Episode #190 : Blink

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but, actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff."

Episode #190:   Blink.
Companions:    The 10th Doctor and Martha Jones.
Air Date:          9th June 2007.

In an abandoned house, the Weeping Angels wait. The only hope to stop them is a young woman named Sally Sparrow and her friend Larry Nightingale. The only catch: The Weeping Angels can move in the blink of an eye. To defeat the ruthless enemy — with only a half of a conversation from the Tenth Doctor as help — the one rule is this: don't turn your back, don't look away and don't blink!

Blink is in my opinion one of the best adventures in Doctor Who. Just as with The Empty Child, this episode shows just how well Doctor Who can be when the writers come up with a proper freaky story and with the creation of the Weeping Angels we have that perfectly here. It is also story that barely features our time travellers, instead we see the events unfold from the point of another character, Sally Sparrow.

The new villains are the Weeping Angels. They are ancient creatures who exist in a sort of quantum state where they become stone statues when observed by another living thing. Although for some reason this also applies to their own kind. The Doctor sees this as the perfect defense mechanism but they could still be smashed by a mallet surely? But we won't dwell on that. In Blink these creatures are at their best. They do make occasional reappearances in the show but never portrayed as well as they are in this story.

It is interesting to see that Blink has quite a hefty paradox. These are bad and we have seen creatures like the Reapers turn up when such events take place. So why don't they here? The paradox in Blink is a circular one with no beginning or end. Sally gives the Doctor the information she has at the end of the story but Sally gets that information from seeing the wall the Doctor wrote, watching the DVD the Doctor made and so on. The information never really "starts" anywhere — the Doctor knows what to say in the conversation because he's reading Larry's transcript, which Larry made thirty-eight years later by watching the conversation. The information is in an endless loop.

Blink is truly one of the best episodes of modern Who and if for some reason you haven't seen it, go do so. You won't be disappointed.