‘WINK’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

Weeping Angels with the Tenth Doctor and the Sixth Doctor

Can winking help you get out of a scrape with the Weeping Angels? 😐

‘Wink’ is the third and final story in the ‘Out of Time’ trilogy of ‘Doctor Who’ audios by Big Finish. I’ve enjoyed checking out the ‘Out of Time’ trilogy. It’s nice to finish it off with David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor and Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor, who team up and battle against a bunch of Weeping Angels. 🙂

It’s intriguing how I’ve checked out the ‘Out of Time’ trilogy. The first ‘Out of Time’ story with David Tennant and Tom Baker was released in 2020. The second story called ‘The Gates of Hell’ with David Tennant and Peter Davison was released in 2021. And the third story called ‘Wink’ was released in 2022. 🙂

In terms of reviewing the trilogy, I reviewed ‘Out of Time’ in 2021, ‘The Gates of Hell’ in 2022, and I’m reviewing ‘Wink’ in 2023. It’s rather fitting, since I’m reviewing ‘Wink’ to close off the David Tennant/Tenth Doctor era during the 60th Anniversary Marathon on ‘Bradley’s Basement’ in 2023.

‘Wink’ is an episode by Lisa McMullin. She’s writer I’ve come across before in Big Finish, since she wrote an episode in ‘Rose Tyler: The Dimension Cannon’, two episodes in ‘The War Master’ story ‘Hearts of Darkness’, and an episode in ‘Respond to All Calls’ in the ‘The Ninth Doctor Adventures’. 🙂

I’ve enjoyed Lisa McMullin’s take on the Tenth and Sixth Doctors teaming up together in this story. David Tennant and Colin Baker do wonders with the material they’re given when interacting with each other. The sparkling dialogue going on between the two Doctors is pretty engaging to listen to.

With that said, I can’t say that ‘Wink’ matches on the same level as ‘Out of Time’ and ‘The Gates of Hell’. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to hear David Tennant and Colin Baker together, but it’s with quite a different kind of energy compared to David’s interactions with Tom Baker and Peter Davison.

I’ll explain more about that as we go further into the review. Also, the Weeping Angels, with their timey-wimey nature, was quite a challenge to listen to and made the episode quite complex. It’s not obtrusive, as Lisa McMullin does reasonably well with the writing, but it was challenging all the same. 😐

In the episode, the Tenth Doctor is in his TARDS before he gets drawn to the planet Lucidus Silvara by a temporal anomaly. On arrival and stepping out of the TARDIS, he finds himself meeting the Sixth Doctor, who is on Lucidus Silvara doing some sight-seeing. Luicidus Silvera is a really intriguing place.

Apparently, nothing is visible at all on the planet, except for an all-encompassing light. As the Tenth and Sixth Doctors get to grips with meeting each other, they meet a species who have no sense of sight and are in a city filled with Weeping Angels. Can the Doctors save the day and stop the Angels?

The title of this episode is of course a tongue-in-cheek connection to the new TV episode ‘Blink’, which featured the first TV appearance of the Weeping Angels in ‘Doctor Who’. In the ‘Wink’ episode, old Sixy thinks that winking will help him and everyone else to survive the Weeping Angels.

But as it turns out, this isn’t a full-proof method, which is a shame. Mind you, Amy Pond had more success with this method in the ‘Doctor Who’ two-parter ‘The Time of Angels’/’Flesh and Stone’. Even the Tenth Doctor had success with this in the comic story called ‘The Weeping Angels of Mons’.

Incidentally, ‘The Weeping Angels of Mons’ takes place before ‘Wink’. So, how come the Tenth Doctor forgot that winking could work to halt Weeping Angels if he apparently had success before with the approach in a comic story? I’ll have to check out ‘The Weeping Angels of Mons’ to be sure. 😀

Once again, David Tennant is great to listen to in this ‘Doctor Who’ adventure. At this point, the Tenth Doctor is refusing to accept the fate about to happen to him in ‘The End of Time’, despite the TARDIS wanting to take him there. The episode seems to dovetail directly into that story by the end.

I enjoyed how David’s Doctor interacts with Colin’s Doctor. David’s Doctor is more energetic and lively compared to Colin’s Doctor, who’s more serious. There are points where David’s Doctor names Colin’s Doctor ‘Curly’ and ‘Joseph’ (as in a reference to ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’).

Despite the bickering that sometimes goes on between the two Doctors, it’s clear that David’s Doctor enjoys being in Colin’s Doctor’s company, especially when they have to tackle the Weeping Angels. They bounce off each other very well, especially with the pressure that’s being put on them.

