Series 3 Episodes Blink #10

Originally broadcast
9 June 2007

The episode, set mainly in 2007, focuses upon Sally Sparrow, who breaks into a dilapidated house called Wester Drumlins to take photographs. There she discovers behind the peeling wallpaper a message from "the Doctor" dated 1969, calling her by name and telling her to "beware the Weeping Angels" and then to "duck now", just before an object launched from behind nearly hits her.

She returns the next day with her friend, Kathy Nightingale. A man soon arrives at the door with a decades-old letter from his grandmother, saying he had promised to deliver it to Sally on this date at exactly this time. The name of his grandmother was Kathy Nightingale. Thinking this is a prank, she searches for Kathy, who has just disappeared. Sally encounters three Weeping Angel statues, one holding a Yale key. She takes the key and leaves the house, unaware that the Angels have moved and are watching her from the windows.

Sally reads the letter, wherein Kathy explains that the Weeping Angels transported her back to 1920. The letter asks Sally to explain her absence to her last close relative — Kathy's brother Larry, who runs a store that sells rare DVDs. Larry has also discovered a message from the Doctor, which features him carrying on half of an unfathomable conversation, as an easter egg hidden on seventeen unrelated DVDs. Larry gives Sally a list of the DVDs that have the Doctor on them.

Sally goes to the police, where a Detective Inspector, Billy Shipton, shows her a car park full of abandoned vehicles found at Wester Drumlins, including a fake police box with a Yale lock that cannot be opened. Billy then begins to flirt with Sally, asking her to have a drink with him. She laughs, gives him her telephone number and leaves. Outside, Sally realises that the Yale key could be used to open the police box while inside, Billy is transported by the Weeping Angels to 1969. The Doctor finds him and asks him to deliver a message to Sally once he lives his way back to the present: that she should check the list of DVDs. Stuck in the past, Billy goes into the video business and reveals to Sally that he was responsible for adding the easter eggs. In 2007, Billy calls Sally and she meets him in a hospital. He is now an old man, although he still loves her. He gives her the Doctor's message and she stays with him until he dies shortly after.

After realising that the list exactly matches her own DVD collection, Sally and Larry enter Wester Drumlins, and watch the Doctor's message on a DVD. This time Sally provides the other half of the conversation, which Larry adds to a transcript he brought with him. The Doctor explains several things: he has a complete transcript of the incomplete conversation, which is possible due to the non-linear nature of time; and that the Weeping Angels are "quantum locked", meaning they turn to stone when observed, but when unobserved they are fast and can be deadly, hence it is of utmost importance that she does not blink. He also tells them that the Weeping Angels feed off of time by teleporting people to the past where they "live to death" and then feed off of the time the victims could have had. They stole the TARDIS from The Doctor and Martha to feed off of all of the time energy in it.

While trying to escape from an Angel in the room they are watching the DVD in, Larry and Sally discover the TARDIS in the cellar. Unwilling to let their prey escape, the Angels cause a light bulb, the room's only light source, to flicker, allowing them to draw closer to the TARDIS. Larry and Sally manage to get into the TARDIS and shut the doors, just as the Angels manage to surround it. The DVD that Larry and Sally brought with them activates a protocol in the TARDIS, causing it to return to the Doctor. Sally and Larry are left behind, leaving the Angels trapped forever in a circle, tricked into observing each other.

The final scene takes place a year later, with Sally and Larry running the DVD store together. The Doctor and Martha emerge from a taxi outside the shop, armed with bows and arrows, apparently in pursuit of an unidentified monster. When the Doctor fails to recognize Sally, she realizes he has not yet experienced the episode's events (causing an ontological paradox), so Sally gives the transcript and list of DVDs to the Doctor. Sally, Larry and the Doctor exchange goodbyes. The episode ends with a repeat of the Doctor's warning to Sally, this time directed at the viewer, overlaid with flashes of famous bronze and stone statues.

Cast
The Doctor — David Tennant
Martha Jones — Freema Agyeman
Sally Sparrow — Carey Mulligan
Kathy Nightingale — Lucy Gaskell
Larry Nightingale — Finlay Robertson
Malcolm Wainwright — Richard Cant
DI Billy Shipton — Michael Obiora
Old Billy — Louis Mahoney
Ben Wainwright — Thomas Nelstrop
Banto — Ian Boldsworth
Desk Sergeant — Ray Sawyer
Weeping Angel — Aga Blonska (uncredited, but listed in Radio Times article)[3]

Cast Notes
Louis Mahoney plays an elder Billy Shipton. He has previously appeared in the Third Doctor serial Frontier in Space (1973) as a newscaster, and the Fourth Doctor serial Planet of Evil (1975) as Ponti.