Dr. Who Season 3 Thread (1 Viewer)

[Mikel_Cooperman]

I know a lot of people had hoped Sally Sparrow would be a future companion but it doesn't look like that is going to happen.
As far as the filming schedule, they were filming this episode while the Main actors were filming the three parter season ender.

 

[Steve Berger]

Shouldn't that be in a spoiler?
Since they tried to fool everybody into thinking the final was a two parter? IIRC

 

[NeilO]

Actually, it was filmed during the Human Nature/Family of Blood two-parter. They were from 27 Nov 06 through 11 Jan 07 with some production continued a bit later (and a break after 15 Dec 06 until 3 Jan 07). Blink was mostly from 20 Nov 06 through 2 Dec 06. The next episode mainly started on 30 Jan 07. [This is from the DWM special edition on Series Three.]

Neil

 

[Garrett Adams]

In my mind it was not your typical Dr. Who fare. Blink raised the franchise to another level. It was simply brilliant.

 

[BrianW]

After a second watching, I discovered that there is a lot more going on in the background than I saw in the first viewing. For instance, when the angels were shown to lower their hands from their faces, there was usually a cut in the editing, and the change was obvious. But in the scene where Sally takes the Tardis key from one of the angels, the two angels in the background are shown to alternate between weeping and gazing as Sally passes in front of them. And it's done in one take, with no cuts or edits.

It's as if we, the omniscient viewers, provided the gaze that maintained the angels' stoney state, and when that gaze was interrupted by Sally's movements, the angels were able to move. So it's as if by merely watching the episode, we saved Sally in that particular scene.

I can't think of a Doctor Who episode I've enjoyed more.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

The Angels aren't stone angels but actors in heavy dress and paint. I've seen the Confidential.

I loved the way the Doctor wasn't so much in the ep, but he was.

The first time I saw this ep it scared the bejesus out of me (it still creeps me out a bit). I couldn't watch a statue for a while without thinking "don't blink!". I thought Sally Sparrow was great. I thought she would make a great companion, some day. It goes to show you that special effects aren't the substitution for good writing and acting. I pity the poor children, and their parent's, of Britain when this first aired.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

I though Blink was a brilliantly scary classic Who episode, of the type that people think about when they talk about "hiding behind the sofa". But my favourite part was the final sequence, which really was completely irrelevant and solely existed for the purpose of terrifying the the hell out of kids by pointing to all the statues around everywhere and saying "Be afraid of these". Wonderful.

 

[joshEH]

That said, of course, it was one of the best episodes of this entire season for me; having several of the main characters die in a non-linear way was a necessary creative step, I think.

 

[Francois Caron]

Before the episode aired in the U.K., the public was warned that it may be better to record the show and play it back during the daytime for the benefit of younger children.

The BBC Web Site has a feature called "Fear Factor" where the children of a British family are given the opportunity to rate the scariness of each episode on a scale of 1 to 5. The two youngest children (6 and 8 years of age) rated this episode a 6!

It was a brilliant episode! It was scary without being gory (a nice twist). Perfect storytelling, excellent use of sound, visuals and music, and lingering fears left in the minds of little children long after the episode is over! Simply perfect! And no, I don't look at statues the same way anymore!

 

[Michael Harris]

If ever there was evidence that great writing, great acting, and great direction are more important then flashy special effects, "Blink" was it. No silly mechanical men, no "exterminate", and yet all "Doctor" even with his limited screen time. The best I've seen so far. Oh, and Carey Mulligan as Sally was a joy to watch.

 

[Garrett Adams]

Since it turned out so well maybe they lower their budgets more often.

 

[Phil Florian]

I didn't think they would get better than the last two-parter but "Blink" just blew them away. Blew a lot of shows away and not just Dr. Who shows. There are a lot of shows that claim the tag of "horror" or "scary" but aren't nearly as well put together as this one. My wife was hidden under a blanket peaking out. She was hiding from basically non-moving statues! It freaked the hell out of us.

I concur...they should make the young lady the new Companion...even with her boyfriend. They have had multiple Companions before in the past, right? Would get rid of the sometimes creepy love interest storylines (was "romantic" ever a quality of a Companion?). Sure, once, but every female Companion from now on? Yeesh. But they would have a real Scooby Gang vibe if they had the clever girl, the doofus boy and the brilliant Doctor fighting actors dressed up as monsters! Sweet!

