Who and The Inbetweeners. Fellow ‘Tweener James Buckley (who played Jay) was the inept handyman Nevi in “Orphan 55,” while Joe Thomas (Simon) gave voice to Hubert in the Big Finish audio adventure “Castle of Fear” and Theo in “Situation Vacant.”
Outside of the show’s four lead actors, Inbetweeners star Emily Atack (Charlotte) appeared as Hetty Warner in two Big Finish stories in "The Churchill Years: Volume One," and of course, Greg Davies (form tutor Mr Gilbert) was the bumptious King Hydroflax in “The Husbands of River Song.”
6. As well as revisiting some of her former catchphrases like “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow” and “when I say run, run,” the Thirteenth Doctor has taken to saying “contact” when securing a telepathic link with someone. This is a throwback to the Third Doctor’s era, most particularly the first multi-Doctor story “The Three Doctors.” When the Third Doctor meets his Second incarnation, he brings his previous self up-to-date with events with a kind if telepathic conference, which is initiated by both men saying “contact.”
7. The Doctor also makes good use of the fine British phrase “have a nosey,” which means to take a look around things that shouldn’t really concern you. A Whovian scholar could mount a pretty decent argument that the Doctor’s entire modus operandi is essentially having a nosey.
8. Fans of classic Who will have spotted that Kevin McNally, who does such a wonderful job playing Professor Eustacius Jericho, is actually making a return journey to the Whoniverse. He had previously played Hugo in the Sixth Doctor’s first story “The Twin Dilemma,” as well as making several appearances in Big Finish audio dramas.

9. Let’s look at the historical context behind this bravura statement by Professor Jericho: “I’ve seen many things beyond my comprehension, Doctor. I was one of the first British soldiers into Belsen at the end of the war. If you think a few stone statues will destroy my equilibrium you are mistaken.”
The concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen was set up in 1943, in what is now Northern Saxony, Germany. It was originally created as a holding camp for prisoners of war in the early 1940s but expanded to become a concentration camp over the last two years of the war. Inmates suffered overcrowding, lack of food supplies and terrible sanitation, leading to outbreaks of typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever and dysentery and ultimately the deaths of around 70,000 people over four years that the camp was operational.
The British troops who liberated the camp on April 15, 1945 — presumably the day Jericho was there too — discovered a camp of around 60,000 people living in horrific conditions, amid the bodies of around 13,000 people who had already died but had been left unburied.
10. To end on a lighter note, Professor Jericho notes, on seeing the Doctor’s psychic paper, that she is from the Institute of Psychic Investigation. This was the name of a real organization – fully named the International Institute of Psychic Investigation – formed in London in January 1939. The organization came about as the result of a merger between the British College of Psychic Science and the International Institute for Psychical Research.
The aim of the institute was to use the scientific method to thoroughly investigate paranormal activities, much as Jericho is doing here. The spooky thing is, the International Institute of Psychic Investigation folded in 1947, with its library of research having been dispersed or lost in the air raids of the London Blitz. The equivalent organization for 1967 will have been the College of Psychic Science, which means the Doctor’s psychic paper has transmitted the ghost of a ghost-hunting organization. Brrr!
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