Doctober Who? Doctor Who’s perfect creepy aliens: The Weeping Angels

BBC, Weeping Angels

In what is perhaps Steven Moffat’s greatest contribution to Doctor Who is the Weeping Angels, that premiered in the episode “Blink”. Since then, they have become a creature that people believe to be scarier than even some of the most synonymous creatures with Doctor Who.

What makes the Weeping Angels so scary?

It’s just a statue! Exactly. That’s what makes them so scary. What Steven Moffat was able to do was take something that we see probably every day in some fashion — on our lawns, in the cities, in museums — and scare us with them. The Weeping Angel has come up in many episodes of Doctor Who, each more terrifying than the next.

It also incorporates people’s fear of the dark. We always wonder what’s moving around when we shut off the light. Moffat encompassed that and not only made an alien that moved around when you’re not looking, or when it’s dark, but also took you away. It all has to do with the dark. After Blink premiered, I’m sure we all moved our statues and left the lights on for a while.

The final part of the Weeping Angels that scares people is the fact that they take people away. They don’t kill their victims — that would be too easy. So instead, they take them away from their friends and family, like we saw with Sally Sparrow’s friend Kathy, and forces them to be by themselves.

There’s much more to the Weeping Angels than what meets the eye. Everything about them is scary as anything. And that’s why they’ve become so iconic in just a few years, rather than over fifty.

Next: Doctober Who? Favorite Aliens: Daleks

Taking part in a companion’s goodbye

Of course, one of the other reasons that Weeping Angels are thought to be so scary is their huge part in taking Amy and Rory. Not only does the viewer deal with everything that happens when they see the creature, now they associate it with their companion leaving!

Basically, Moffat created the perfect monster. And that’s the Weeping Angels.