fajrdrako | Doctor Who: "Blink"... (Reply)

I watched the Doctor Who episode "Blink" this evening. At the risk of sounding repetitive again, I loved it.

Comparisons to "Love and Monsters" are inevitable, and yet it was different in tone and style. There was an Elton-like character, for sure - Laurence, Kathy's dorky brother - who gets the girl in the end. But having Sally Sparrow as the point of view, and having he survive, gave the story a whole different feel.

I've always loved stone angels. I will look at them more carefully in future.

Love the way they got scarier and scarier as the story continued.

Loved the way Sally realized at the end that she was the missing link who had given the necessary information to the Doctor (in the future) so he could give it to her in the past.

I liked Billy a lot and was sorry that, after his relationship with Sally had such a lovely, promising beginning, he then bypassed her for almost forty years.... I certainly liked Billy more than Laurence!

And my favourite bit? Sally's conversation with the Doctor via the DVD easter egg, when he knew what she would say because Laurence had written her conversation down and then she'd given him the transcript - no, she will have given him the transcript at the end of the episode - all that timey-wimey stuff.

Cute. I love it when they use time travel, not just to visit a time or place, but to really use timelines and the logical (or illogical) possibilities that follow from the concept.

Another favourite bit: Kathy turning up in a field in 1920. Hull? As

silverwhistle commented, Hull's an industrial city, isn't it? Maybe there's a field or hill or something somewhere in Yorkshire with the same name. Couldn't Kathy's boyfriend have just said "Yorkshire"? ...Doesn't really matter, he was cute. Maybe there's some in-joke there.

I also really love the idea of people going to photograph old abandoned buildings. There are several LJs and websites with the picture these people take - I find it fascinating. A glimpse of not just other worlds and times, but a private glimpse, like seeing something forbidden. And something therefore unknown, forgotten.

Loved the way Sally found the Doctor's message to her on the wall under the wallpaper.

Loved the concept of the Stone Angels: predators that can't be looked at. Couldn't they find planets without visible light? Or planets where the inhabitants don't have eyes? Well, perhaps such planets are difficult to find, or perhaps they found themselves on earth by accident. There did seem to be only four of them.

And I totally loved it that the Doctor tricked them. Loved he effect of seeing the TARDIS moving in space and time while Laurence and Sally, inside the TARDIS, didn't go with it. How did that work? More timey-wimey stuff, I guess. Probably better not to ask. It was just so scary to see the Angels through the walls of the TARDIS, from the inside.

Was I supposed to understand how the Angels got their hands on the TARDIS? How was it that they had the TARDIS and the key, and not both together? and not the Doctor or Martha? I think I missed a plot point there...

Loved it that Martha worked "in a shop" to support the Doctor in 1969. (Memory flash to her being a maid scrubbing floors for his sake. He owes her big time and he knows it.) I couldn't help thinking about a crossover with Life on Mars

And, yes, then the trailer for "Utopia". And it didn't overlap with the clip John Barrowman showed on Jonathan Ross, which was nice, too.

"Doctor."

"Captain."

Face to face. Woo.

Seven days to wait.

And Derek Jacobi is looking scary. Now, much as I quite liked the Brother Cadfael series, I don't like Derek Jacobi or his acting style. Are those heretical words? Everyone I know seems to think he's wonderful. I don't see it. But here... I'm looking forward to him. Looks like a strange and wild plot.

Also looks as if Jack will get bashed around a lot. Again. He's getting plenty of practice at those electricity-zapped moments.