History Recap / DoctorWhoNSS3E10Blink

** Also, the [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming incredibly cute resolution for Sally and Larry]] followed immediately by the ParanoiaFuel NoForthWall ending.

** Also, the [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming incredibly cute resolution for Sally and Larry]] followed immediately by the ParanoiaFuel TheForthWallWillNotProtectYou ending.

* NothingIsScarier: We never actually see an Angel send anyone back in time. We only see the people they've sent back after they've been sent back. In part this is because of the fourth wall-breaking nature of the Angels' portrayal (see ParanoiaFuel below), but in part it's because imagining them creeping up on you is much scarier.

No! Keep looking at the- [[note]]http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Weeping_Angel_291.jpg[[/note]]

[-- --Don't blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. Good luck.--]

* FridgeHorror: The only way to prevent a Weeping Angel from moving is by having a living being observe it. [[spoiler: At the end, this is used to trap them in an abandoned house, with only one incandescent light-bulb providing the light for them to see each other.]]

Sally finds the TARDIS in the mansion's basement, and she and Larry make their way down the stairs. However, the Angels follow them, and one ([[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands suddenly displaying a proficiency]] for [[MindOverMatter telekinesis]]) causes the only light-bulb in the room to flicker on and off. Sally and Larry make it inside the TARDIS just as the Angels reach them.

--> Doctor: ''[following gargoyle close-up]'' Don't blink. ''[cut to shots of three successive human statues]'' Blink and you're dead. ''[cut to several more statues]'' ''Don't'' turn your back, ''[cut to two more statues]'' ''don't'' look away, ''[cut to several more statues]'' and ''don't blink''. ''[Several statues in quick succession]'' Good luck. [[spoiler:''[Cut to close up on the Doctor's eyes -- he blinks]'']]

** Also, three years later we see the Angels again in Recap/DoctorWhoS31E04TheTimeOfAngels. This time, we learn that [[spoiler:anything that holds the image of an Angel itself becomes an Angel]]. Now look back at the items Sally gives the Doctor: [[spoiler:she gives him a photo of an Angel, perhaps explaining how they stole the TARDIS in the first place]].

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The Doctor mentions that if the Angels were able to take control of the TARDIS, the damage they could cause would switch off the Sun [[spoiler: This is pretty much what happens much later in [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens}} "The Pandorica Opens"]] when an unknown force takes control of the TARDIS and detonates it, only on a far larger scale as it wipes out every single star at every moment in history]].
** Another example would be Kathy's grandson delivering a letter to Sally to tell her about her life and death in the past, which possibly foreshadows [[spoiler: the much later sub-episode [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS33ShortPS}} P.S.]] in which Rory's father is given a similar letter by Rory's son from the past, who is his own grandson.]].

* LetsGetDangerous: Sally after [[spoiler: Billy dies of old age]]. Even the music gears up as she goes into Determinator Mode.

* MemeticMutation:
** "The Angels Have the Phonebox." It started off as an in-universe example, but [[{{Defictionalization}} now it really is on t-shirts]].
** The "timey-wimey" line has grown legs, as well. Also the TropeNamer for TimeyWimeyBall.
** "Don't blink" has also undergone its own bit of mutation by now.

* OhCrap: [[spoiler: "Why's it pointing at the..." (the light bulb flickers)]].

* {{Redshirt}}: [[spoiler: Kathy]] literally wears one while rooting around with Sally, although [[spoiler: she's not killed outright, just time displaced.]]
* {{Revision}}: [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E04TheTimeOfAngels A future episode]] adds a teeny bit more information about the angels in the episode, that [[spoiler: they were scavengers, barely holding on to life, which explains why some other abilities future episode angels have don't come into play here.]]

* TakeThat: When entering Wester Drumlins for the first time, Sally and Kathy suggest names for their little "investigation team". When Sally comes up with 'Nightingale and Sparrow', Kathy dismisses it as a bit too ITV. [[spoiler:Doesn't stop Sally and Lawrence from using it as the name of their shop.]]

* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou / FridgeBrilliance / FridgeHorror: The Angels never move on screen, despite the fact that the characters are definitely not looking at them. So why don't they move? [[spoiler: You're looking at them.]]
** On a more encouraging note, [[spoiler: this also technically means that ''you'' are the one keeping the Angels from going after the heroes much of the time, which makes you instrumental in saving the day.]]
*** Or, if you've seen "The Name of the Doctor", [[spoiler:maybe it was (a) Clara watching them somewhere off-camera....]]

