CHARACTER:

WEEPING ANGELS

Weeping Angels The Weeping Angels are hunters featured in the Tenth Doctor episode, "Blink", and the Eleventh Doctor episodes, "The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone". Their physiology is quantum-locked, so that they only occupy a single position in space when seen by an observer. When they are not observed they become a "quantum wave form" that occupies many positions in space. Therefore, they cannot move while observed, but can move extremely quickly when unseen. They turn to stone when observed, as a defence mechanism, because according to the Doctor, "you can't kill a stone." While in their locked state they resemble stone statues, often covering their eyes so that they will not see each other and lock themselves forever in stone form. Their name is an allusion to this defence mechanism.

Their real appearances when in movement has remained a mystery since the "Blink" episode aired but it wasn't until Eleventh Doctor episode, "Flesh and Stone" where they are finally seen moving. They were only seen moving in one scene where their heads turn towards Amy as they realise she is blind. The Weeping Angels possess additional abilities. In "Blink", one Angel points at a light, causing it to turn off, enabling them to move without being seen. They use this ability again in "The Time of Angels", being able to weaken and flicker the torchlight of River Song's cleric soldiers. They have also exhibited the power to project themselves through images of themselves. In "The Time of Angels", an Angel trapped in the vault of the Byzantium is able to control a video screen that is observing it. It overrides the remote control used to shut down the video, keeping the screen powered even when it is unplugged from its power supply, and projecting itself out of the screen into the ship. "That which holds the image of an angel itself becomes an angel" reads a warning in an ancient book on theAngels, found by River Song. Incapable of speaking, they can also use the voice boxes of their victims to communicate through. According to the Doctor, the Weeping Angels "are as old as the universe (or very nearly), but no one really knows where they come from." He also describes them as "creatures of the abstract", "the lonely assassins", and "the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely", because their touch sends their victims into the past to live out their lives before they were even born; the Angels then feed on the "potential energy" of the lives their victims would have lived in the present.

However, they are capable of killing, as seen in "The Time of Angels" when they snapped (off-screen) the necks of three cleric soldiers and their bishop, Father Octavian. In "Blink", a quartet of Weeping Angels strand the Doctor and his companion Martha Jones in the year 1969, and attempt to feed off the vast "time energy" reserves of the TARDIS.

Despite dispatching the Doctor, the Angels fail to get into the TARDIS; though they get the key, they cannot find the machine itself. Sally Sparrow takes the key from one of them while it is in stone form, leading them to stalk Sally to regain it. During their pursuit, Sally inadvertently leads them to the TARDIS. Eventually the four Angels, having surrounded the TARDIS, are tricked into looking at each other when the box disappears, leaving them deadlocked in their stone forms. In "The Time of Angels", in the distant future, the Weeping Angels have become scavengers. Here it is shown that without enough energy to sustain them their physical forms will degrade, and that they can restore themselves by feeding on certain kinds of radiation.

It is also revealed that "the image of an Angel becomes an Angel", such as on a television screen, or in the mind of an individual who stares into the eyes of an Angel. An Angel projects itself through Amy Pond's eyes into her mind, and tortures her with the thought of becoming an Angel. In the continuation of the story, "Flesh and Stone", Amy is forced to keep her eyes closed to prevent the Angel from killing her. When the other Angels fell into the crack in time they were negated from history, causing the Angel in Amy's mind never to have existed. In a poll conducted by BBC, taking votes from 2,000 readers of the Doctor Who Adventures magazine, the Weeping Angels were voted the scariest monsters of 2007 with 55% of the vote; the Master and the Daleks took second and third place, with 15% and 4% of the vote, respectively. The Daleks usually come out on top in such polls. Moray Laing, Editor of Doctor Who Adventures, praised the concept of escaping a monster by not blinking, something both simple and difficult to do.The Weeping Angels came in at number three in Neil Gaiman's "Top Ten New Classic Monsters" in Entertainment Weekly.[14] "Blink" won the Hugo award for Best Dramatic Presentation (short form) in 2008.

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