History Recap / DoctorWhoS29E10Blink

* PoliceAreUseless: Averted. When Sally goes to the police, despite her outlandish tale, they take her seriously - both the desk sergeant, and Billy.

The episode received a sequel in the form of the 2021 puzzle game ''The Lonely Assassins'' in which the player finds themselves in possession of Larry's phone after he'd gone missing and must piece together what happened to him.

In a coffee shop, Sally reads the letter fully, learning Kathy led a full and happy life with Ben, the first person she met in Hull, and had a family. She includes photographs of her and her children (with her daughter named after Sally), and grandchildren. Sally reads Kathy's joke about living to an exceptionally old age and her request to tell Larry, who works at a local DVD shop; her parents are gone by this time, so he's really her only close family. After visiting Kathy's grave ("[[ReallySeventeenYearsOld You told him you were eighteen? You lying cow!]]"), Sally heads out to fulfil Kathy's last request and convey her love to Larry. Sally fails to notice one of the Angels from Wester Drumlins spying on her in the graveyard.

* MythologyGag: Billy Shipton comments that the police box isn't a real one as, "the phone's just a dummy, and the windows are the wrong size." This is a reference to the fact that the TARDIS props over the decades have been scaled down versions of the real thing, and that none of them were 100 percent accurate.

* ReallySeventeenYearsOld: Once she ends up in 1920, Kathy claims to have been born in 1902. Sally makes it clear to the audience that Kathy wasn't really eighteen.

*** The episode starts in 2007. The final scene takes place one year later, [[FridgeBrilliance so it's after Martha met the Doctor.]]

* The Ditz: Larry Nightingale. Introduced wandering around naked and not aware of it (he has to ask Sally if he is wearing underwear). When Sally reveals the EasterEgg was meant for her, Larry is more concerned that she only owns 17 DVDs. And when TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat runs out, he seriously suggests rewinding it.

'''Sally Sparrow:''' Sally Shipton. SPARROW! Sally Sparrow!

* MythologyGag: Billy Shipton comments that the police box isn't a real one as, "the phone's just a dummy, and the windows are the wrong size." This is a reference to the fact that the TARDIS props over the years have been scaled down versions of the real thing.

** Happens to the Doctor and Martha because the Angels stole the T.A.R.D.I.S. They need Sally to send it back to them.

* TrappedInThePast: Happens to the Doctor and Martha, as well as Kathy and Billy.

* CantMoveWhileBeingWatched: The Angels' [[PlanetOfHats hat]].

At Wester Drumlins, the man has become upset; he promised to fulfill this task for his grandmother, Kathy Wainwright, who died in 1987. This persuades Sally to take the letter and read it; this man is indeed Kathy's grandson, who swore to fulfil her last request. In anger, believing it to be a sick joke, Sally flings down the letter and heads upstairs, only to find three more Weeping Angels. One of them has a key hanging from a string in its hand. She takes it and heads out, only to find Kathy's grandson leaving with his promise fulfilled, the envelope and its contents sitting on the banister. As Sally leaves, she fails to notice the Angels watching her from the windows.

In a coffee shop, Sally reads the letter fully, learning Kathy led a full and happy life with Ben, the first person she met in Hull, and had a family. She includes photographs of her and her children (with her daughter named after Sally), and grandchildren. Sally reads Kathy's joke about living to an exceptionally old age and her request to tell Larry, who works at a local DVD shop; her parents are gone by this time, so he's really her only close family. After visiting Kathy's grave ("[[ReallySeventeenYearsOld You told him you were eighteen? You lying cow!]]"), Sally heads out to fulfill Kathy's last request and convey her love to Larry. Sally fails to notice one of the Angels from Wester Drumlins spying on her in the graveyard.

When Sally asks the mystery man who sent him, he reveals that he was sent by his grandmother, Katherine Wainwright. Although, she's specified that he add that prior to marriage, she was known as [[WhamLine Kathy Nightingale]]. At that moment, the door to the room Kathy is in slams shut. Sally calls to Kathy, which the man assumes is her wondering if he said the right name; he restates her full name, Katherine Constello Nightingale, as confirmation. Sally presumes she has figured out the joke and calls for her friend, but Kathy does not answer. When she goes back into the room where she left her, Kathy has completely vanished, and the Angel is back in its original spot and position outside.

