Blink (Doctor Who)

190 - Blink
Cast
Doctor David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Companion Martha Jones
Production
Directed by	Hettie MacDonald
Written by	Steven Moffat
Script editor	Helen Raynor
Produced by	Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s)	Russell T. Davies Julie Gardner
Production code	3.10
Series	Series 3
Running time	45 minutes
First broadcast	9 June 2007
Chronology
← Preceded by "The Family of Blood" Followed by → "Utopia"

"Blink" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 9 June 2007, and is the tenth episode of Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who series. It was a single episode story, written by Steven Moffat.

As with 2006's "Love & Monsters", the Doctor and his companion feature little, due to David Tennant and Freema Agyeman being busy filming other episodes. Russell T. Davies described the monster in this story as being "enough to make you shiver".

Synopsis

In an old, abandoned house, the Weeping Angels wait. Only the Doctor can stop them, but he is trapped in time. However, when people start disappearing, a young woman called Sally finds cryptic messages bleeding through from 1969 — messages from a mysterious stranger called the Doctor. But can she decipher them before the Angels claim their best prize yet?

Plot

Sally Sparrow searches for her friend Kathy, unaware that Weeping Angels are close.

A young woman named Sally Sparrow breaks into an old house and starts taking photos of the abandoned interior. Seeing the letter B written on a bare section of wall, she pulls back the wallpaper to reveal the word BEWARE. She tears off more wallpaper, revealing a message telling her to beware of the Weeping Angel, and telling her to "duck, Sally Sparrow." When she reveals the words "duck now" she does so, narrowly avoiding a rock that would have hit her head. She looks out the window, from where the rock was thrown, and sees the statue of an Angel with its hands covering its eyes. She peels the rest of the wallpaper off to reveal the writer of the message — "Love From The Doctor. (1969)".

Sally goes to the home of a friend, Katherine Nightingale. Multiple TV sets are on, all displaying videos of a young man in a suit wearing glasses (the Doctor, though she does not know it yet). Several televisions are playing the man's sinister warning: "Don't look away, and don't blink. Blink and you're dead." She rather rudely meets Kathy's brother Larry, before telling her friend what happened.

Kathy and Sally return to the house the next morning. Kathy is enthusiastic about this "investigating", and suggests the title of "Sparrow and Nightingale" for a detective show. Sally shows Kathy the message on the wall and the Weeping Angel, but notices that it is now closer to the house than before. Someone rings the doorbell. Sally goes to answer it, while Kathy waits in the other room.

The man at the door says he is fulfilling a promise to come to this house on this exact date and time and give Sally Sparrow a letter, and asks to see Sally's ID. Kathy watches this exchange from behind a door, her back to the Weeping Angel statue. It moves closer, but Kathy does not notice. The man explains that the letter is from his grandmother, Katherine Wainwright, but formerly Katherine Nightingale. Sally presumes she has been the subject of a practical joke and calls for her friend, but Kathy does not answer. During this exchange, there is a bang from upstairs.

Kathy finds herself in a field, and asks a local lad where she is. He replies that she is in Hull, but she refuses to believe it until he shows her the local paper, which not only confirms her location but also shows the date to be 1920.

The man persuades Sally to take the letter. In it, Kathy says that she has led a full and happy life with the first man she met in Hull in 1920. She includes photographs of herself and her children from the past, and asks Sally to contact Larry, her brother, who works in a local DVD shop. Sally flings the letter away in anger and disbelief, and heads upstairs looking for Kathy, only to find four Weeping Angels in the room. One of them has a Yale key hanging from a string in its hand. She takes it and goes downstairs. The grandson has left, leaving behind the letter.

Sally finds Larry in the back of the DVD shop, along with a TV displaying the video warning from the Doctor. Larry explains that the video clip is an easter egg found on 17 specific DVDs. Not even the manufacturers know how it got there. The DVD keeps un-pausing itself, and the Doctor makes seemingly random remarks. Larry gives Sally a list of the 17 DVDs that have the easter egg on them. She leaves the shop without looking at them, and gets an idea from Larry's co-worker ("Why does nobody ever just go to the police?") about what to do next.

At the police station, Sally tells her story to the desk sergeant, who disbelieves her until she mentions the name of the old house, Westor Drumlins. The desk sergeant calls for DI Shipton, while Sally watches two Weeping Angels sitting near a church outside. She blinks and the angels have gone, having moved outside the police station window (but Sally does not see them).

