4. The TARDIS
Like the Doctor, the TARDIS is a key iconographic element of Doctor Who but is seldom actually utilised within the story as the ethereal, incongruous box of limitless possibility it actually is. Again we are expected to know all about the TARDIS from the outset and it is usually left in a corner at the beginning of the episode while the Doctor goes off to fight monsters, only to be seen again at the climax, fading into the atmosphere as the credits role. While Neil Gaiman's superb (but unfortunately titled) series 6 episode The Doctor's Wife full-on tackled the question of the TARDIS, Blink sees the first proper return of the magic, mysterious Police Box originally seen baffling a strolling police officer back in 1963. There's even a brilliant, direct, if extremely subtle nod to An Unearthly Child's opening sequence, as Detective Inspector Billy Shipton, after a hopeful goodbye to Sally in the car park where the police keep their abandoned vehicles, takes a curious stroll back to the TARDIS, gathering dust and every inch the object of amazement and oddity it is, divorced from a time and place where it would not be strange to see a Police Box. Of course, the scenario is turned on its head as Billy is actually staring in bemusement at the sudden gaggle of Weeping Angels now surrounding it, but on the face of it it's almost the same scene, right down to the occupation of the concerned party. "A whole world inside the box" says the Doctor, and when Sally and Larry finally escape the terror of the Weeping Angels and find safety in the TARDIS, their reaction is vicariously ours. This dusty, old forgotten box contains something utterly unimaginable and impossible within, and kudos must go to Steven Moffat for managing to remind jaded fans of this when the interior has been seen virtually every week for the last 50 years. There is then of course another moment which tonally echoes the 1963 episode, as the stoic Doctor suddenly appears, this time as a pre-recorded hologram, and does something seemingly antagonistic to the long-suffering humans - taking the TARDIS away from them and dumping them back into the wrath of the angels outside. Although his motives ultimately prove to be benevolent (to the humans, at least), this scene echoes the First Doctor's stubborn kidnapping of Ian and Barbara, a moment Moffat lovingly turns on its head as this time the companions really DO want to go with the TARDIS.