Dr. Who 3/29.10 Blink

[selenak]

Stephen Moffat: scariest Who writer ever. I am awed, Sir, I am awed.



This really surpassed Moffat's own "Are you my mummy?" in sheer scariness, and as with the automatons in last year's Moffat masterpiece, Girl in the Fireplace, the Angels combine aesthetics, childhood fears (things moving when you don't look) and an odd lack of malice which makes them even scarier. The automatons did what they were programmed to do. The Angels are, as the Doctor puts it, the gentlest assassins ever - they don't even directly kill, they place a person in a different time. Which makes them far more frightening than moustache twirling villains.

Sally et all were all endearing one shot characters, and yet another wonderful example of how you can make such characters come alive within the space of a single episode, or even just five minutes - Sally's friend Catherine and Billy the copper being cases in point. And wow, was the time travel concept ever used well. I'm sure nitpickers will find a plot hole, but I can't think of a single one right now. On a self-centred note, I'm thrilled to bits the Doctor and Martha ended up in the year I was born (the year of the moon landing). Also, I hope we'll get lots of fanfic about the period they were stuck there, shared domesticity, Martha being irritated she has to be the one earning the income again while the Doctor builds his detection thingie, banter and hopefully some nice late 60s concerts.

Back to the stars of the episode: Sally had just the right mixture of courage and fear, and her scene with Old Billy touched me deeply. As with GitF, it brought home the meta-ness of Moffat's writing. The Doctor visiting Reinette through various windows in her life worked as a metaphor for tv, the viewer watching only selected periods of the characters' lives and becoming more and more involved, and it worked as a metaphor for how all human lives must appear to him, going from childhood to the grave in such a short period. Here, it's even shorter; entire lives gone in the blink of an eye. londonkds suggests this is also Moffat's second stroke (after GitF) against the One True Love concept - both Catherine and Billy are able to live full, happy lives after being separated from their original ones; they don't spent their existence pining away for one person, though they don't forget that person - and if true, I'm all for it, because said concept and its popularity in fandom is starting to freak me out. I mean, I have characters wo work for me better with each other than they do with other characters, too, but that doesn't mean I think any one of them will be happy only with each other.

A lot of the episode is a geek out of the first order - the idea of the easter eggs, complaining the windows of the TARDIS are the wrong size, etc. - but never in a gratitious way. Oh, and for those of us keeping track: the Angels tricked by the Doctor into turning themselves into stone? Are the third adversaries condemmed into eternal captivity (after the witches in Shakespeare Code and the Family in Family of Blood, though with the Angels, it's arguable whether or not they are conscious in this state or really just stone (we're never told), so it might not be a fate of the same horror. Still, I sense a theme here.

Next week: that other person who sees immortality as a punishment. Hello, Captain Jack!

Comments

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I think the Angel's are conscious in their stone form, because of that one that managed to telekinetically turn the light out.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Then he really did it for the third time in a row, didn' he?

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was such an aweseome episode! I commonly love Moffat's pieces unfailingly - has he ever written anything besides TV scripts? I'd love to see what he could do with prose - but this one might very well be the best yet. And it was scary, in a great, exciting way - not in a sheer horror way, like, say, Alien - but I think if I had seen this one as a kid I would have been frantic (I, er, have a very vivid imagination, and the angels slowly crawling closer every time the fuzzier Nightingale blinked was a very memorable image)

Loved the small details as well, from the message the doctor wrote on the wall - subtle, unobtrusive callback to Bad Wolf - to Cathy sending Sally a letter via her grandson, to the easter eggs, to both "Sparrow and Nightingale" and "Sally Shipton" coming true.

The villains were, as already said, rather scary and again, very fairytale like; I guessed the method of defeating them fairly quickly, but like a friend of mine, picklepocket said, it doesn't really matter that the solution is predictable because you are so very caught up in the story.

And Sally, and, er, fuzzier Nightingale, and Cathy and Billy were all very nice, finely realized characters. I even liked Cathy's grandson, who did some nice acting, and the other video store clerk, who was very, er, picturesque. And Martha and the Doctor, as little as they appeared, were a hoot.

londonkds suggests this is also Moffat's second stroke (after GitF) against the One True Love concept - both Catherine and Billy are able to live full, happy lives after being separated from their original ones; they don't spent their existence pining away for one person, though they don't forget that person - and if true, I'm all for it, because said concept and its popularity in fandom is starking to freak me out. I mean, I have characters wo work for me better with each other than they do with other characters, too, but that doesn't mean I think any one of them will be happy only with each other.

