Doctor Who: 12 Big Moments When Moffat Delivered The Chills

1. The Angels In The Basement - Blink

...Blink. Was there really any other choice? We'd had Moffat's gas mask boy in the first rebooted series and the possessed Ood and Beast in The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit. But we'd never had the scares we all associate with Doctor Who until Blink came along. Realistically the entire episode could be be considered a 45 minute scare fest but for the purpose of this article we're going to focus on one utterly terrifying sequence that left us creeped out for days after the episode ended; Sally and Larry heading into the basement to retrieve the TARDIS from the Weeping Angels. From the moment they entered the old abandoned house, we were on tender hooks. With a frenzied musical score and plenty of shocks as the Angels close in, the tension only intensifies when they descend into the basement. The moment the Angel points towards the lightbulb and the lights go out, we were right there with their screams. Given that Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale had never been on the show before (and sadly never since) we genuinely didn't know if they were going to get out alive. That made for an unpredictable and tense viewing for all of us. The Weeping Angels have continued to scare us - though we hope they're used sparingly if they crop up again - but never as much as that first chilling encounter in Wester Drumlins. Doctor Who is a mix of many genres, but among all the drama, action and comedy, horror has always been a key theme in the show, going right back to the early days of the Daleks in 1963. Steven Moffat has taken that to heart, making it a show we can watch behind the sofa, or at least through open finger tips. Whether you love his timey-wimey arcs or not, there's no denying that in Doctor Who he IS the master of fear!