Blink (Doctor Who)

190 - Blink
Cast
Doctor David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Companion Martha Jones
Production
Directed by	Hettie MacDonald
Written by	Steven Moffat
Script editor	Gary Russell
Produced by	Susie Liggat
Executive producer(s)	Russell T. Davies Julie Gardner
Production code	3.10
Series	Series 3
Running time	45 minutes
First broadcast	9 June 2007
Chronology
← Preceded by The Family of Blood Followed by → Utopia

"Blink" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 9 June 2007, and is the tenth episode of Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who series. It will be a single episode story, written by Steven Moffat.

This episode was the 2007 series' "Doctor-light" episode, similar to 2006's Love & Monsters where the Doctor and his companion feature little, due to David Tennant and Freema Agyeman being busy filming other episodes. Russell T Davies described the monster of the episode as "enough to make you shiver".

Synopsis

In an old, abandoned house, the Weeping Angels wait. Only the Doctor can stop them, but he is trapped in time. However, when people start disappearing, a young woman called Sally finds cryptic messages bleeding through from 1969 – messages from a mysterious stranger called the Doctor. But can she decipher them before the Angels claim their best prize yet?

Plot

Sally Sparrow looks for her friend, Kathy, when she goes missing.

Cast

• The Doctor — David Tennant
• Martha Jones — Freema Agyeman
• Sally Sparrow — Carey Mulligan
• Ben Wainwright — Thomas Nelstrop
• Kathy Nightingale — Lucy Gaskell
• Detective Inspector Billy Shipton — Michael Obiora
• Old Billy — Louis Mahoney
• Larry Nightingale — Finlay Robertson
• Banto — Ian Boldsworth
• Malcolm Wainwright — Richard Cant
• Desk Sergeant — Ray Sawyer

Continuity

• Sally's act of giving the Doctor the folder with the list of DVDs, photos, and transcript causes a predestination paradox, explained by the Doctor as time being a "big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff".

Outside references

• Sally and Kathy refer to themselves as "Sparrow and Nightingale" in one scene, remarking it would be a good name for an investigative team, but only on ITV. The name refers to Rosemary & Thyme, an ITV television series first aired in 2003.. Other similarly named investigative series on ITV include Dempsey & Makepeace, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Sapphire & Steel.
• Larry describes the house as "Scooby-Doo's house", a reference to the dilapidated mansions that the Scooby-Doo would usually visit.

Pre-broadcast publicity

• The BBC Fear Forecasters gave this episode a 5.5 rating, meaning 'Off the Scale'. The only other episode to go beyond the 1-5 Fear Factor scale so far has been "The Impossible Planet", which recieved a 6 ('Beyond Fear'). Also, a notice for parents is attached to the top of the page, recommending that parents record the episode and watch it in the daytime with their children, as it is one of the scariest episodes yet. This warning is similar to the warning that was attached for "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances"; both, incidentally, written by the same writer (Steven Moffat).

Production

• The story of Blink is loosely based on Moffat's own short story from the Doctor Who Annual 2006 called 'What I Did On My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow'. This was confirmed when the BBC Website stated that a character named Sally was appearing. In a photograph published in DWM 383, a man is seen giving a girl a letter - with the name Sally Sparrow on the front.
• The episode was the subject of a shorter-than-usual preview in the preceding episode.
• Martha Jones only appears in three scenes in this episode (the video, 1969 and in the end); however, David Tennant has commented that he has more lines than in Love & Monsters.

References

• "Blink". Doctor Who Episodes. BBC.