I wonder how aware your average fan was about who wrote an episode in the old days? I don't mean the really old days - it's hard to imagine a 1965 schoolboy settling down to watch Doctor Who in the Hartnell era and exclaiming "Well, new writer tonight, let's see what this William Emms can do!". But at least when Fandom started (and everything new instantly became at best debatable, at worst crap), were Bob'n'Dave episodes scorned in advance, like RTD ones today? Who knows, it was a long time ago. But I'm certain the writer didn't matter quite so much as it does today.

For this was "The Steven Moffatt episode" even more than it was "the one without the Doctor", the latter a curious recent trend that didn't exactly set a glorious new popularity precedent last year. Moffatt's name attached to the script means a certain level of expectation, even for those of us for whom it even slightly sours as well due to Moffatt's tiresome anti-eighties ranting (sample example, in the Fourth Doctor Special, an unwelcome reference to Sylvester McCoy "spitting and making it up as he goes along") - it's not exactly intelligent to alienate all fans between the ages of seven and 30 that grew up with the show. But still, Moffatt now means "The Empty Child", a story that (despite a shaky last half) is slowly ingraining itself as arguably the first agreed "classic" of the New Series. It means THAT catchphase, and thanks to "Girl In The Fireplace" it means a (just about) faultless record for knocking out half-decent stories. So what would "Blink" have to offer, especially given the lack of Doctor and Martha action?

Firstly, the "Doctor lite" tag is a bit unfair, and will result in the episode being cruelly blemished to some extent. This will always go down as something of a "filler", one they knocked off to bridge a main cast holiday. Yet it's only because we know about dull things like production schedules. In what way WASN'T the Doctor in this? In the episode I watched, he was only marginally sidelined, and seemed to appear all the way through, thanks to some clever re-use of footage. If you take this into account, he was probably in it as much as he was in Episode 1 of "Meglos". It was Martha who was mostly absent, and as "Deadly Assassin" fan will tell you, this hardly matters occasionally. I wonder if we'd have actually noticed the "Doctor-lite" status of "Blink" that much if we hadn't been told beforehand?

But I liked "Blink". I liked the statues that moved when you blinked, a stunningly original idea and one far more befitting the novel chill factor than the kiddie in the gas mask. I found the whole thing haunting, and not just the terrible screaming statues. The idea of the Doctor communicating from the past gave this a desperate, far more dangerous feel than is achieved usually when he' s being chased by a pack of Daleks. Bizarre fan complaints about the cribbing of one scene from "Back to the Future" (in a way that didn't seem to matter when horror film plots were lifted wholesale in the Tom Baker era) aside, the threat of the Doctor not actually being about to lose his TARDIS, but having already lost it, came over as very tangible indeed.

It's a shame the plot had questions galore when you thought about it later - how did that key come to be dangling from the statue? If the statues could move freely, why haven't they worked their way through the population of Great Britain by now, sending them all back in time, rather than skulking in one old house waiting for people to visit? Not to mention the whole thing resting on a paradox.

But somehow it didn't seem to matter too much, because it was all told so neatly. There was one exception - the pointless montage at the end, which inexplicably suggested all statues might be trying to "get you". Because, well, they aren't are they? With no 'trigger' for the attacks supplied in the script it's a little meaningless to create a threat out of something that simply exists. It'd be like suddenly deciding parked cars were all trying to get you (rather than explaining that sometimes they might be, and why). It was as if, just before finishing his script, Moffatt realised he had a reputation for penning the 'water cooler' story of the season; the one with the hook. "The One With The Scary Statues", and felt the need to hammer this home. "Blink" was excellent, but it's status as the Moffatt Story of the season was both a curse and a blessing.