“You only own 17 DVDs?”
I’m not a fan of the concept that each year they’ve decided to make a Doctor-lite episode. I understand the economic and probably psychological aspect of it on the stars, but it seems fairer to only make 12 episodes and not bother with the “filler” episode.
Nonetheless, I was encouraged when I heard that Stephen Moffat would be writing this year’s filler story. Whenever I see Moffat’s name on the script, I’m reminded of the words of Servalan from Blake’s 7 when she’s talking about Travis: “He’s so much better than anything else I’ve got.” Moffat has consistently stood out as Who’s premiere writer. Equally, I was discouraged when I learned he wouldn’t be writing a “proper” Doctor Who story.
And so to “Blink”
Synopsis
Sally Sparrow likes to visit old, spooky houses and one night as she’s exploring a spooky old house, she notices a word behind the peeling wallpaper. As she reveals the words, it is a warning written specifically to her from “the Doctor” and dated 1969, it warns her to duck and the beware the weeping angels. She ducks, and she just avoids having a rock hit her head throw by…? All that is around is a statue of an angel covering its eyes in sorrow.
She convinces her friend to return with her the next day. Inside the house, the angel statues appear to have moved. Sally finds the TARDIS key in one of their hands and takes it. Her friend disappears and arrives in 1920. At the same moment, a man claiming to be her grandson arrives at the house and gives Sally a letter and photographs from her friend. They explain that her friend has lived her whole life in the past and is now dead.
Confused, she takes a message to her friend’s brother, Lawrence, who works in a DVD shop. While there, she learns of the mysterious man who is on the Easter eggs of 17 DVDs. He appears to be holding a two-way conversation with someone. He is the Doctor. Lawrence provides her a list of the 17 DVDs.
Sally decides to go to the police about her missing friend. She is turned over to a detective named Billy who explains that many, many cars have been found completely abandoned at that house. Among the many things found abandoned is the TARDIS. Sally has been followed by the angels and they converge around the TARDIS. Billy, who has stayed behind, cannot understand how the statues have surrounded the TARDIS, but when he looks away, he is tossed to 1969.
The Doctor and Martha arrive and find Billy. The explain they are also trapped and that the angels are an alien lifeform. He needs Billy to give a message to Sally – and that it will take him a long time to do it.
In the present, Sally realizes that she has the key that might fit the mysterious police box. When she returns, Billy and the TARDIS are gone, but her phone rings. It is Billy.
He is now an old man dying in the hospital. He tells her that he helped the Doctor place the easter eggs on the 17 DVDs, and that she, and only she would know what the list of titles meant. Billy dies that night of old age.
Sally contacts Lawrence and has him bring a portable DVD player to the house. There they watch the easter egg and the Doctor appears to be holing a conversation with Sally. How can he know what she’s saying? Answer: Lawrence is taking notes of what she says in shorthand.
The angels, he explains, are alien lifeforms that have evolved a perfect defense. Like a quantum particle, they are only free to move about when they are not seen. When they are observed, they are fixed in stone. Sally must use the TARDIS key and return the TARDIS to 1969, but she has to find it first.
She and Lawrence work their way to the basement where the TARDIS is surrounded by the four angels. It’s tense, but they manage to make it in and discover one of the DVDs is a control disc for the TARDIS. When they insert it, the TARDIS dematerializes from around the, but it is too late. The angels have seen each other and they are all frozen in stone.
A year later, Sally meets the Doctor before the Doctor is trapped in 1969 and she gives him all the information that she has, including the transcript Lawrence wrote and all the details of what happened.
Analysis
Forget Doctor Who, this is one of the finest pieces of science fantasy ever written for television, on par with the immortal episodes of the Twilight Zone.
Moffat really shines here and has turned in another sterling script, which is genuinely witty and terrifying. The angels moving only when unobserved is a unique and creepy concept and the director has used it effectively in the story.
In fact, the weakest part of this story are the scenes with the Doctor, although I’m loathe to come up with a way this story could have worked without him.
The dialogue is sparkling & witty, the pacing is right and the mystery draws you in throughout the story, building tension along the way. Just try to convince me anyone watching the show doesn’t jump a bit when Lawrence blinks or the light bulb starts to go out.
Before someone says, “hey, aren’t you being a little less critical than you usually are?”, let me say I wasn’t oblivious to some of the illogical aspects of the story. If I must enumerate them, I will, but note that I did designate this story “science fantasy” for a reason.
- The opening sequence shows Sally finding the Doctor’s written warning behind the wallpaper. The warning is “duck.” Sure enough, when Sally ducks a rock, apparently (to the audience) thrown by the angel in the garden, nearly missed her head. It’s a great opening, but, after what we learn about the angels later in the episode, the last thing they’d do is throw a rock at her. She wasn’t looking, they could have just tossed her back in time. (The feed off the energy left behind when someone is sent back in time.)
- Seconds after Sally’s friend is sent to 1920, her grandson arrives with a note for Sally. He says he’d promised his grandmother before she died that he’d deliver that note to Sally Sparrow, at that address, at that date and time. We’re even treated to a few scenes of her friend back in 1920.
Again, getting the note is an important part of unravelling the mystery, but are we seriously expected to believe that, after being flung to 1920, living her whole life back in time, with no clue as to how things happened, that she would remember in her old age (for the note was written in her old age) the exact place and time to within a minute that she got flung back from? I can’t remember the exact minute I ate dinner this evening. (Did she meet the Doctor and did he help her create the note? It seems unlikely, as the tombstone shows she died in 1962.)
- At the end of the episode, Sally gives all her notes to the Doctor, setting him up to be able to contact her when the time comes for him to be flung back to 1969 without the TARDIS. Granted, that completes the timey wimey bubble neatly, but really, do you think the Doctor was carrying the notes with him all the time? Seems more likely they’d be back in the TARDIS, which was left in 2007.
- The quantum mechanics defense mechanism of the angels is nifty but… would the have really evolved eyes if they were such a weakness? Since they cover their eyes, would they know if someone placed a mirror in front of them and then blinked? Does the observation have to be visual? What if intelligent bats with echo location observed them via sound waves? Does the observer have to be sentient, and why? What is a dog or an insect is observing them? Why would they have wings? Can they fly? If they are flying and someone sees them, will they drop like a rock and shatter?
Overall a great episode, easily the best of the season so far, and it’s been a strong season. I whole heartedly support calls to make this a spin-off Doctor Who series instead of Torchwood! (Although, I think the story completes better with the idea that, having given the notes to the Doctor, Sally and Lawrence’s lapse into a completely ordinary rest-of-life scenario. They’ve had their brush with destiny and they’re entitled to live off that and have a full, long life themselves.)
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