A while back a friend said to me “You Moffat-ites are all the same, you all cite Blink… yeah, yeah, time travel, big deal…”
Well, yes we do cite Blink. I think it’s not just the best episode of Doctor Who ever, it’s one of the best bits of TV ever.
Blink was on BBC Three tonight. Again. We all watched it. For probably the 17th time.
I love it more than ever. Yes, the great lines: “What’s so great about sad?” “It’s happy – for deep people.” “Why does nobody ever call the police?” “Life is short and you are hot.” “It’s a phone number. Not a promise. Not an IOU.”
Yes, the music and shots of the angels at the windows of Westerdrumlins are spooky and Diana-Rigg-era-Avengers-worthy.
Yes, Sally Sparrow is the greatest assistant the Doctor never had. But Sally Sparrow is gone.
Tonight the sheer pathos of the line “Life is long and you are hot” hit me, delivered by Billy later on the same day that Sally first met him, but – literally – a lifetime away for poor Billy.
And then it struck me. And I am probably going to regret this. But part of the thing about Blink was that it was, at the time of first transmission, the first rampantly heterosexual episode of Doctor Who in some time.