Oh! First of all, can we found a club? Because I've been feeling exactly the same way about OTLs and their predominance in fannish circles! We could even have, you know, secret codewords and meetings in hoods... no? Well, never mind then - let's just say I so deeply agree with your sentiment. That said, I fear londonkds is only half right were this episode is concerned, since the one Cathy wants Sally to send her love to - whom I call the fuzzier Nightingale since I can't remember what he was actually called - isn't her boyfriend, he is her brother. Sally tells him that "your sister" had a message for him, and this is how they end up being "Sparrow and Nightingale," like the girl detective team Cathy thought up for herself and Sally.

One more thing about themes, and that gets a little speculative: this has been, I think, the third or fourth time where time is referrenced as being not linear, i.e. that people and situations in the future can have a deciding impact on the past, and, what's more important, the present. In connection to that, I am getting a little suspicious where a certain character introduced in the trailer for next week is concerned. I have an inkling who that is, and if my idea is correct, they are being beyond awesome.*g*

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Moffatt definitely wrote a short story for the first New Who Annual that Blink was expanded from. It's on the bbc website but with unreadable formatting if you don't use IE, so nhw kindly transcribed (http://nhw.livejournal.com/874697.html) it.

In relation to Cathy and Laurence, it is a bit predestined, but that's a bit different from them being separated and never having a life again.

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the info and the link!

In relation to Cathy and Laurence, it is a bit predestined, but that's a bit different from them being separated and never having a life again.

I agree, but seriously, I thought he was her brother, not her husband... did I get that completely wrong?

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Sorry, Sally and Laurence, I assumed their final relationship was what you were talking about?

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

In my never ending quest to make life more opaque easier to understand, let me present you the solution to our (double or maybe triple) misunderstanding.

selenak wrote this:

"londonkds suggests this is also Moffat's second stroke (after GitF) against the One True Love concept - both Catherine and Billy are able to live full, happy lives after being separated from their original ones; they don't spent their existence pining away for one person"

and since I didn't read your original post, I didn't get that Catherine was just a typo and that you were talking about Sally and Billy, which of course makes a lot more sense.

new villains: not the bl**dy daleks again

[mossymermaid.livejournal.com]

This is what I love about Moffat. NEW aliens, and darned scary ones they were too. I love that they are a new concept, and they will have children up and down the country screeming the next time they see a stone statue. As the last shot showed, there are a lot out and about. Do you even need to ask what they're going to be playing in the playgrounds on Monday morning???

And Martha the shop girl. The Doc seriously has a shopgirl kink, doesn't he?

This was good. I liked that it was unusual and had the doctor interacting with the characters in an unusual way. I was watching with some friends in a o pub (long story) and we didn't have too many expectations of this one. But we were all shouting out at the TV screen "Don't blink" "Don't blink" "Look out!!!" All grown adults, every last one of us. HA HA.

Anyway, loved the episode. Very sad. Wierd. Just what Dr Who should be

(Speaking of plot holes, what *was* that about the whole nergy thing again and them taking up the nergy of the lives the people should have lived??? Can someone who watched the episode sober explain that to me?)

Re: new villains: not the bl**dy daleks again

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Can someone who watched the episode sober explain that to me?

Nope, but who cares - it was a wonderful story with about the best time paradox they've ever used.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Try this fic (http://jinxed-wood.livejournal.com/55984.html?style=mine#cutid1)

[andraste]

I'm sure nitpickers will find a plot hole, but I can't think of a single one right now.

It's been pointed out by others that we never get an explanation for how the angels got hold of the TARDIS key. But you know what? I don't care! How the Doctor and Martha got into that situation really isn't the point of the episode.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Okay, after seeing the misunderstanding between you and KdS, let me just clarify what I meant in my own review:

1) I know Larry is Cathy's brother. But she still got separated from her old life and family, people she loved (in a not romantic sense, unless she had a boyfriend or girlfriend who never got mentioned) - and was able to rebuild her life in the past.

2) Billy, otoh, could possibly have had a romance with Sally but didn't, due to the Angels, and still managed the same thing, a good life, a new family, in a different surrounding.

3) Sally, who lost both her friend and a potential boyfriend, in the end also build a new life, etc.

Which all indicated: pining for someone you love and lost by seeing that person as the ONLY one who could ever make you happy is just not on the menu!

