Blink

Dear Gary—

I don’t think I have much to say about Blink other than it is good. It’s clever, charming, eerie, intriguing, and well done. This is a Doctor Lite episode (blink and you’ll miss him); therefore much depends upon the lead of Sally Sparrow, and the actress portraying her, Carey Mulligan, delivers. She is instantly likeable and draws you in to the story from the start. The same can be said of Billy Shipton, Larry, Kathy, and even Ben ‘You’re in Hull’ Wainright. We care about these characters we’ve never seen before and most likely will never see again.

The opening sequence is a great set-up for the story. It’s stylishly atmospheric, with the dark, the rain, the iron gates, the ivy, the stonework, and that fantastic abandoned house. It is the perfect balance; not horrifying but creepy with an element of mystery as Sally strips away the wallpaper to reveal the message from the past written to her specifically for the present moment. The one aspect to mar the mood is the rock through the window, but that’s a quibble and I won’t get too worked up about it.

The Weeping Angels, those lonely assassins, are a perfect fit for this story. “The only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely.” Spine-chilling, sinister, and poignant.

“Don’t blink. Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead.”

Most everything fits together in this puzzle piece of a tale, much like the one sided, pre-recorded conversation the Doctor has in 1969 with present day Sally Sparrow. “A big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.” And it is all beautifully filmed.

Even the tiniest of details is lovely. The dying Billy Shipton some 40 years (38) older than the Billy Shipton Sally left not more than an hour ago saying, “It was raining when we met,” to which Sally replies, “It’s the same rain.”

This works on so many levels; as sci fi, as horror, as mystery, as romance. There is so much to praise yet little to say; it speaks so eloquently for itself.

Kathy (before being zapped back to 1920): “What’s good about sad?”

Sally: “It’s happy for deep people.”

It is only 45 minutes in length, and yet there is so much richness and depth to it. Entire histories are revealed in mere seconds of dialogue or pictures or looks or gestures. Kathy in 1920; Billy in 1969; the Doctor and Martha on their way to the migration (“four things and a lizard”); Sparrow and Nightingale one year later. Not to mention strength of character. I feel like I know Sally Sparrow just as surely as she knows the Doctor from a DVD Easter egg.

Then there is the Doctor Who trademark humor, mostly courtesy of Larry Nightingale. (“You’ve only got 17 DVDs?” “The angels have the phone box. That’s my favorite; I’ve got it on a T-shirt.”) And of course a dose of righteous indignation, courtesy of the Doctor’s surrogate, Sally: “I’m clever and I’m listening; and don’t patronize me because people have died and I’m not happy. Tell me.”

The final moments in Wester Drumlins (love that name by the way) as the angels close in are worthy of any first class horror film, and the Doctor’s solution is apropos for these statues who can’t be killed and won’t be seen. (Tiny quibble, but so what that they are made of stone—can’t you just take a hammer to them?)

But now we come to the coda, and I really wish they had left well enough alone. As I said before, the Weeping Angels are a perfect fit for this story, for this one blink of an eye episode. Beyond that . . .

If you can’t even blink and they’ll get you, Sally should have been zapped back to some distant past long ago, not to mention Larry and countless numbers. I can accept the angel’s uncharacteristic lethargy for the confines of this story and this story alone. Beyond that I cannot go.

I hate to jump ahead, but the coda started it. In future I find the Weeping Angels to be one of my least favorite of the New Who monsters. Second only to that horrible creation called The Silence.

Don’t blink, Gary.