No! Keep looking at the- [[hottip:*:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Weeping_Angel_291.jpg]]

Sally leaves Wester Drumlins, and the next day, goes to visit her friend, Kathy Nightingale. At Kathy's house, Sally notices a [=TV=] set playing a [=DVD=] of the Doctor, apparently talking to thin air. She also meets Kathy's brother Lawrence ([[StealthPun Lawrence Nightingale, get it?]]), who has apparently [[strike:[[NakedFirstImpression just stepped out of the shower and forgotten his towel]]]] discovered that sleeping in the nude helps with those tricky midnight leaks. Sufficiently GenreSavvy viewers [[HowToBecomeALoveInterest know what's coming next]], despite Moffat [[PlayingWithATrope trying to throw a curveball]] by reversing the genders of the protagonists.

Anyway, Sally convinces Kathy to come with her to Wester Drumlins. When someone knocks on the door, Kathy stays behind in case of danger, while Sally investigates. [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Completely off-screen,]] the angel from the garden approaches, appearing ever closer as the camera angle changes...

After visiting Kathy's grave, Sally heads out to fulfill Kathy's last request and convey her love to Lawrence (AKA Larry). At the DVD shop where he works, Sally gets into an argument with the same recording of the Doctor. Since he [[TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat appears to be talking directly to her]], she soon gets creeped out and yells at the Doctor to stop being so weird ... at which point, Larry shows up. He tells her that the video of the Doctor is an EasterEgg on 17 apparently unconnected [=DVDs=], and that nobody seems to know what it's about, though he and his online friends have thoroughly dissected every line in search of answers.

This explicit LampshadeHanging leads her to take the counter-jockey's inadvertent advice, and Sally heads over to the Police Station -- followed by the Weeping Angels. At the station, she meets a Police Inspector named Billy Shipton, who flirts with her shamelessly, [[GenreBlind blissfully unaware]] that [[FirstGirlWins The First Guy Wins]] (though he is encouraged by a FreudianSlip on her part.) He also shows her a garage full of cars whose owners have disappeared in or around Wester Drumlins in the past few years. The prize of the collection is an imitation police box built entirely to scale which nobody can manage to open (they know it's fake because the phone's just a dummy and [[FandomNod the windows are the wrong size]]).

At Wester Drumlins, they set up a portable DVD player and, on noticing an Angel in the garden, Sally tells Larry to keep an eye on it. The following sequence is one of the biggest TimeParadox [[MindScrew Mind Screws]] you will ever encounter, with Sally and the Doctor carrying on an extended conversation even though the Doctor is speaking to a video camera thirty-eight years in the past. The Doctor's attempt to explain the temporal mechanics of the situation gives us the TropeNamer for the TimeyWimeyBall. When asked how he knows what she's going to say, the Doctor responds "Look to your left". Sally does so -- to find Larry scribbling her lines into his copy of the transcript of the Doctor's dialogue from the [=DVD=] Easter Egg (adding a necessary but slightly cool-dampening modicum of plausibility to the sequence). The Doctor reveals he has a copy of that completed transcript as he records his part.

They've also evolved the ultimate defense mechanism:

It is at this moment, [[ForegoneConclusion of course]], that Sally and Larry realize that neither of them has been looking at the Angel in the garden. After a moment's pause, they look up to see it standing only a few meters away, poised to attack. Sally goes to look for an exit, leaving Larry to stare at the Angel. He looks away for a split second, and when he looks back the Angel's hands are inches away from his neck.

They then discover that Larry's DVD functions as a TARDIS-activation key, slot it into the TARDIS' handy PlotCoupon drive and then watch as the TARDIS de-materializes without them. The Angels have surrounded the TARDIS by this point, and when it disappears they're stuck looking at each other -- forever. Whoops.

Fast forward one year. Sally and Larry now run an Antiquarian book and rare DVD shop, which Sally insists is [[JustFriends all there is between them]], at least partly because she's too focused on investigating what happened to them.

Then the Doctor and Martha walk by, with [[NoodleImplements Martha carrying a quiver of arrows, and the Doctor carrying a bow]]. They are in a hurry to deal with -- [[NoodleIncident well, four things and a lizard]]. Neither the Doctor nor Martha recognizes Sally, which leads her to realize that for them, the events of the episode haven't taken place yet. She also realizes that the very convenient folder containing Larry's complete transcript of the 38-year conversation and various other details regarding the "Weeping Angels" affair is [[StableTimeLoop the source of the Doctor's knowledge about the incident]]. She gives the Doctor the folder, and tells him to use it the next time he gets trapped in 1969.

** Also, three years later we see the Angels again in Recap/DoctorWhoS31E04TheTimeOfAngels. This time, we learn that [[spoiler:anything that holds the image of an Angel itself becomes an Angel]]. Now look back at the items Sally gives the Doctor: [[spoiler:she gives him a photo of an Angel, explaining how they stole the TARDIS in the first place]].