This explicit LampshadeHanging leads her to take the counter-jockey's inadvertent advice, and Sally heads over to the police station. While waiting, she sees two of the Angels on the church across the street. Watching them, she blinks and they have disappeared. She doesn't see that they are now beside the window she is looking out of. She then meets DI Billy Shipton. He shows her a collection of cars with something strange in common: all of them were found outside the Wester Drumlins house (some with their engines still running), and all of their owners vanished without a trace. The prize of the collection is [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall an imitation police box built entirely to scale which nobody can manage to open despite having an ordinary Yale lock]] (they know it's fake because [[FandomNod the phone's just a dummy and the windows are the wrong size]]).

They then discover that Larry's DVD functions as a TARDIS-activation key, slot it into the TARDIS' handy [[PlotCoupon drive]] for a one way trip as the Angels shake the machine from the outside and then watch as the TARDIS dematerialises without them. The Angels have surrounded the TARDIS by this point, and when it disappears they're stuck looking at each other — forever. Larry interprets this as a sneaky trick by the Doctor, even though it was completely out of his control.

Then a cab pulls up, and the Doctor and Martha get out, 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 recognises Sally, which leads her to realise that for them, the events of the episode haven't taken place yet. She also realises that the folder containing Larry's complete transcript of the 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.

* AlasPoorVillain: After the angels are trapped forever from all looking at each other, Larry's face as he says "I don't think we need to" and his delivery of "They're never gonna move again" imply that he feels at least slightly bad for them as they didn't seem to have any outright malice towards him and they were just after the key.

* IronicEcho: Billy, meeting Sally as a young man, tells her "life is short and you are hot". Later, bidding her farewell as an old man, he tells her "life is long and you are hot".

* SelfPlagiarism: Characters having a conversation with a video recording of the Doctor echoes a similar scene in Moffat's ''Series/{{Jekyll}}''.

It is at this moment, [[ForegoneConclusion of course]], that Sally and Larry realise that the panic of the Doctor's message stopping diverted their attention from the angel in the garden. After a moment's pause, they look up to see it standing only a few metres away, poised to attack with its fangs and claws showing. Sally goes to look for an exit, leaving Larry to stare at the Angel. The music gets more and more off-kilter until it starts playing in reverse as Larry stares at the Angel, trying not to blink. He slowly feels the need to. His eyes water either from strain and sheer terror, and he sobs a tearful [[OhCrap ''"Oh god..."'']] He looks away for a moment to see where the door is, while also getting in a split-second blink, and when he looks back, the Angel is right in his face, its hands are inches away from his neck.

* 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 terror that "Blink" had involving the Weeping Angels and being sent back through time.

At Wester Drumlins, the man has become upset; he promised to fulfill this task for his grandmother, Kathy Wainwright, who died in 1987. This persuades Sally to take the letter, who reads it; this man is indeed Kathy's grandson, who swore to fulfil her last request. In anger, believing it to be a sick joke, Sally flings down the letter and heads upstairs, only to find three more Weeping Angels. One of them has a key hanging from a string in its hand. She takes it and heads out, only to find Kathy's grandson leaving with his promise fulfilled, the envelope and its contents sitting on the banister. As Sally leaves, she fails to notice the Angels watching her from the windows.

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 {{Mind Screw}}s 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 one that that plays NobodyHereButUsStatues for horror.

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

Sally finds the mansion's basement and calls out for Larry to follow her, hoping for a way out, and they make their way down the stairs, finding the TARDIS surrounded by several angels. However, the Angel from before follows them and creates intervals of darkness by feeding on the electricity powering the single lightbulb so all the angels can advance under the cover of pitch blackness. Sally and Larry make it inside the TARDIS just as the Angels reach them. However, they are now completely surrounded by the angels on all sides of the police box

They then discover that Larry's DVD functions as a TARDIS-activation key, slot it into the TARDIS' handy [[PlotCoupon drive]] for a one way trip as the Angels shake the machine from the outside and then watch as the TARDIS dematerialises without them. The Angels have surrounded the TARDIS by this point, and when it disappears they're stuck looking at each other — forever. Larry interprets this as a sneaky trick by the doctor, even though it was completely out of his control.