When I first watched Blink, for 9-year-old me, it was absolutely pants-sh***ingly terrifying!!! I will never forget the first time I watched this, or half watched to be precise as I spent most of the episode hiding behind a pillow as I’m sure just about everyone watching this for the first time experienced.

The only problem Blink has is the fact that it’s become a victim of its own success and that the Weeping Angels have become the only Modern Who monster the show bothers pushing, which unfortunately goes against the mysterious and supernatural nature of these creatures. Because of their overexposure in both the show and Big Finish, they’ve kind of lost their initial sting of being frightening. When this episode first aired the Weeping Angels were probably the only Doctor Who monsters to feel like creatures that came from our nightmares whereas now, they just seem like another monster the Doctor runs into every so often.

But at the end of the day, yeah, the Weeping Angels are still one of the best creations in Doctor Who history, such a simple idea of these statues that resemble benevolent religious protectors, only to reveal that these creatures are in fact one of the deadliest life forms in the universe. Creatures that very little is known about and can never be properly understood thanks to their gift/curse of freezing into rock at the sight of any living creature (including themselves) and are capable of moving at great distances in the blink of an eye to kill their victims. Although not in a conventional way, but rather sending them back in time and letting them live out the rest of their lives in a new time and place.

Right from the get-go in this episode the Weeping Angels have this eerie and unnerving presence that skyrockets to full on horror in the climax when they show their feral side, it was one of the most traumatising experiences for 9-year-old me, made more terrifying by the Doctor’s absence who psychologically is always a source of comfort when things start to get scary. How the Doctor plays into the story and being absent for the majority of the episode is some of Moffat’s best writing of all time, perfectly incorporating the looping nature of time travel.

I’d say you should definitely give this a watch but let’s be honest, you probably have already, it’s one of the most well-known bits of television ever put out even for those who aren’t fans of Doctor Who.