"Blink" is the tenth episode of the third series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on 9 June 2007 on BBC One. The episode was directed by Hettie MacDonald and written by Steven Moffat. The episode is based on a previous short story written by Moffat for the 2006 Doctor Who Annual, entitled "'What I Did on My Christmas Holidays' By Sally Sparrow".
In the episode, the Tenth Doctor—a time travelling alien played by David Tennant—is trapped in 1969 and tries to communicate with a young woman in 2007, Sally Sparrow (Carey Mulligan), to prevent the statue-like Weeping Angels from taking control of the TARDIS. Sparrow and her best friend's brother, Larry Nightingale (Finlay Robertson), must unravel a set of cryptic clues sent through time by the marooned Doctor, left in DVD Easter eggs.
Both the Doctor and his companion Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman, have very little screen time in this episode, which let another episode be filmed simultaneously; "Blink" is consequently sometimes referred to by fans as a "Doctor-lite" episode. The scenes at Wester Drumlins were shot in a derelict house in Newport. To create the angels, two actresses wore makeup and prosthetics. The episode was seen by 6.62 million viewers in the United Kingdom.
"Blink" received widespread praise, and is widely considered to be one of the best episodes of the show. Moffat won the BAFTA Craft and BAFTA Cymru awards for Best Writer, and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form; while for her single performance in the series, Mulligan won the Constellation Award for Best Female Performance in a 2007 Science Fiction Television Episode. In 2009 the episode was voted the second best Doctor Who story ever by readers of Doctor Who Magazine.
Plot
In 2007, Sally Sparrow, intrigued by a message written to her under peeling wallpaper about "the Weeping Angels", explores the abandoned house Wester Drumlins a second time with her friend Kathy Nightingale. Kathy is sent back in time to 1920 by an angel statue. At that moment, Kathy's grandson Malcolm delivers to the house a message from 1987 about the long life Kathy led. Before leaving, Sally takes a Yale key hanging from the hand of a statue. Sally visits Kathy's brother Larry at work to tell him Kathy loves him, as she was asked to in the message. Larry explains that he has been documenting an Easter egg in seventeen different DVDs containing a video message of a man having half of a conversation with the viewer. Larry gives Sally a list of the DVDs. Four statues follow Sally to the police station, where they take an impounded fake police box and send DI Billy Shipton back to 1969. The man in the Easter egg, a time traveller called the Doctor, has also been sent to the past, and asks Billy to relay a message decades later. Billy puts the Easter egg on the DVDs. In 2007, a much older Billy phones Sally to visit him on his deathbed in the hospital. Before he dies, Billy instructs Sally to look at the list. The list is Sally's own DVD collection.
Sally and Larry return to the house and play the Easter egg on a portable DVD player. Sally discovers she can converse with the Doctor in 1969, as he possesses a copy of the complete transcript that Larry is currently compiling. The Doctor explains that aliens called Weeping Angels turn to stone statues when any living creature observes them. He fears they are seeking the vast reserves of time energy in the police box, which is his time machine the TARDIS.
A Weeping Angel pursues Sally and Larry to the basement where the TARDIS is. Sally and Larry use the Yale key to hide inside. Larry inserts a now-glowing DVD, which also functions as a control disk, in the console's DVD player. The ship returns to the Doctor, while leaving Sally and Larry behind. The Weeping Angels standing around the TARDIS get tricked into looking at each other and are permanently frozen. A year later, Sally meets the Doctor prior to his being stuck in 1969. She hands the Doctor the transcript, and warns that he will need it.