DI Shipton, who obviously likes Sally, shows her a collection of cars, all of which were found outside the old house (some with their motors still running), and all of their owners having vanished without a trace. He then shows her a fake police phone box, with a lock that will not open. Billy persuades Sally to give him her mobile number before she leaves. After she leaves, he sees some Weeping Angels in the room with him. Then he blinks... Outside, Sally remembers the key she took from the Angel's hand. She returns to the garage to try it out, but Billy and the police box have gone.

Billy meets the Doctor and Martha, who inform him that he is now in 1969, because of the "touch of an Angel." The Doctor tells him about the Weeping Angels, who simply send their victims to the past so they can "live to death." He also says that they feed off of the potential energy of the days that their "victims" never had. After they talk, the Doctor asks Billy to give Sally Sparrow a message, and apologises: it will be a long wait.

Back in the present, Sally gets a phone call. She goes to visit Billy Shipton, now old and dying in a hospital bed. His message from the Doctor is to "look at the list", meaning the DVD list Larry gave her. Billy says that he got into video production in the past; it was he who put the easter eggs on the DVDs. He also says that she will understand one day, but that he won't; the Doctor has told him that this is their last meeting, and that he has only until the rain stops before he dies. She decides to stay with him until the end.

After the rain has stopped, Sally calls Larry and tells him what the DVDs on the list have in common: they comprise her entire DVD collection, which means that the easter egg was meant for her. She asks him to bring a portable DVD player to the old house. Larry does so, and brings the DVD that has the best sound on the easter egg. He also brings the DVD with better picture, but puts it into his pocket. They play it, and see the full message from the Doctor. This time, his comments seem to relate to what Larry and Sally are saying. Larry explains that he always says these same words, and shows her a transcript of the easter egg's text. Since Sally now seems to be supplying the other half of the conversation, Larry excitedly adds her words to the transcript.

The Doctor explains that he has a copy of the transcript on his autocue, and that is how he knows what she is saying. He also warns about creatures from another world, the Weeping Angels. These creatures are incredibly fast, and they can send people back in time, which is how the Doctor got stuck in 1969. These Angels have a unique defence in that, if they are being looked at, they turn to stone, since "stone can't be killed". They remain stone until they are no longer looked at. The Doctor calls this the 'Quantum Lock' (see Schrodinger's Cat). This, he says, explains the "Weeping"; they cannot look at each other, since it has the same effect.

Sally pauses the DVD as both she and Larry realise that there is an Angel in the room with them. She tells Larry to watch it as she unpauses the DVD. The Doctor goes on to tell her that The Angels are looking for the ultimate feast of time energy, the Doctor's "time-machine", and since Sally has the key, the Angels are after her now. The Doctor is stuck in 1969, so he is relying on Sally to send the TARDIS back to him.

When she asks how she can do this, The Doctor mentions that he has run out of transcript (because Larry has stopped writing as he is concentrating on looking at one of the angels). He then says what Sally has already heard; she must keep her gaze on the Angels; she must not turn her back, look away, or even blink – "Blink and you're dead." Larry has stopped writing, and both he and Sally realise that they are no longer looking at the Weeping Angel which had previously been standing in the Garden, and both quickly look up. This Angel, turned to stone in the middle of its attack, has its clawed fingers stretched out towards them and is baring sharp teeth. Sally tells Larry to stay and watch it while she searches for a way out. As she tries all the doors in the house, Larry looks away for a split second, and the Angel moves to right in front of him. Keeping his eyes on it, he leaves the room.

Sally has found the unlocked door to the cellar, so she and Larry go down to see if there is a way out. There they find the TARDIS, along with the other three Weeping Angels. They head towards the TARDIS door, keeping their eyes on the Angels. As they reach it, Sally sees that the fourth Angel (the one who was with Larry) has appeared and is pointing at the light, which starts to flicker. Since Larry and Sally cannot see in the darkness, the Angels start to move towards Sally and Larry with their claws out and their teeth showing as the humans frantically try and unlock the TARDIS door. At the last moment, they get in.