* {{Expy}}: Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightengale seem very similiar to Amy Pond and Rory Williams in personality as well as physical appearance.

** Another example would be Kathy's grandson delivering a letter to Sally to tell her about her life and death in the past, which possibly foreshadows [[spoiler: the much later subepisode [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS33ShortPS}} P.S.]] in which Rory's father is given a similar letter by Rory's son from the past, who is his own grandson.]].

** "Don't Blink," has also undergone its own bit of mutation by now.

* NakedFirstImpression: Larry Nightengale, for Sally Sparrow.

* OhCrap: [[spoiler: "Why's it pointing at the..." (the lightbulb flickers)]].

* PlotCoupon: The DVD

The [[LowerDeckEpisode Doctor-lite episode]] was based on a short story written by Moffat for the 2006 ''Doctor Who Annual'', titled "'What I Did On Christmas My Holidays', by Sally Sparrow". ([[http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2007/blink_annual.shtml The BBC has kindly put this up on their website.]])

** Another arguable example would be Kathy's grandson delivering a letter to Sally to tell her about her life and death in the past, which possibly foreshadows [[spoiler: the much later subepisode [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS33ShortPS}} P.S.]] in which Rory's father is given a similar letter by Rory's son from the past, who is his own grandson.]].

* FridgeBrilliance: Sally and Larry have the book/DVD shop, "and nothing more", Sally insists, between them. Until ''after'' they meet The Doctor, who's carrying ''a bow and arrow''. Who else carries a bow and arrow and causes a RelationshipUpgrade... and is often ''mistaken for an angel''?
* FridgeHorror: [[spoiler: What if someone turns out the lights in that cellar after the end?]]
** [[spoiler: or even something disrupts the Angel's sight of one another, as Wester Drumlins could either be torn down or a beam could fall SequelHook, anyone?]]

* HarsherInHindsight: Sally has a photo of an Angel in the folder she gives the Doctor. Image of an Angel, anyone?

* ParanoiaFuel:
** There are a few shots where nobody's looking at the angels. So why aren't they attacking? [[spoiler: Because YOU'RE looking at them.]]
** The last minute of the episode goes to great lengths to imply that ''any'' statue could be a Weeping Angel.
*** ''Then'' they went and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E05TheAngelsTakeManhattan confirmed]] it. The [[OhCrap Statue of Liberty]], anyone? New York is lucky that it never sleeps.
** The angels don't move when anyone's looking at them. Not even you. They move only when your view is blocked as well. Don't blink.

* XanatosRoulette: Subverted. From Sally's perspective the Doctor's plan relies on insane guesswork, but by the time it's over you can clearly see how he pulled it all off.

* TheFilmOfTheBook: "Blink" is based on Moffat's short story and shares several common elements; the heroine in both is Sally Sparrow (though the story's Sally is somewhat younger), there are elements of finding messages left by the Ninth Doctor trapped in the 1960s behind peeling wallpaper, and concludes with Sally finding a video tape, having a similarly strange conversation with the Doctor through the tape, and eventually helping to reunite him with the TARDIS. Fortunately, the story lacked much of the NightmareFuel that "Blink" had including the Weeping Angels and being sent back through time.

* NightmareFuel: The Weeping Angels are consistently rated as one of the most terrifying monsters in nuWho, if not the entire franchise's history. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut The Silence]] is starting to challenge their territory, though.

** Also, a spectacular one
--->'''SALLY''': You're not looking at the statue.
--->'''LARRY''': Neither are you.

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: "Go to the police, you stupid woman! Why does nobody ever just go to the police?"

''Blink'' was written by StevenMoffat and netted a ton of awards for both writing and acting. It also ultimately lost a NebulaAward for Best Script to ''PansLabyrinth''.

It is a [[LowerDeckEpisode Doctor-lite episode]], based on a short story written by Moffat for the 2006 ''Doctor Who Annual'', titled "'What I Did On Christmas My Holidays', by Sally Sparrow". ([[http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2007/blink_annual.shtml The BBC has kindly put this up on their website.]])

** "The Angels Have the Blue Box." It started off as an in-universe example, but [[{{Defictionalization}} now it really is on t-shirts]].

* FridgeBrilliance: Sally and Larry have the book/DVD shop, "and nothing more", Sally insists, between them. Until ''after'' they meet The Doctor, who's carrying ''a bow and arrow''. Who else carries a bow and arrow and causes a RelationshipUpgrade?

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The Doctor mentions that if the Angels were able to take control of the Tardis, the damage they could cause would switch off the Sun [[spoiler: This is pretty much what happens much later in [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens}} The Pandorica Opens]] when an Unknown force takes control of the Tardis and detonates it, only on a far larger scale as it wipes out every single star at every moment in history]].