Don’t “Blink.” Or do, but know that Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat is bewildered as to why you enjoy revisiting that episode so much—despite the fact that he wrote it.
We’ve made no secret of not exactly being huge Moffat fans around here as the Doctor Who showrunner, but as a writer, he’s done some of our favorite work: “Blink,” the “Silence in the Library” two-parter arc, “The Eleventh Hour,” and more. But as the show’s recent floundering—if not in popularity, in narrative quality—perhaps indicates, he has no idea what made “Blink” so special:
Of course, no writer at the time thinks their work will turn out to be a fan favorite, but he also says flat out, “I don’t know why ‘Blink’ is such a fan favorite.”
Maybe it’s the truly creepy villain that plays into not only our fear of the unknown—as we can’t ever truly see their attacks coming by their very nature—but also takes an ordinary object that might creep us out in the dark and makes it truly horrifying. It’s a similar effect to the Vashta Nerada (also by Moffat with “Silence in the Library”), which also hide around us every day in the show’s canon.
Or perhaps it’s the way the logic of the episode slowly unfolds so that everything becomes clear at the end and makes sense—at least enough sense for suspension of disbelief (another thing I miss from the revival’s earlier seasons). And maybe—just maybe—people like seeing a woman get to really be the protagonist of the episode?
But I’m not shocked to hear a lack of understanding of what’s great about the episode from the person who just kept throwing more and more (and less and less frightening) weeping angels at us until this happened:
“This is something the kids will like, yes?”
(via Blastr)
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