Colin Baker is equally very good as the Sixth Doctor in this adventure. Compared to Tom Baker and Peter Davison’s Doctors who seem fascinated and they do seem to get on well with David’s Doctor, there does seem to be friction between the Sixth and Tenth Doctors when hearing them in this story.

I liked how Colin’s Doctor realises that David’s Doctor is a future incarnation of himself when they first meet. Old Sixy seems disapproving of Ten, especially when he’s surprised and appalled that he can lock and unlock the TARDIS with a key fob and he can open the TARDIS doors just by clicking his fingers.

It was funny when Colin’s Doctor refused to call David’s Doctor ‘Pretty Boy’, as River Song named him in ‘Silence in the Library’. It was also interesting that old Sixy seemed to think that David’s Doctor is going to have a happy future, unaware that dear Ten is on his way toward the end of his ‘song’. 😐

Incidentally, this isn’t the first time that the Sixth Doctor has encountered the Weeping Angels in ‘Doctor Who’. As established in ‘Fallen Angels’, the Fifth Doctor met them before he became the Sixth Doctor. Thus, the Sixth Doctor already knows about the Weeping Angels by this point in his life.

It should also be noted this is another occasion where the Sixth Doctor meets another Doctor in a ‘Doctor Who’ story, as he encountered the Second Doctor in ‘The Two Doctors’. Compared to that, ‘Wink’ is better with having more scenes of the Tenth and Sixth Doctors interacting with each other.

The episode’s guest cast includes Joanna Van Kampen as Estra and Ayesha Antoine as Padilla. There’s not much to say about them, as we don’t get to explore each of their characters and they happen to be of the same species on Lucidus Silvara where sight isn’t one of their main five senses.

It was interesting to hear these Lucidus Silvarans as beings where their five senses are smell, touch, taste, hearing and intuition, but not sight. It makes for an interesting audio experience where Estra and Padilla can’t see the Angels, but the Tenth and Sixth Doctors can. It’s also a challenge to visualise.

Ayesha Antoine has also been in the ‘Doctor Who’ TV series where she played Dee Dee Blasco in the episode called ‘Midnight’. ‘Wink’ also features Clive Hayward who plays Dax (No, not any of the Daxs from ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ 😀 ), who’s an architect that gets killed at the episode’s beginning.

It was creepy and unsettling when the Weeping Angel that attacked Dax used his voice to communicate with the Tenth and Sixth Doctors via a communicator. This is of course an echo from ‘The Time of Angels’/’Flesh and Stone’ where Angel Bob communicated with the Eleventh Doctor via a communicator.

Like ‘Fallen Angels’, sound effects are used to indicate the Angels’ movements when the Tenth and Sixth Doctor look away and back at them in the episode. The episode also features stone cherubs who grow quickly to become Weeping Angels, which put me in mind of ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’ episode.

By the way, with the Tenth Doctor using his sonic screwdriver in the episode, I’m surprised that old Sixy didn’t use one of his sonic lances. He used one in ‘Attack of the Cybermen’ as well as Big Finish audios like ‘Paradise 5’ and ‘The Song of Megaptera’. I hope Big Finish haven’t forgotten about that. 😐

The Weeping Angels are thankfully defeated and Estra and Padilla decide to stay in their planet’s past where their people are about to rebuild their city. The episode concludes with the Tenth and Sixth Doctors saying goodbye to each other. I liked how David Tennant and Colin Baker played out that scene.

‘Wink’ is an enjoyable ‘Doctor Who’ audio episode to listen to and a satisfying decent conclusion to the ‘Out of Time’ trilogy. I wouldn’t say it’s as good as the first ‘Out of Time’ story and ‘The Gates of Hell’, but David Tennant and Colin Baker’s performances as their Doctors are great to listen to. 🙂

As for the ‘Out of Time’ trilogy overall, I’m glad Big Finish produced these audio dramas of David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor meeting up with classic TV series Doctors like Tom Baker, Peter Davison and Colin Baker. It’s been nice checking out these audios, as they’ve fulfilled the ‘Doctor Who’ fan in me.

The CD extras are as follows. At the end of ‘Wink’, there are behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast and crew, including David Tennant, Colin Baker, writer Lisa McMullin, etc. I enjoyed hearing David Tennant and Colin Baker share how they enjoyed working together and sharing their thoughts on the Weeping Angels as ‘Doctor Who’ monsters.

‘Wink’ rating – 8/10

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The previous story For the Sixth Doctor was ‘The Hunting Ground’ (Audio) For the Tenth Doctor was ‘Dead Air’ (Audio)	The next story For the Sixth Doctor was ‘The Name of the Doctor’ (TV) For the Tenth Doctor is ‘Last Chance’ (Audio)
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