Blink (Doctor Who)

Infobox Doctor Who episode
number = 190
serial_name=Blink


caption=Sally Sparrow searches for her friend Kathy, unaware she is being watched by the Weeping Angels.
show=DW
type=episode
doctor=David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
companion = Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones)
guests =
*Carey Mulligan – Sally Sparrow
*Lucy Gaskell – Kathy Nightingale
*Finlay Robertson – Larry Nightingale
*Richard Cant – Malcolm Wainwright
*Michael Obiora – DI Billy Shipton
*Louis Mahoney – Old Billy
*Thomas Nelstrop – Ben Wainwright
*Ian Boldsworth – Banto
*Ray Sawyer – Desk Sergeant
*Aga Blonska – Weeping Angel (uncredited)Griffiths, Nick. (June 15, 2007) Radio Times "Hells Angels" Issue 9; Pages 14-15.]
writer=Steven Moffat
director=Hettie MacDonald
script_editor=Helen Raynor
producer=Phil Collinson
executive_producer=Russell T Davies
Julie Gardner
production_code=3.10
length=45 minutes
date=9 June 2007
preceding="The Family of Blood"
following="Utopia"
imdb_id=1000252
series = Series 3
series_link = Series 3 (2007)"Blink" is an episode of the British science fiction television series "Doctor Who". It was broadcast on BBC One on 9 June 2007, [cite news
title = Doctor Who UK airdate announced
work = News
publisher = Dreamwatch
date = February 27, 2007
url = http://www.dwscifi.com/articles/show/227] and is the tenth episode of Series 3 of the revived "Doctor Who" series.

Just as in 2006's "Love & Monsters", the Doctor and his companion have very little screen time, due to other episodes being shot at the same time.cite news|title=Who Horizons|page=46|date=January 2007|work=SFX] It is consequently referred to as a "Doctor-lite" episode."2007 Awards". "Doctor Who Magazine" 389, p. 40-41]

In 2008 it won its writer Steven Moffat the BAFTA Craft and BAFTA Cymru awards for Best Writer,cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/04_april/28/cymru.shtml|title=BAFTA Cymru success for BBC Wales|publisher=BBC|date=2008-04-28|accessdate=2008-05-13] cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7395593.stm|title= Bafta glory for Channel 4's Boy A|publisher=BBC News Online|date=2008-05-12|accessdate=2008-05-13] and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.cite news |title=2008 Hugo Award Results Announced |url=http://www.thehugoawards.org/?p=146 |publisher=Hugo Awards website |date=2008-08-09 |accessdate=2008-08-11 ]

ynopsis

Sally Sparrow is a photographer, who enters an old abandoned house to take pictures. Inside, though, the Weeping Angels are waiting. She must decipher several cryptic messages from 1969 from a strange man called the Doctor - all directed specifically at her.

Plot

The episode, set mainly in 2007, focuses upon Sally Sparrow, who breaks into a dilapidated house called Wester Drumlins to take photographs. There she discovers behind the peeling wallpaper a message from "the Doctor" dated 1969, calling her by name and telling her to "beware the Weeping Angels" and then to "duck now", just before an object launched from behind nearly hits her.

She returns the next day with her friend, Kathy Nightingale. A man soon arrives at the door with a decades-old letter from his grandmother, saying he had promised to deliver it to Sally on this date at exactly this time. The name of his grandmother was Kathy Nightingale. Thinking this is a prank, she searches for Kathy, but Kathy has disappeared. Sally encounters three weeping angel statues, one holding a Yale key. She takes the key and leaves the house, unaware that the Angels have moved and are watching her from the windows.

Sally Sparrow reads the letter, wherein Kathy explains that the Weeping Angels transported her back to 1920 and that she lived a happy and full life. The letter asks Sally to explain her absence to her last close relative — Kathy's brother Larry, who works in a DVD rental store. By him, Sally learns about an unfathomable "easter egg" which consists of a series of random comments of the Doctor, and which has been dispersed into seventeen unrelated DVDs. The easter egg is unusual in that no-one who worked on the DVDs had any idea it was there. While she watches the DVD, the Doctor appears to respond to one of Sally's comments and then tells her he can hear what she's saying. Larry gives Sally the list of the DVDs with the easter egg.