Now, trailer: I was wondering who Jacobi might be playing, too. I mean, most of us have a definite guess about John Simm/Saxon, but Jacobi, hmmmm....

So, do you think, a future regeneration of the Doctor?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Thank you! *looks immediately*

[selenak.livejournal.com]

True!

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

Thank you for clarifying, and sorry for making such a fuss. That should teach me to never, ever post before drinking tea in the morning.

Which all indicated: pining for someone you love and lost by seeing that person as the ONLY one who could ever make you happy is just not on the menu!

Yes, and thankfully so! I do find One True Loves and people pining for same rather dysfunctional and pretty ... juvenile. It's no wonder that one of the alleged "greatest romances of all time" is concerned with two kids, who are what, fourteen and sixteen?

Now, trailer: I was wondering who Jacobi might be playing, too. I mean, most of us have a definite guess about John Simm/Saxon, but Jacobi, hmmmm....

Completely far out spec, and I think it would rattle canon rather thoroughly/require tons of explanations to appease Old Whovians, but what if The Master has somehow regained the means to regenerate, and continuing with the theme of events not being linear and something that happened in a character's past not necessarily having to be in the past as long as that character is a time traveller, I'd say that Derek Jacobi is The Master, and John Simm/Saxon is The Master as well - only regenerated. They could even both be former regenerations, i.e. before Delgado Master, which would explain why they still can regenerate (or at least the Jacobi version).

The Valeyard/any other future regeneration of the Doctor would be fun, too, but unless it's not very far in the future, it seems a bit of a gamble, since they would have to get Jacobi back once the relevant regeneration takes place.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Not even fourteen. Juliet's nurse says she'll be fourteen next week, poor girl.

Though I find a lot of people have misconceptions about Romeo & Juliet, usually because they haven't read the play. Because Shakespeare explicitly makes fun of and rejects the pining kind of love via Romeo's Rosaline woes at the beginning. R&J are very earthy and real by contrast, with Juliet's monologue that got usually cut out in Victorian performances basically saying, after they married in secret, "can it be night so I can have sex already?" Also, when in requited love they're both in high spirits, Romeo exchanging lots of bad puns with Mercutio and Juliet being teased mercilessly by the nurse and teasing her back. Of all the tragedies, this is the one which has the most comedy scenes right until it gets bloody, and that is the fault of the adults and the lethal family feud mostly.

Hm, both Jacobi and Simm as the Master in different regenerations, one predating Delgado, that would be genius. Though it would mean they'd have to clarify what wiping out the timelords meant - so far, I thought it meant that the Doctor excepted, not only are the other ones dead but they do not exist in the past, either, which is the reason he can't just go back to any other timeline and visit - they don't exist anywhere. So if previous regenerations of the Master back when he still had a timelord body are around, there'd have to be justification as to why him, and not the others.

Otoh, Saxon financed Lazarus, i.e. Saxon is looking for a way that makes a human body immortal/regenerates it, which makes me think that Saxon at least is a post-Ainsley (or, err, Eric Roberts) Master. But I really like the idea of Jacobi as a previous one.

Future regenerations of the Doctor: I thought of that, but correct me if I'm wrong - didn't Romana I. go through various regenerations during her first hours before settling on Romana II? Which means the form a future regeneration takes is not unchangeable, i.e. Jacobi could be a future Doctor who would exist if such and such happens to Ten now, but won't be a future Doctor anymore if such and such doesn't happen because that means there will be another regeneration, which saves the BBC the aging Jacobi problem.

[wanderlustlover]

I think mostly that how they got involved is not so much a plot hole as a piece of the story we're not supposed to know. I say that part because this episode is "Sally's Episode", where the Doctor and Martha and his world sort of guest appearance in her world. Because of this she never knows exactly how he got involved or specifically who he is. She only knows her part and the cycle it makes from investigating the house to walking out the of the store to hand him the things.

The only plot hole that kind screams out to me is what is on the DVD's, because it's proven she really doesn't need them except to see them on all the television's in the brothers bedroom that morning. Maybe it helps her recognize them more. But he actually says he has transcripts of all the dvds. But she never needs all of them during the episode, only the main one she speaks to and the one that starts the Tardis (both of which make sense as the details would be added into the script he's handed).

Which really just means I want some brilliantly amazing fic talking about the other DVD conversation/etc.

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

Though I find a lot of people have misconceptions about Romeo & Juliet, usually because they haven't read the play.

