Doctor Who only ever made two episodes that were light on both the Doctor and the companion(s). The busy shooting schedule still frequently necessitated that they give their stars lighter duties for about one episode a season, but by and large, the show would split that up, giving us a companion-lite episode and a separate Doctor-lite episode (such as “Midnight” and “Turn Left” in series 4.) As I said, they only tried combining this into a single episode twice. The first, “Love and Monsters,” is often cited as one of the show’s worst stories. “Blink,” however, is often regarded as one of its best.
One night, Sally Sparrow is taking photographs in an old, abandoned house when she discovers a strange message on the wall, written underneath the wallpaper: “Beware the Weeping Angel.” As she starts to investigate, people she knows begin to go missing. Two things seem to be following her—stone angel statues and strange messages from someone called the Doctor.
Before I get into the main story, one advantage that this episode has over “Love and Monsters” is that it’s able to really make the most of the Tenth Doctor’s limited screentime. Because he’s leaving messages for Sally that keep popping up, we catch little glimpses of them across the episode, culminating in a longer scene during a climactic moment. This helps the Doctor feel present throughout, even when he’s not. The same, unfortunately, can’t be said for Martha, who’s barely in it. (But honestly, even as I say that, I’m trying to picture what Martha would be like as written by Steven Moffat, and I can’t really come up with anything, so she might have dodged a bullet.)
As for the story itself, it really works. We mostly just follow a cast of oneshot characters, who interact well with each other and exchange a nice mix of comedic and creepy dialogue. In retrospect, it’s easy to see Moffat’s favorite tricks at play here—turning an everyday object into something terrifying, liberal use of causal time loops, and a love for, “But wait!” penny-drop scare moments. But taken on its own, it’s kind of a banger of an episode. It’s supremely creepy, and while the timey-wimey stuff is confusing by design, the elements that make up the horror factor are actually quite stripped-down and effective.
Which brings us, of course, to the Weeping Angels. Even apart from the whole “that mundane thing is horrifying now” angle, they’re a really neat concept, wonderfully executed. Since I came to Who several years late, I’d already heard a lot of buzz about “don’t blink!” before I ever saw this episode. But even so, after watching it for the first time, I had to turn on all the lights in my apartment.
The episode is also notable for guest star Carey Mulligan appearing as Sally. This was before the likes of An Education, long before The Great Gatsby or Promising Young Woman, and Mulligan is excellent! If we had to have an episode with very little Doctor or Martha, she was a good choice to place in the central role.
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