8. Narrative Elements Become Reality
Many of writer Steven Moffats episodes deal with the problem of how to communicate through space and time when two or more characters are not experiencing the same point in a time stream. In Blink (series 3), the Doctor and Sally Sparrow communicate through DVD easter eggs (little extra bits inserted into a set of 17 DVDs) that the Doctor created several years before Sally sees them because he is trapped in the past without the Tardis. Sally and her friend Larry must make the connection that when they put all these bits together the Doctor is actually answering Sallys questions about the Weeping Angels and giving her advice on how to protect herself and the Tardis from them. A message that was left in the past is now paralleling events in the present. A similar conceit is used in The Angels Take Manhattan (series 7). The episode begins with the Doctor reading from a pulp detective novel that soon turns out to be a narration of actual life events. The line between reality and fiction, just like the line between past, present and future is so blurred as to become inconsequential. When you lose your frame of reference there is no longer any way to label where you are in time or space. Its all relative.