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Steven Moffat is a genius, and by now it must be very unlikely that anyone would dispute that.\u00a0 His contributions to the last two years of Doctor Who have produced the very best stories which the new series has to offer.<\/p>\n
So when it was announced that he would be handling the infamous \u2018random\u2019, budget and regulars\u2013lite episode 10 spot this year, many of us might have thought that the programme\u2019s \u2018other Paisley star\u2019 had met his match at last.\u00a0 Without a lavish war-time two-parter or Sophia Myles and mirror-smashing equestrianism, could Moffat really make it a hat trick?<\/p>\n
We needn\u2019t have worried.\u00a0 Not only does he once again come up with the series\u2019 finest, but Blink is also the first story since new Who began which has genuinely scared me.\u00a0 What Moffat did for gasmasks and ticking clocks he now does for statues, which were always kind of creepy, anyway.<\/p>\n
Like last year\u2019s under-rated Love and Monsters, Blink only features the regulars in the present narrative at the very end of the story, allowing us to get to know the story\u2019s other characters without having them shoved into the background by Tennant\u2019s \u2018mouth-and trousers\u2019 Tenth Doctor.\u00a0 As much as I appreciate and enjoy all that he\u2019s brought to the programme, I\u2019m also aware that this is the second time this series that the Tenth Doctor ha been absent from a story until the very end \u2013 and I haven\u2019t missed him.As Steven Moffat says, we get a \u2018hot girl\u2019 instead, so who cares? Sally Sparrow is a lovely creation, who\u2019s courage and determination has already earned her Fan murmurings of \u2018companion material\u2019 and \u2018own series\u2019.\u00a0 First seen wearing a slightly \u2018Doctorish scarf\u2019, later on she even has a \u2018taking companion by the hand\u2019 moment which echoes Rose and Smith and Jones.<\/p>\n
Eventually charged with rescuing the Doctor and Martha in a plot which not only seems more ingenious every time you think about it but even appears to make sense, Sally must also face one of the programmes\u2019 eeriest threats ever.\u00a0 In the hands of clever Mr Moffat, we\u2019re not risking your run-of-the-mill mutilation, possession or invasion here, but a \u2018sudden change of circumstances\u2019 which at least two victims make the very best of and might even be grateful for.\u00a0 One of the wonderful aspects of Moffat\u2019s Who is that no-one is ever killed by the menace, or not on-screen at least.\u00a0 Despite images of WWII body horror, futuristic organ harvesting and a long list of unsolved disappearances, the only death he\u2019s ever presented, Blink\u2019s ex-DI Billy Shipton, is from natural causes and sensitively portrayed.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, an unnecessary two line sub-plot explaining why the Angels want the TARDIS seems out-of-step with the rest of the episode, perhaps clumsily inserted during script editing to make the episode seem a little more conventional? If so, it seems a shame. More than any other, this episode is unique and rather beautiful in it\u2019s own right, outside of the context of the rest of the programme.\u00a0 Blink can be frightening, but also most effective when giving us glimpses into the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.\u00a0 A brave companion who never was, a woman who enjoys a long and happy life that she should never have had and a dying man who waits forty years for his first date with a girl he\u2019s just met.<\/p>\n
Blinkin\u2019 marvellous!<\/p>\n
AH<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Steven Moffat is a genius, and by now it must be very unlikely that anyone would dispute that.\u00a0 His contributions to the last two years of Doctor Who have produced the very best stories which the new series has to … Continue reading