Television 

12 Weeks, 12 Doctors: Five Thoughts on Doctor Who‘s “Blink”

By | September 21st, 2020
Posted in Television | % Comments

Welcome to your summer vacation through space and time, all from the comfort of your couch and TV.  We’re spending our COVID-19 summer (and a little bit of autumn) winding our way through Doctor Who history, focusing on one episode from each Doctor’s tenure through to the Capaldi era. (Want to know what we’re watching? Here’s the schedule!)

This recap comes with a warning: whatever you do, don’t “Blink!” At least you didn’t want to blink on June 9, 2007, when this Tenth Doctor story aired.  (Also, here’s your second warning: Spoilers!)

1. Isn’t This a Doctor Who Recap Series?  

Last week I said that I got grief from my better half for two of my choices for this project.  The first was “Father’s Day,” and that was okay.  I totally expected him to have an opinion on which Ninth Doctor episode I pick, for he is a Christopher Eccleston fan.

The second was this one.

“You picked the one episode where the Doctor is barely in it!”

Indeed, this is – – as you find out when you watch – – what we now call a “Doctor-lite” episode, where he and companion are not at the center of the story.

Now the first reason I picked it is because of the connection to the Doctor Who comics.  The second year of “Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor” (the crossover of Thirteen and Ten) takes place during the events of this episode, so I wanted to provide some context to comic readers who may not have seen this serial before.

Also, it’s just a damn good episode, Doctor or no Doctor.  It’s won Hugo Awards for writing and acting, and voted by readers of Doctor Who Magazine as the second best Doctor Who story ever in 2009. (The first? “The Caves of Androzani!”)

2. Meet the Weeping Angels

Meet the most deadly and the most compassionate villains in all of Doctor Who: the Weeping Angels.  Stealth and quiet in their pursuit, you never know when they will appear.  But when you see them, you don’t want to blink.  Blink, look away, and you’re transported back in time, never to see your current time again, but free to live out those days in peace and comfort in your new time.  The energy you leave behind before your journey to the past sustains them.

Here, the Angels take Sally’s friend Kathy back to 1920, and a cop who chats her up at the police station (where she goes to report these strange happenings) back to 1969, never to return to their present time.  The latter (the cop, Billy Shipton) is what takes Sally to the Doctor. He started a DVD company to put messages from the Doctor to Sally on DVDs, DVDs that Kathy’s brother Larry has been trying to decipher, seizing on the popular interpretation of the era that they are just Easter eggs).

And that brings Sally to the Doctor, himself and Martha trapped in 1969 (and Martha had to get a job in a shop, the side of the story we see in the comic) and he can’t get out.

3. Daisy Buchanan Before Daisy Buchanan

“Blink” was two years before Carey Mulligan rose to fame as Jenny in 2009’s An Education, and many American audiences may know her best as Daisy Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby.  The determination of Jenny and the emotional fragility of Daisy are very much on display here, and you can see bits of Sally Sparrow in both those roles.

It’s that determination, coupled with her intelligence in solving the mystery, that led the show to offer Mulligan a role as a companion after Freema Agyeman left the show, which she turned down.

Now I do love Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, but to think what might have been . . .

4. Soundbytes

This is the episode that gave us some of the most iconic Doctor Who dialogue of the modern era.  There’s the concept of time as “wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff,” the Doctor’s assertion of how time works.  And then there’s the warning that every Whovian knows to heart and makes them think twice whenever they see a statue: “Whatever you do, don’t blink!”

Continued below

There may not have been much Doctor and Martha in this episode, but quality more than makes up for quantity.

5. Sheer Brilliance 

There is a lot going on in this short 45 minutes: the deep philosophical truths of time travel, the horror of an enemy that sneaks up on you unwarranted, humor, and even a bit of a love story.   In earlier eras of the series, no doubt this would be a multi-part affair. (Oh how I do not miss those.)  As such, you almost come in expecting a plot aspect to get dropped or lost, but it all winds together seamlessly and beautifully, the ending informing the beginning.  Such a simple and beautiful explanations of the butterfly effect and the time travel paradox.

You’ll note that I’ve been deliberately light on plot description throughout. And that’s because this is an episode that has to be seen and experienced to truly understand.  While we do have two episodes to go in this project, if I had to pick a #1 of the list, it will have to be “Blink” – – for its sublime craft on all levels and the contributions it makes to modern Whovian culture.  Watch this one today.  And remember: don’t blink.

TARDIS Trivia (our Afterthoughts section) 

  • This was the first episode since “The Mark of the Rani” to be directed by a woman (Hettie MacDonald).
  • “Blink” was the episode that gave way to the term “Doctor-lite” to describe an episode. The concept of “Doctor-lite” came up to address production, as the team was trying to film fourteen episodes in the time necessary to film thirteen, so two were done simultaneously.  And since the Doctor can’t be in two places (or at least the actor playing the Doctor), you have simultaneous production of one episode where they are front and center and one where they are not.  But it’s not the first time there’s been episodes with little presence of the Doctor – – examples include “The Tenth Planet” and “Love and Monsters.”
  • This episode is based on a short story titled “What I Did On My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow” which actually features the Ninth Doctor and Sally as a child.

Next week, we are all about bow ties, fezzes, and sunflowers with the Eleventh Doctor story “Vincent and the Doctor.”

Classic Doctor Who episodes (First through the Seventh Doctors) are available on the streaming subscription service Britbox (available in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. at the time of this writing). If you’re in the U.S., Latin America, Puerto Rico, and Europe, you can also get your classic Who fix via the free streaming service Pluto TV, which has its own Doctor Who channel!

Revival episodes (Ninth through Twelfth Doctors) are available worldwide on Amazon Prime, and in the United States on HBO Max.


//TAGS | 12 Weeks 12 Doctors | 2020 Summer TV Binge | Doctor Who

Kate Kosturski

Kate Kosturski is your Multiversity social media manager, a librarian by day and a comics geek...well, by day too (and by night). Kate's writing has also been featured at PanelxPanel, Women Write About Comics, and Geeks OUT. She spends her free time spending too much money on Funko POP figures and LEGO, playing with yarn, and rooting for the hapless New York Mets. Follow her on Twitter at @librarian_kate.

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