Sally goes to the police, where Billy Shipton, a Detective Inspector, shows her a car park full of abandoned vehicles found at Wester Drumlins, including a fake police box with a Yale lock that cannot be opened. Billy then begins to flirt with Sally, asking her to have a drink with him. She laughs, gives him her telephone number and leaves. Outside, Sally realises that the Yale key could be used to open the police box. She runs back to the car park, but Billy is gone; the Weeping Angels have sent him to 1969. The Doctor finds him there and tells him that the Angels send people into the past and feed on the potential energy of futures that will never be. The Doctor asks Billy to deliver a message to Sally, but apologises that it's going to take a while. In 2007, Billy calls Sally minutes after they last spoke (from her point of view) and asks her to meet him in a hospital. He is now an old man, and he is dying. He explains that he did marry in the past to another Sally, and eventually got into DVD publishing. He is responsible for adding the easter eggs. He gives her the Doctor's message: look at the list of DVDs. She stays with him until he dies shortly after.

Looking at the list, Sally realises the connection between the DVDs: the seventeen DVDs are the entirety of her own DVD collection. The easter egg was intended for "her". Sally and Larry enter Wester Drumlins with a portable DVD player to watch the easter egg. This time Sally provides the other half of the conversation, which Larry adds to a transcript he brought with him. The Doctor explains several things: he has a complete transcript of the incomplete conversation and is reading off an Autocue, which is possible due to the non-linear nature of time. The Weeping Angels are "quantum locked", meaning they turn to stone when a living thing looks at them, even themselves, but when unobserved they are fast and can be deadly, hence it is of utmost importance that she does not blink. They stole the TARDIS from the Doctor and Martha to try toconsume the time energy in it, and could potentially absorb enough power to switch off the sun if they wished. However, they have been unable to get inside to access the energy, and it is vital they remain unable to do so. When Sally asks the Doctor how she can defeat the Angels, he cannot answer, as his copy of the transcript has ended because Larry has stopping writing. The Doctor urges Sally to keep her eyes on the Angels, and "don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink!".

While Sally and Larry argue about how to proceed, and Angel enters the room. Fleeing, Larry and Sally discover the TARDIS in the cellar. Unwilling to let their prey escape, the Angels cause a light bulb, the room's only light source, to flicker, allowing them to draw closer to the TARDIS in the few seconds of darkness. Larry and Sally manage to get into the TARDIS and shut the doors, just as the Angels surround it. The DVD that Larry and Sally brought with them activates a protocol in the TARDIS, causing it to return to the Doctor. Sally and Larry are left behind, leaving the Angels trapped forever in a circle, tricked into observing each other.

The final scene takes place a year later, with Sally and Larry running an antiquarian book and DVD shop together; however, Sally is keeping a folder of everything connected with her experience with the Doctor and the Angels. Even though the danger has passed, she still doesn't understand how the Doctor got the list of DVDs, the transcript, how he knew what to write on the walls, etc. Her obsession has strained her relationship with Larry. When Larry runs an errand, Sally spots the Doctor and Martha emerging from a taxi outside the shop. She quickly runs out and calls to them, and when the Doctor fails to recognize Sally, she realizes he has not yet experienced the events that have so haunted her. Finally understanding fully, she hands over the folder which contains everything the Doctor will need to extricate himself from 1969, and tells him he'll need it in the future. Sally and the Doctor exchange goodbyes as Larry returns, surprised to see the man from the DVD easter egg.Sally and Larry return to the shop hand in hand. The episode ends with a repeat of the Doctor's warning to Sally, this time directed at the viewer, overlaid with flashes of famous bronze and stone statues.