Inside the TARDIS, "protocol 712" is activated. A hologram of the Doctor says that the TARDIS has detected an authorised control disc, valid for one journey only; it is the DVD that Larry put into his pocket before they viewed the message. He gets it out to find it glowing, but the Angels are shaking the TARDIS, looking for a way in. He puts it into the console and the TARDIS starts to de materialise.

Sally notices with horror that the TARDIS alone is disappearing; she and Larry are not going with it. She screams at the Doctor to help them, but the TARDIS fades, leaving them crouching in the middle of the circle of Angels. Sally tells Larry to keep his eyes on them, but Larry realises the Doctor's elaborate plot — with the TARDIS gone, the Angels are all looking at each other. Therefore, because they are all being watched, they can never move again. The light bulb shines down on four stone Angel statues as Sally and Larry leave.

A year later, Sally and Larry are running the DVD store together, but Sally cannot let go of the past until she discovers who gave the Doctor the transcript and related materials. Larry asks her if this last unanswered question is getting in the way of other things, but she coldly replies that all they do is run a shop together. As Larry goes out to get some milk, she sees the Doctor and Martha getting out of a taxi and rushes outside. When she finds that the Doctor does not know who she is, she realizes that being a time traveler, these events have not happened for him yet. She realizes that it is she herself who will tell the Doctor that one day he will get stuck in 1969, and gives him the envelope with the transcript and photos from Kathy. The Doctor asks her name and she tells him. He is in a hurry and soon heads off with Martha, while Sally clasps Larry's hand and goes back into the DVD shop; Sparrow and Nightingale's DVDs.

The episode ends on an ominous note, as the audience is shown images of statues and gargoyles from around the city, all deathly still, intercut with the Doctor's message — "Don't blink; blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. Good luck!" — and a final close-up of the Time Lord's eyes as he blinks.

Cast

• The Doctor — David Tennant
• Martha Jones — Freema Agyeman
• Sally Sparrow — Carey Mulligan
• Ben Wainwright — Thomas Nelstrop
• Kathy Nightingale — Lucy Gaskell
• Detective Inspector Billy Shipton — Michael Obiora
• Old Billy — Louis Mahoney
• Larry Nightingale — Finlay Robertson
• Banto — Ian Boldsworth
• Malcolm Wainwright — Richard Cant
• Desk Sergeant — Ray Sawyer
• Weeping Angel - Aga Blonska

Continuity

• The holographic projection of the Tenth Doctor is similar to that of the Ninth seen in "The Parting of the Ways" as well as the holographic projections of the Seventh and Eighth Doctors in the television movie.
• The way in which the TARDIS fades away around Sally and Larry is similar to how the TARDIS fades in around Rose and a Dalek in "The Parting of the Ways" and the Doctor and Donna in "The Runaway Bride".
• Sally's act of giving the Doctor the folder with the list of DVDs, and transcript causes both a predestination paradox and an ontological paradox.

Outside references

• Sally and Kathy refer to themselves as "Sparrow and Nightingale" in one scene, remarking it would be a good name for an investigative team, but only on ITV. The fact file refers explicitly to Rosemary & Thyme, an ITV television series first aired in 2003, but also refers to similarly named investigative shows such as Dempsey & Makepeace, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), and Sapphire & Steel.
• 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. It has been noted that the 1969, the year Martha, the Doctor and Billy are sent to, is the first year Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! aired.
• 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.

Production and publicity

• The BBC Fear Forecasters gave this episode a 5.5 rating, meaning 'Off the Scale'. The only other episode to go beyond the 1-5 Fear Factor scale so far has been "The Impossible Planet", which recieved a 6 ('Beyond Fear'). Also, a notice for parents is attached to the top of the page, recommending that parents record the episode and watch it in the daytime with their children, as it is one of the scariest episodes yet. This warning is similar to the warning that was attached for "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances"; both, incidentally, written by the same writer (Steven Moffat).
• The "Weeping Angels" are never actually seen moving; camera techniques — such as revelation shots — are used instead.
• 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". It is now available on the 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 was adapted by Robert Shearman from his audio drama Jubilee.
• Martha Jones only appears in three scenes in this episode (the video, 1969 and at the end); however, David Tennant has commented that he has more lines than in "Love & Monsters".
• This is the first episode since the Sixth Doctor serial The Mark of the Rani to be directed by a woman.

References

• "Blink". Doctor Who Episodes. BBC.