I did. Twice, actually, once at sixteen, when I found them stupid for falling in love at first sight, and once in my early twenties, where I felt sorry for them. Maturity is a strange thing. And I do remember her longing for her wedding night. I think. (Did they really use a similar device in POTC: DMC, or was that a fanfic I read?)

Though it would mean they'd have to clarify what wiping out the timelords meant - so far, I thought it meant that the Doctor excepted, not only are the other ones dead but they do not exist in the past, either, which is the reason he can't just go back to any other timeline and visit - they don't exist anywhere. So if previous regenerations of the Master back when he still had a timelord body are around, there'd have to be justification as to why him, and not the others.

Hm. True... maybe, since Jacobi's character seems to exist literally at the end of time/the universe, he got there shortly before Gallifrey and all the other timelords in all their incarnations were destroyed, he is the only one who survived because the destruction couldn't reach him? Regenerations do exists at the same "time," don't they, given that the Doctor met several of his other incarnations?

Otoh, Saxon financed Lazarus, i.e. Saxon is looking for a way that makes a human body immortal/regenerates it, which makes me think that Saxon at least is a post-Ainsley (or, err, Eric Roberts) Master. But I really like the idea of Jacobi as a previous one.

That would make sense, and would also mean that Saxon is more a hitchhiked person than a regeneration, wouldn't it? Unless The Master did manage to snatch another timelord before the war after all.

didn't Romana I. go through various regenerations during her first hours before settling on Romana II?

She did, as far as I know, and of course there was also the matter with the Doctor's hand, so the bodies are definitely not fixed from the beginning.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think that you and I really got different vibes from the Billy scene, because I did not get the impression that he's been content with his life.

Billy: "I often thought about looking for you before tonight but apparently, it would have torn a hole in the fabric of space and time, and destroyed two-thirds of the universe. Also... I'd lost my hair."

Still trying to make her smile. He may have gotten married to someone else (also named Sally), but he's been thinking of her.

Billy: "No, gorgeous girl. There's only tonight. He told me, all those years ago, that we'd only meet again one time, on the night I die."
Sally: "Oh, Billy."
Billy: "It's kept me going -- I'm an old, sick man but I've had something to look forward to. Oh, life is long and you are hot. Look at my hands. They're old man's hands. How did that happen?"
Sally: "I'll stay. I'm going to stay with you, okay."
Billy: "Thank you, Sally Sparrow. I have 'til the rain stops."

Kathy, yeah -- she mentions in her letter that she'd been wanting a new chance at life anyway. But Billy... Billy may have had a surface life in 1969, but seeing Sally again, someday, was what he spent all that time looking forward to. I found that scene horribly, tragically sad.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Did they really use a similar device in POTC: DMC, or was that a fanfic I read?

No, not a fanfic. Elizabeth says "if these bars did not exist, I'd have you already" to Will when she's in prison, and later when sailing mutters "I'm ready to be married; I am so ready to be married".

Regenerations do exists at the same "time," don't they, given that the Doctor met several of his other incarnations?

Pre time war, though. We don't know whether he still could (leaving aside actor availability *g*). But yes, the whole "end of the universe" could be the explanation, either way (i.e. Master or Doctor or other time lord).

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a poignant scene, and a wistful one, but not that he did not have a happy life, or a happy marriage with the other Sally. Sally Sparrow was his road not taken, but not the reason for is existence.

Frankly, I find the idea that nothing in the intervening 37 years could have been so important to him as seeing her again not romantic but appalling. He was looking forward to it, in that bittersweet way one looks forward to meeting someone from one's youth. But his wife was the one he lived with for decades. Surface? I think better of Billy than to believe he would not have married someone he loved utterly and completely.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Well, until someone breaks into the house and decides to steal one of the angel statues.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I don't think that I mentioned it being romantic at all. Horribly tragic, that the girl he'd known for only minutes stayed so clearly on his mind, but that was the impression that I got from him. Romantic... only in the same sense that Reinette pining away for the Doctor in The Girl in the Fireplace was romantic, and (you may already know this) I hated that part of the episode, the implication that she'd spent all that time waiting.

Also, do we have any evidence regarding the length of Billy's marriage? All we really know is that she's probably dead now (since he says 'was'), that her name was Sally, and that his memories of her seem good. There's only the one picture, the wedding picture.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Aha! That hadn't occured to me, and is creepy (in a good way) to think of...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I didn't think Reinette was pining away. She waited for him to come back, true, but she lived out her life as the uncrowned queen of France (which meant a lot of work - she was one of the busiest correspondants of her day) - "she always worked too hard", says Louis (who famously never did). And the episode suggests that her relationship with the King is not just a business transaction but an emotional one as well; one can love more than one person, even at the same time.

