The Angels Take Manhattan ( TV story ) The Angels Take Manhattan was the fifth episode of the seventh series of " Doctor Who " produced by BBC Wales . It saw the final departure of Amy Pond and Rory Williams , and the return of River Song . It also marked the return of the Weeping Angel s , giving them their second major appearance in the Steven Moffat era of " Doctor Who " , and the third overall in the Moffat era . " The Angels Take Manhattan " was given additional closure through the complimentary webcast entitled " P . S . " , which showed the final fate of the Ponds . It also gave Brian Williams a working narrative end point . Synopsis . A simple trip to New York in 2012 goes horribly wrong when the Eleventh Doctor ' s companion , Rory Williams , is sent back to the 1930s by the Weeping Angel s . There , he finds that his daughter , River Song , is investigating the Angels , as Manhattan has become their hunting grounds . The Doctor and Amy Pond must find Rory before it is too late , but they soon find that not every point in time can be changed . And here , the Doctor must face the one thing he has been dreading — a final farewell to the Ponds . Plot . Art collector and mob boss , Julius Grayle , has hired private detective Sam Garner , but wonders if Sam believes the reason he has been hired — and that statues can move . Sam simply says he believes what he ' s told to believe , as long as he ' s paid . Grayle sends detective Garner to Winter Quay , an apartment building " where the statues live " . Once Garner leaves for the Quay , Grayle looks out his office window , and notices one of two statues standing outside his mansion has disappeared when he wasn ' t looking . When Garner arrives at Winter Quay , he notices the residents of the Quay and the surrounding apartment buildings watching his arrival with dread . A little girl sees him from the window of a building across from the Quay , mimicking weeping . He ignores her and enters the Quay , unaware as a Weeping Angel sitting on a plinth near the building awakening as he enters . Garner enters a room in Winter Quay that has his name on it , unaware of the Angels stalking him through the building . He encounters an elderly version of himself , who warns him that " they " are going to send him back in time now that he is there . Garner is then attacked by the Weeping Angels . He manages to avoid them , as something large is heard approaching Winter Quay from outside . When he finds the Angels have blocked the stairwell , Garner is forced onto the roof . He comes face to face with the snarling Statue of Liberty , revealed to be a Weeping Angel of gigantic size . As he succumbs to his fate , someone is writing about Garner ' s demise on a typewriter . In 2012 New York City , the Eleventh Doctor , Amy Pond and Rory Williams are having a picnic in Central Park . Amy is annoyed by the Doctor ' s habit of reading his pulp paperback novel , " " , out loud . He in turn is perturbed by Amy ' s use of reading glasses . The Doctor tells Amy that he doesn ' t like her glasses because they make her eyes look " all liney " . After taking Amy ' s glasses off , he realises that the lines are minor wrinkles in her skin . He tells her that her eyes look better with the glasses . Amy then starts arguing with the Doctor about how she looks , asking Rory ( who is a safe distance away from his wife ) if there are lines around her eyes . Rory claims he never noticed them , walking back to his wife , who happily kisses him . Rory goes off to get more coffee for them as Amy tells the Doctor to tell her a story . The Doctor is amused she has changed her mind . The Doctor tears out the last page , telling Amy that he hates endings . The story will never end now , for him . On Rory ' s way back , he hears the sound of children giggling , as a small statue under " Angel of the Waters " disappears . As Rory passes an archway and enters a darkened terrace , the giggling gets closer and closer . In the meantime , the Doctor ' s book says Melody saw a thin man appear on 3 April 1938 , and followed him until he noticed her . The Doctor is shocked by what the thin man says to Melody : " I was just getting coffee for the Doctor and Amy . Hello , River . " " Hello , Dad , " River Song replies . The Doctor and Amy run to the TARDIS , while in 1938 , Rory questions River about how he got there . River tells him she has no idea , but he better put his hands up ; armed men are surrounding them . In the meantime , the Doctor and Amy have boarded the TARDIS as Amy continues reading from the book , which has River saying the TARDIS cannot land in New York during this time because of several time distortion s . Comparing it to trying to land a plane in a blizzard , she says even she couldn ' t do it . An annoyed Doctor attempts to land the TARDIS , but it is bounced back to 2012 New York by a wall of temporal energy . Landing in a cemetery , the Doctor tells Amy to stop reading ahead in the book because reading the events written in it causes them to become fixed in time . However , Amy has read that River and Rory have been taken to Grayle ' s mansion ( 406 94th Street , Manhattan ) , where River comments on the mob boss ' s taste in Qin artefacts . Hearing this , the Doctor figures out how to get " landing lights " . Going back to 221 BC , he leaves a message on one of the vase s : " Yowzah ! " ( in period Chinese ) . As River is led into Grayle ' s office , Rory is placed in the basement with " the babies " . Grayle tells River that " they " are everywhere , but no one seems to notice . He then shows her the prize of his collection : a chained and damaged Weeping Angel . River says she ' s met them before , and that the Angel is screaming out in pain to its comrades ; this is why Grayle has so many locks on his doors . However , Grayle quickly turns the tables on River by briefly turning off the lights long enough for the shackled Angel to grab her wrist . Grayle demands to know everything River knows about the Angels . In the meantime , Rory has been tossed in the dark basement and given a box of matches by the guard , who tells him that he ' ll last longer with them . Left alone in darkness , Rory hears the giggling again , scaring him into lighting a match . He comes across several stone cherubs , and during the time Rory takes to light another match after the first one has gone out , the cherubs move closer and begin to attack him . He repeatedly lights the matches , but they keep extinguishing . Down to one match , Rory watches as a cherub that got close to him blows it out . Above , as Grayle attempts to threaten River , she hears the TARDIS trying to materialise and tells her captor that he ' d better watch out when her husband gets home . With a shockwave , the TARDIS lands , knocking Grayle out . In the TARDIS , the Doctor is busy fixing his hair for his wife , annoying Amy . Once done , they depart and find River . He asks her how Stormcage is , only to learn that she was pardoned years earlier in her timeline , because her alleged victim , the Doctor , apparently never existed . She has received a posting as a professor of archaeology . The Doctor tells River they either have to break her wrist or the Angel ' s to get her free . Unfortunately , Amy read ahead again and knows that River breaks her wrist to get free , so it ' s the only way now . However , Amy has a brilliant idea to know what ' s ahead without details or spoilers : they read the chapter titles . Reading one , Amy learns where Rory is and rushes off . After she does , the Doctor reads the table of contents and sees the last chapter is called " Amelia ' s Last Farewell " . An upset Doctor then angrily leaves River to find a way to escape the Angel ' s grip without breaking her wrist . Amy checks the basement , only to find Rory gone . She returns to the Doctor , who is now sitting on the stairs , deep in thought . River emerges from the collection room with her scanner , saying that Rory is at Winter Quay , having only been moved in space , rather than time . The Doctor is delighted to see River didn ' t have to break her wrist to get free . As he grabs her hand however , River grimaces in pain , revealing that she did indeed break it . He heals her hand with a little of his regeneration energy , and is scolded by River for wasting the energy . Amy asks River why the Doctor is in a bad mood and River subtly says they should never let the Doctor see them age . They then commandeer one of the mob ' s cars and drive off to get Rory . However , they leave the doors open , which the two statues outside seem to see . As Grayle comes to , he finds the statues are now inside the mansion . He tries escaping , only to get trapped . The Doctor , Amy and River arrive at Winter Quay , where Rory has been exploring on his own . They find him on exactly the same floor where Sam Garner arrived . At the end of the hall is a Weeping Angel . The way out is blocked . Rory discovers a room marked " R . Williams " and enters with Amy . River and the Doctor linger , only to see the Angel is smiling . Inside the room is an old man who calls to Amy and is revealed to be Rory ' s future self . Amy holds the older Rory ' s hand as he passes away . As the group discuss the situation , the Doctor explains that Winter Quay is a " battery farm " for the Weeping Angels to keep their victims imprisoned in and to send them back in time over and over . He also sadly informs Rory that their meeting with the elder Rory means the Angels will send Rory back in time and keep him imprisoned in the Quay until he dies , as they ' ve seen . Amy won ' t be sent with him , explaining why the older Rory was so pleased to see her . Rory decides to defy this . If the Angels aren ' t able to catch him , he won ' t die there . However , the Doctor notes that Rory will have to run for his entire life then . River then realises that if Rory escapes , the subsequent negation of the timeline in which the Angels trapped Rory at Winter Quay will create a paradox , which will in turn poison the time energy the Angels feed on and kill them . Something large is heard approaching Winter Quay , forcing the group to decide that Rory and River ' s plan will work . Amy and Rory run out , but the Doctor and River are forced back into the room by two Weeping Angels . Amy and Rory enter the stairway , seeing an Angel is blocking the way out downwards . Thus , they climb up to the roof , where they are confronted by the snarling Statue of Liberty . Back inside , the Doctor causes a distraction that allows him and River to escape the Angels via the fire escape . Back on the roof , Rory sees the only way out is to jump and commit suicide , thereby preventing the Angels from sending him back in time to become the aged Rory who just died , creating a paradox which would kill the Angels and keep him from having been sent back . Amy tries talking him out of it , but Rory defends the idea by reminding her that he has died and come back to life numerous times before . Amy decides to jump with Rory just as the Doctor and River reach the roof . Before the Doctor can stop Amy or Rory , the two jump from the roof , and embrace as they fall to their deaths . The paradox Rory ' s death has created then begins to take effect . The group awake back in the cemetery in 2012 New York with the TARDIS , relieved to be alive , and the Doctor happily explains that Winter Quay ' s negation from the timeline by the paradox meant that they never went there in the first place . Rory complains that when they came to New York , he wanted to go to a pub . The Doctor decides they can all do that ; a family outing . However , as everyone boards the TARDIS , Rory notices a gravestone with his name on it , and immediately vanishes ; a surviving Angel has sneaked up behind Rory and sent him back in time , and the group notice that Rory ' s gravestone now reads that he was 82 years of age when he died . The Doctor explains to a distraught Amy that he cannot go back for Rory ; creating another paradox in New York will destroy the city . Amy asks the Doctor if she would end up in the same time and place as Rory if the Angel touched her , of which he cannot be certain . River , however , encourages her mother , believing her plan to be sound . Despite the Doctor ' s attempts to talk Amy out of it , his mother - in - law approaches the Angel . Amy holds her daughter ' s hand behind herself and addressing her by her birth name , Melody , tells her to take care of the Doctor . The Doctor tells Amy that by doing this , she will have created a fixed point in time and he will never see her and Rory again , but Amy assures the Doctor that she will be fine and live with Rory . The Doctor , in tears , begs her to come back into the TARDIS . Amy turns , crying , to the Doctor , and says , " Raggedy Man . . . goodbye , " as the Angel sends her back with Rory . The Doctor sobs in agony as Rory ' s gravestone now also reads Amy ' s name and that she died aged 87 . In the TARDIS , River comforts the Doctor , knowing that he can never see Amy and Rory again . The Doctor apologises to River , as Amy and Rory were her parents . River says that it ' s okay , and strictly reminds the Doctor not to travel alone . He then asks her to travel with him and River says she ' d be more than willing to share adventures with him , but not all the time ; " one psychopath per TARDIS . " Heading up to a room to begin writing the book , River tells the Doctor that while he may not listen to her , he may listen to Amy . After giving her the story for publishing , she ' ll make sure Amy leaves a message for him in the book ' s afterword . The Doctor remembers that he tore out the last page from the book and rushes back to Central Park immediately after their picnic . The Doctor grabs the page and reads Amy ' s message : " Afterword , by Amelia Williams . Hello , old friend , and here we are . You and me , on the last page . By the time you read these words , Rory and I will be long gone , so know that we lived well , and were very happy . And , above all else , know that we will love you , always . Sometimes , I do worry about you though ; I think , once we ' re gone , you won ' t be coming back here for a while , and you might be alone , which you should never be . Don ' t be alone , Doctor . " Amy has just one more request from her " Raggedy Doctor " ; to go back to her seven - year - old self sitting in the garden and tell her a story : " And do one more thing for me : there ' s a little girl , waiting in a garden ; she ' s going to wait a long while , so shes going to need a lot of hope . Go to her . Tell her a story . Tell her that , if she ' s patient , the days are coming that she ' ll never forget . Tell her she ' ll go to sea and fight pirates , she ' ll fall in love with a man who ' ll wait two thousand years to keep her safe . Tell her she ' ll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived , and save a whale in outer space . " The Doctor appears to honour Amy ' s request as young Amelia is seen waiting for him in the garden and looks up as the sound of the TARDIS is heard ; as this happens , Amy finishes the story by narrating " Tell her : This is the story of Amelia Pond — and this is how it ends . " Story notes . Ratings . " to be added " Home video releases . This episode , along with the rest of the first half of the series ( episodes one through to five ) was released on DVD and Blu Ray on the 28 October 2012 .