Blink is the most popular story from the new series era in the Mighty 200 DWM survey of 2009. It’s not hard to figure out why. Written by the Grand Moff Steven Moffat, this story shows that you don’t need special effects to tell a great story. This is the first story to feature the Weeping Angels. Something that was quite interesting was that this episode was based on a short story that appeared in the 2006 Doctor Who Annual called ‘What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow’. It takes quite a bit of tweeking to make a short story stretch out to 45 minutes.
The story sees the people who visit this mysterious house encounter angel statues who move when no one is looking at them. We are introduced to Sally Sparrow who after the episode was being talked about on forums as someone who should have been a companion. At the beginning we see Sally rip some wallpaper off the wall and seeing a message from the Doctor. It turns out that the Doctor and Martha have been stranded and are using the walls and the Easter Eggs on DVD’s to send messages hoping someone will work it all out.
As the Doctor and Martha are not present for the good majority of this episode its down to Sally and her gang to carry the story. Her friend Kathy Nightingale didn’t last long before getting transported to 1920’s Hull. Then there Larry Nightingale who is running a video shop that has these DVD Easter Eggs that the Doctor has recorded these messages on. Every so often the action returns to the house and some wonderfully directed scenes take place with the angels. The best was when Larry is watching the angel and is told not to blink or take his eyes of it, but like everyone he has to blink and when he does the statues move that little bit closer until it’s right in front of him.
The Weeping Angels rightly deserve their praise. They are a wonderful creation and very scary. I mean genuinely scary. They don’t speak and even though you don’t see them move the fact that they move when you blink is quite a scary thing. I don’t know if your like me and tried to play the game of how long you could go without blinking. One of the reasons why the weeping angels are so good is because it’s a real effect as opposed to a CGI creation. I think that the actors used did a good job not to move one inch. Its not a quick shot and then moving to something else, there’s a good 10 second shot on them and theirs no obvious sign that they have moved.
Despite their brief involvement, David Tennant and Freema Agyeman do a good job. They make their scenes seem important but due to the stunning performances of Carey Mulligan (what’s she done since?) and Finlay Robertson (seriously, what’s he done since?) who steal the show and rightly so. Blink is a very good story and the only disappointing thing is that it’s so good but it doesn’t feature the Doctor. After the very poor Love & Monsters last year, it’s good to see that the series knows how to do tackle the lack of the lead character but managing to make the episode still feel like a Doctor Who.
The story sees the people who visit this mysterious house encounter angel statues who move when no one is looking at them. We are introduced to Sally Sparrow who after the episode was being talked about on forums as someone who should have been a companion. At the beginning we see Sally rip some wallpaper off the wall and seeing a message from the Doctor. It turns out that the Doctor and Martha have been stranded and are using the walls and the Easter Eggs on DVD’s to send messages hoping someone will work it all out.
As the Doctor and Martha are not present for the good majority of this episode its down to Sally and her gang to carry the story. Her friend Kathy Nightingale didn’t last long before getting transported to 1920’s Hull. Then there Larry Nightingale who is running a video shop that has these DVD Easter Eggs that the Doctor has recorded these messages on. Every so often the action returns to the house and some wonderfully directed scenes take place with the angels. The best was when Larry is watching the angel and is told not to blink or take his eyes of it, but like everyone he has to blink and when he does the statues move that little bit closer until it’s right in front of him.
The Weeping Angels rightly deserve their praise. They are a wonderful creation and very scary. I mean genuinely scary. They don’t speak and even though you don’t see them move the fact that they move when you blink is quite a scary thing. I don’t know if your like me and tried to play the game of how long you could go without blinking. One of the reasons why the weeping angels are so good is because it’s a real effect as opposed to a CGI creation. I think that the actors used did a good job not to move one inch. Its not a quick shot and then moving to something else, there’s a good 10 second shot on them and theirs no obvious sign that they have moved.
Despite their brief involvement, David Tennant and Freema Agyeman do a good job. They make their scenes seem important but due to the stunning performances of Carey Mulligan (what’s she done since?) and Finlay Robertson (seriously, what’s he done since?) who steal the show and rightly so. Blink is a very good story and the only disappointing thing is that it’s so good but it doesn’t feature the Doctor. After the very poor Love & Monsters last year, it’s good to see that the series knows how to do tackle the lack of the lead character but managing to make the episode still feel like a Doctor Who.
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