Anyway, Billy, now. I haven't rewatched the episode yet, but I think they use the younger actor for the wedding picture, which means he must have married his wife while still looking like that, which looks like a long marriage. And as I said: I don't think the fact he fondly remembered Sally Sparrow and looked forward to seeing her again meant he didn't enjoy his life and his marriage with Sally Shipton. It reminds me of the utter dislike I had for people arguing Xander would drop Anya the moment Buffy showed interest in him, or proposed to Anya while still being in love with Buffy (or Willow, for that matter) romantically. (Not that Xander and Anya did not have other problems, but that's another matter.)

The scene also reminded me of an episode in the Highlander spin-off "The Raven", in which the immortal Amanda met a man with whom she had danced and flirted in Prague in 1968 in the present, when he was old and dying. There was the same wistfulness and poignancy, but it was also clear he had lived the intervening decades to the full, not pined away hoping she'd show up again.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I didn't think Reinette was pining away.

Her letter seemed pretty full of longing and desire to me. Plus, didn't she also famously stop sleeping with Louis at some point, while still retaining the title of his mistress?

I expect she cared about him, but as she said in the episode -- "He is the King. And I love him with all my heart. And I look forward to meeting him." It isn't really personal. She loves what he is, not who he is, though I expect she grew quite fond of him, over the years. She's a very practical woman, which I admire about her.

I actually do like the historical Madame de Pompadour quite a bit, which is part of why GitF disappoints me -- I was expecting more from her. They talk a bit about how wonderful she is, but we don't really get to see much of it. I read up on her when I first heard about her episode of the show and that made me really look forward to it. It was my big disappointment of Season Two, partly because of that and partly because I was expecting great things of the man who'd brought us Captain Jack (seriously, I adored Steven Moffat's writing... and then GitF happened and it's made me take a look back at all his earlier stuff and see the uglier parts regarding the way he views male/female interaction).

Clearly, both Billy and Reinette went on with their every day lives, but both of them seemed... spell-bound by their memories. And... it's not something that I see as a positive thing. I'd like Reinette's story much better if I got the same things from it that you did. But I didn't. In watching the episode, that's not what I see. I see very similar things in Billy and Reinette -- particularly, in falling for someone that they really don't know at all. Because Billy is completely *boom* infatuated with Sally -- he doesn't know her at all, much as Reinette seemed much more entranced and in love with the persona and image of the Doctor than the actual man.

Anyway, Billy, now. I haven't rewatched the episode yet, but I think they use the younger actor for the wedding picture, which means he must have married his wife while still looking like that, which looks like a long marriage.

But we don't know when she died. Yeah, they could have been married for decades... or he could have married her, been with her for a year, and then she died in a car accident, explaining why there's only the one picture.

With Reinette, we actually do know the shape that her life would take, after the Doctor. With Billy, all we know is what he tells us. Sure, he could have been married to his Sally Shipton for all the years of his life from 1969 until the night before Sally Sparrow came back. I'm not going to assume it, though. If they'd done more pictures or even one more picture, like a wedding anniversary one using the older actor and an older version of the Sally, sure. But there's no evidence.

It reminds me of the utter dislike I had for people arguing Xander would drop Anya the moment Buffy showed interest in him, or proposed to Anya while still being in love with Buffy (or Willow, for that matter) romantically.

Yes, that always bothered me, too. Though, honestly, I think Xander would have been tempted (as he himself joked in Hell's Bells). But he did genuinely love Anya and he very much did not want to hurt her. After what happened with the Cordelia & Willow thing, I can't see him ever doing that again. He learned his lesson there. And he also learned there that it was more important to him to have Willow in his life as a friend than take the chance of losing that with romantic overtures (because that's what hurts him, after, that Willow doesn't feel like they can even do friend things anymore). But yeah, he hurt Cordelia that way once. I can't see him going down that road a second time.

Mind you, none of that goes into the fact that Buffy (even if she'd started feeling romantic feelings about him) would never have made any romantic overtures while he was dating Anya -- it would be completely incompatible with her view of who Xander should be to hit on him when he was taken.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

OR UNTIL THE LIGHT BURNS OUT. *ahem*

The other question is, if they are truly stone during their manifestations, then how can they freeze each other by looking at each other? If nonliving objects can freeze them, then why not use camcorders, etc., against them? Hell, in London they'd never be able to go anywhere, with all the CCTV about.