Continuity

*For the dating of this episode, see the Chronology.
* A holographic projection of the Tenth Doctor can be seen in this episode. Earlier projections of the Doctor are those of the Seventh and Eighth Doctors in the television movie, the Ninth seen in "The Parting of the Ways", and another of the Tenth Doctor's projections in "Doomsday".
* The TARDIS fading away around Sally and Larry is similar to the effect used in "The Parting of the Ways", where the TARDIS materialises around Rose and a Dalek. A similar trick is used in "The Runaway Bride" where it fades in around the Doctor and Donna, and in "Logopolis" where it materialises around the Master's TARDIS.
* The Doctor says "I'm rubbish at weddings, especially my own" when explaining to Sally that he experiences events out of sequence. He has in the past referred to being a father in "The Empty Child" and "Fear Her", and would do so again in "The Doctor's Daughter", and formerly travelled with his granddaughter. The First Doctor is accidentally betrothed to the lady Cameca by making her a cup of cocoa in the story "The Aztecs". In "The Family of Blood", the Doctor as John Smith foresees an alternative future as a human where he has a successful marriage and raises a family. The Eighth Doctor also marries in the novel "The Adventuress of Henrietta Street".
* Larry gives Sally the list of DVDs from a folder with a Cunard White Star Line sticker on it. White Star were the operators of the ill-fated "RMS Titanic". The Ninth Doctor was photographed upon the "RMS Titanic"; the photograph is shown in "Rose". The later Christmas special "Voyage of the Damned" features a starship modelled after the "Titanic".

Outside references

* Larry describes the house as "Scooby-Doo's house", a reference to the dilapidated mansions that the "Scooby-Doo" gang (Mystery Inc.) would usually visit. The BBC fact file notes that 1969, the year Martha, the Doctor and Billy are sent to, is the first year "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" aired.cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2007/facts/fact_310.shtml|title=Doctor Who - Fact File - "Blink"|accessdate=2007-06-09]
* The newspaper shown to Kathy in 1920 has the headline "Hull FC to play Hull Kingston Rovers", a reference to the two professional Rugby League teams in Hull.cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2007/images/hulltimes.jpg|title=Hull Times mockup, BBC website|accessdate=2007-06-10]
* Billy mentions that the windows of the TARDIS are the wrong size for a real police box. In 2004, when the first photographs of the new series' TARDIS prop were revealed, there was a vigorous discussion of the box's dimensions on the Outpost Gallifrey "Doctor Who" discussion forum, in which some fans complained that the prop's windows were too big. Writer Steven Moffat has confirmed that this line is an in-joke aimed at the Outpost Gallifrey forum. [cite web |url=http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4161263&postcount=177 |title=Re: Moffat hates fans? |accessdate=2007-06-12 |last=Moffat |first=Steven |authorlink=Steven Moffat |date=2007-06-12 |format=free registration required |work= The Doctor Who Forum at Outpost Gallifrey |publisher=Shaun Lyon |quote=I put in the Windows gag SPECIFICALLY to make this forum laugh. It was for us lot here - the rest of the world didn't notice. ]
* The name of the dilapidated house, Wester Drumlins, is taken from a previous residence of Steven Moffat from the late 1990s.cite web|url=http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4167147&postcount=23|title=Wester Drumlins|last=Moffat |first=Steven |authorlink=Steven Moffat |date=2007-06-12 |format=free registration required |work= The Doctor Who Forum at Outpost Gallifrey |publisher=Shaun Lyon]