On a side note, it was interesting that the "death" of the people she met made their lives actually nicer than the ones they left. The woman lived with said doofus brother and seemed to lack direction but met a nice guy and lived a very long life with a wonderful family. Same with the cop. He seemed to be very happy with the life he was forced to lead. Was this why the Doctor didn't go back and save them? I would assume he could have given them a ride at the moment they arrived. I half expected this happened "behind the scenes" in that the Doctor may have gone back and offered them the chance to come back but knowing their futures decided to say. The cop knew his day of death so the Doctor must have told him quite a bit about his life. Interesting to think about.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Well, they did mention it in the episode - the old cop says it would have destroyed 3/4 of the universe, and they established back in the first season that Rose attempting to save her father was a Very Bad Thing. Predestination or closed-loop paradoxes seem to be all right in the Doctor Who world, but changing history is right out (I'm guessing that that may be why there are very few Gallifreyans and Daleks left; the Time War has more or less erased them).

 

[KevinGress]

"Blink" was a great episode and reminded me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Hush".

The explanation of their actions was the weakest part of the episode. They live off of 'potential energy'?! Then the one that zapped the Doctor should have been off somewhere sleeping off a Thanksgiving hangover, given his 'potential energy'.

And it did look like the statues were actors in several shots, but I didn't realize they were actors throughout. (Was wondering how they did all the different facial shots- figured creating each 'statue' out of foam, latex, etc would have been cost-prohibitive)

Nice, creepy episode overall.

 

[BrianW]

I don't think the Doctor could have saved Billy, because he needed Billy to produce the DVD Easter Egg and to give Sally the clue about the list. If he had rescued Billy as you suggest, he couldn't have recovered his Tardis, because Billy would not have been in the past to produce the DVDs. (For the record, I don't think that destroying 2/3 of the universe was an issue since I think Billy could technically have been moved safely anywhere in time as long as he wasn't moved to a point in time which would enable two Billies to exist simultaneously.) Yeah, he would have already had his Tardis by then, but I don't think he can go back and undo events he influenced to a particular end and then keep the end he managed to achieve. Perhaps I'm thinking of this in linear, cause-and-effect, subjective terms, but results still require action, even in the Doctor Who universe, which has always been reluctant to employ the use of "alternate time lines". The actions and results can very well be completely out of order, but there are still no results without action, and those actions have consequences. Otherwise, he wouldn't have needed to write the warning on the wall behind the wallpaper (which he knew to do because Sally gave him a picture of it), he wouldn't have had to elicit Billy's help with the DVDs, and he wouldn't have had to build a Timey-Wimey Detector that goes DING when there's Stuff. Instead, immediately after being sent to 1969, his Tardis would have appeared next to him, and he would have said, "Oh, look! I must have done something brilliant somewhere sometime that managed to influence some nice people to send the Tardis back to me so I wouldn't have to do something brilliant somewhere sometime to do that thing I just said. Fancy a ride?"

 

[Andres Munoz]

I'm late to the party here...I've been recording the season 3 episodes and just finished watching the "Human Nature" 2 parter. Amazing TV right there. My wife was never into this show and those 2 episodes might have convinced her to keep watching.

Now you guys got me all excited about watching "Blink". I just pray that my DVR recorded it because it has been acting up lately.

I'll be back for more.

 

[BrianW]

Andres, don't read any more of this forum until you've seen Blink! Of all the episodes, this is the one to watch unspoiled.

And, well, drat! You already know about the Timey-Wimey Detector that goes DING when there's Stuff!

 

[Tony J Case]

Somehow I suspect that Donna will be anything but head-over-heels in love with the Doctor. I'm hoping she'll be more like Tegan was, not afraid to give the Doctor some lip when the time comes.

And yeah, there's been romance - not overt, but it's been there. Look at Three's reaction to Jo leaving the Green Death and tell me he didnt have a little something for her? And I could totaly buy that Four had feelings for Sarah. And of course Susan had to come from somewhere, right (and the first person to say "the looms" gets hit in the head with a kitten!)

 

[Andres Munoz]

Just watched "Blink" last night. Wow, you guys weren't kidding! Probably the creepiest Dr. Who episode I've seen. Everything just clicked, the atmosphere, the music, the spooky statues, it was all good. And I love those type of time travel storylines where people send messages back and forth through time. It was also nice to see the Doctor at the end with Martha, all ghostbusters-like, coming out of that cab. And he didn't know anything Sally was talking about because it hadn't happened to her yet.

Brilliant!

 

[Andrew Beacom]

Blink was excellent. Liked it better than the 2 parter that was a little flat. A whiney Dr isn't exciting.