I did like the episode, but I'm reminded that Dr. Who has never been one to sacrifice an ounce of dramatic effect or pathos to the rigors of a scenario that actually makes sense.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

It was odd that Billy and Kathy both seemed to think the only things worth mentioning about their transplanted lives were (a) that they had married, and (b) that their families had included a Sally. Though I can see that they would consider (b) of special interest to Sally...

Anyway, the fact that Billy thought his marriage the only thing worth mentioning and had a wedding photo with him on his deathbed suggested to me that, like Kathy, he had enjoyed it very much. The fact that Mrs Sally wasn't with him as he was dying suggested that she was already dead; I suspect the memory of Gorgeous Girl Sally became more vivid after the loss of his wife, and as he knew the date of their reunion was approaching. I don't really think Billy can have been seriously in love with Sally Sparrow - he spent about five minutes of his life with her - but, as he says, it was "something to look forward to"; he's going to die, but he knows he has something important and meaningful and redolent of his lost youth to do just before that.

I liked him very much. He was quite a dish, too!

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I don't think Catherine is a typo. I assumed selenak was saying that Catherine (Kathy Nightingale) lived a full, happy life with Ben Wainwright after being transplanted to 1920, despite being separated from her original life (which included her brother). And that Billy also lived a full, happy life after being transplanted to 1969 and separated from his original life (in which he met Sally). Sally wasn't separated from her original life, though a couple of the people she knew disappeared from it.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I had a vague hypothesis that being looked at by their own kind might have had a more permanent effect than being seen by lesser species.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I definitely assumed that Sally Shipton was already dead -- he spoke of her in the past tense and far too fondly for it to be a divorce, I think.

I really enjoyed his character, yeah. Both in his young and hot incarnation and as the older version. I just wish that he didn't come across as so pining for Sally (to me) because I would like him even better if I'd seen what you and selenak saw. Perhaps I will if I rewatch the episode with that in mind.

It's possible that I'm projecting my previous Moffat issues regarding male/female interaction into this episode -- though it was Girl in the Fireplace that made me have issues with his writing in the first place, as I adored him before . All very circular, really.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

Have you read Lawrence Miles's postings on the recent Dr Who episodes? He was talking a lot about Moffatt's writing this week. As usual, he took the entry off the web quickly, but I've been saving them before they disappear when I can.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Here's my thought on the matter... They're actually in a constant state of switching instantaneously back and forth between stone and not-stone, forever. Because as soon as they turn, in that exact instant, they also turn back. The result is they never have even an eye-blink's worth of time in which to move, thus they are completely frozen, and appear to be stone, even if every other infinitesimal instant, they're actually not.

I find that thought just makes it creepier.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

No, haven't read them?

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

You are correct; selenak answered it in the affirmative below. But thank you for clearing up the finale piece of the mystery, which would have been the name of Cathy's husband.

[nummymuffin.livejournal.com]

Haha, I'm with you on the whole One True Love concept thing. Especially for a character like the Doctor who's had oh, how many companions now? What a mess that'd be!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Honestly, the only kind of man I can imagine falling in love only once in 900 plus something (he's been 900 for a while now, must be the Time Lord equivalent of turning 40) years is a complete psychopath. Which the Doctor most assuredly is not. I really don't get people insisting that if he loved anyone else but their favorite, it couldn't have been True Love (tm).

*stops rant here*

[nummymuffin.livejournal.com]

Preach it!

Totally. That'd be such a dark, depressing existence if he had only one true human love in all that time. I'd never wish that on anyone, let alone a character I love. I mean talk about the Lonely God. It'd be like soul-crushing, super-clinical depression to the Nth degree!

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I was late to catch this episode but join you in awedom, it was behind-the-couch-scary and deliciously thought-provoking both at the same time. Loved the blink motif, inattention is human, angels can’t look away. Also the way it managed to touch on the idea that becoming too focussed on your future can rob you of your present but not hammer the point, both Billy and Cathy seemed to work their way past that, as did Sally after her year waiting for the Doctor.

I did have a Martha epiphany, I’ve been bothered by her Doctor devotion but if I think of her as a medical student and him as her consultant it starts to make sense. Of course she’s been seeing him out of the white coat recently, as human or as helpless (while she gets relegated to being the help). I wonder if that’s going to make a difference.