Production and publicity

* The BBC Fear Forecasters (four children, aged 6, 8, 10 and 14, who rate each episode on how scary children will find it) gave this episode a 5.5 rating ("Off the Scale"). The only other episode with a rating above 5 is "The Impossible Planet", which received a 6 (Beyond Fear). A notice for parents was also attached to the top of the page, recommending that parents record the episode and watch it in the daytime with their children, as it was one of the scariest episodes yet.cite news
title = Fear Forecast: Blink
work =
publisher = BBC
date = June 6, 2007
url = http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2007/fear/f-10-pre.shtml] This warning is similar to the warning that was attached for "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances", both of which were also written by Steven Moffat.cite news
title = Fear Forecast: The Empty Child
work =
publisher = BBC
url = http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2005/fear/f-emptychild.shtml] cite news
title = Fear Forecast: The Doctor Dances
work =
publisher = BBC
url = http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2005/fear/f-doctordances.shtml]
* Part of the story of "Blink" is based on Moffat's own Ninth Doctor short story from the "Doctor Who Annual 2006" called "What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow". [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2007/blink_annual.shtml "What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow"] (BBC Website)] "Blink" is thus the third story of the revived series to be adapted for television by the same writer from a piece of their spin-off writing. It follows "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood", which were adaptations by Paul Cornell of his novel "Human Nature", and "Dalek", which had the basic premise as well as some scenes and dialogue adapted by Robert Shearman from his audio drama "Jubilee".cite web
last =
first =
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Doctor Who at the Cavern Club - A Great Success
work = The Mind Robber
publisher = The Mind Robber
date = 2007
url = http://www.themindrobber.co.uk/dr-who-at-cavern.html
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2007-09-18 ]
* The Doctor and Martha's absence from the majority of the episode was due to the filming of two episodes simultaneously.
* This is the first episode since the Sixth Doctor serial "The Mark of the Rani" to have a female director.
* Although they are never shown moving on screen, all of the Weeping Angels were played by actors wearing prosthetics. Footage of them being put into costume — and moving on the set can be seen in the "Doctor Who Confidential" episode "Do You Remember The First Time?".
* The Doctor's unedited Easter Egg message was itself included as an Easter Egg on the Series 3 DVD release.
* This episode received the award for Best Story in the "Doctor Who Magazine" 2007 Survey.
* The episode was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Script,cite web
last = Rowe
first = Josiah
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = "Blink" gets Nebula nod
work = Outpost Gallifrey
publisher = Outpost Gallifrey
date = January 21, 2008
url = http://www.gallifreyone.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?id=EkppAplkAkQBWREwTW&tmpl=newsrss&style=feedstyle
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2008-01-21 ] but lost to "Pan's Labyrinth" by Guillermo del Toro.cite web
last =
first =
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = 2007 Nebula Award Winners
work =
publisher = Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc.
date = April 26, 2008
url = http://www.sfwa.org/news/2008/07nebwiners.htm
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2008-06-02 ]

Cast notes

*Louis Mahoney plays an elderly Billy Shipton. He had previously appeared in the Third Doctor serial "Frontier in Space" (1973) as a newscaster, and the Fourth Doctor serial "Planet of Evil" (1975) as Ponti.

Reception

"Blink" has been widely recognized as an exceptional episode of "Doctor Who". Writer Steven Moffat was awarded the 2008 BAFTA Craft and BAFTA Cymru awards for Best Writer for his work on this episode. It also won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, and Carey Mulligan received the Constellation Award for Best Female Performance in a 2007 Science Fiction Television Episode. [cite web
url = http://constellations.tcon.ca/
title = 2008 Constellation Awards
publisher=Constellation Awards website
date=2008-07-15
accessdate =2008-07-15]

References

External links

*BBCDWnew | year=2007 |id = 310| title = Blink
*Doctor Who RG|id=who_tv30|title=Blink|quotes=y
*Brief|id=2007j|title=Blink|quotes=y
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/doctorwho/ram/310_preview?size=16x9&bgc=CC0000&nbram=1&bbram=1&nbwm=1&bbwm=1 "Don't blink"] - episode trailer
* [http://www.radiotimes.com/content/show-features/doctor-who/steven-moffat-interview-2007/ Steven Moffat interview in Radio Times]

Reviews

*DWRG| id=blink | title=Blink | quotes=y
*OG review | id=2007-10| title=Blink | quotes=y