| “ | Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast! Faster than you can believe! Don't turn your back, don't look away and don't blink! Good luck. | „ |
| ~ The Doctor warning Sally Sparrow of the Weeping Angels. |
The Weeping Angels are major antagonists in the Whoniverse.
Background[]
| “ | The lonely assassins, they used to be called. No one quite knows where they came from, but they're as old as the universe, or very nearly, and they have survived this long because they have the most perfect defence system ever evolved. They are quantum-locked. They don't exist when they're being observed. The moment they are seen by any other living creature, they freeze into rock. No choice. It's a fact of their biology. In the sight of any living thing, they literally turn to stone. And you can't kill a stone. Of course, a stone can't kill you either. But then you turn your head away, then you blink, and oh yes it can. | „ |
| ~ The Doctor describing the Weeping Angels. |
The Weeping Angels are an ancient race that are described by the Doctor as "the deadliest, most powerful, most malevolent life-form evolution has ever produced" as they can sometimes kill without a thought. However, the Weeping Angels generally prefer to send a victim back in time before they were born to feed on the temporal energy that represents the life that person would have lived through. As a reflex defense mechanism, though it renders them unable to socialize with each other, the Weeping Angels revert to stone statues when looked at by another being, including themselves. For this reason, they are often seen as covering their eyes with their hands, giving the impression that they are weeping, when in fact, this is done to prevent them from looking at each other and turning to stone. Once their target's gaze is off them, the Weeping Angels can move upon them in less than seconds' time. Even the image of a Weeping Angel can take on a life of its own.
History[]
Stone Cold[]
Fallen Angels[]
According to the audio drama Fallen Angels, three Weeping Angels were trapped inside Earth during it's formation, and were eventually discovered during the Renaissance inside marble blocks. Believing it was a miracle, a group of priests and believers formed the Order of the Three Angels, and commissioned Michelangelo to "release" the Angels. The Angels were defeated by the Fifth Doctor and locked under the catacombs of the Sistine Chapel.
Past Forward[]
Doom Coalition[]
to be added
Blink[]
In their first televised appearance, a group of Weeping Angels in the abandoned Wester Drumlins mansion trapped the Tenth Doctor and his companion Martha Jones in the past and took his TARDIS to nourish on it's energy. However, via a time paradox, the Doctor enlists the aid of a woman named Sally Sparrow to sent the TARDIS back to him while tricking the Weeping Angels into looking at each other to freeze them indefinitely.
Out of Time: Wink[]
The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone[]
A Weeping Angel staring.
In the distant future, a Weeping Angel being transported on the Byzantium would sabotage the ship to crash into the planet Alfava Metraxis. This Angel was tracked by the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, River Song, and a squad of Anglican Marines, to prevent it feeding on the engines. When a four-second clip that River had recovered from the Byzantium’s security cameras began to move as the Angel in it became ‘animated’, it nearly attacked Amy while she was looking at the recording, but Amy was able to stop the Angel by freezing the tape in the moment before the four-second loop could repeat itself again, although she was left with the feeling of having something in her eye. As it turned out, she had been infected by looking directly into the eyes of the Angel. Within the Maze of the Dead, the Angel killed one of the Clerics, Bob, stealing his voice to communicate with the Doctor. The Doctor and the others realised that the statues within the Maze were in fact decrepit Weeping Angels whom had wiped out the native Aplans and were being reawakened by the crashed ship.
The Doctor and his team managed to escape into the Byzantium, being hunted by the healing Angels all the while, and found their true source of power included a Crack in time, which the Angels intended to use to spread their domain across all of time and space. Amy was forced to have her eyes closed to prevent the Angel within her killing her. Amy was forced to navigate an army of Angels while effectively blinded, with her radio being used to trick the Angels into being observed. As the Crack's power grew out of control, the Angels attempted to force the Doctor to give himself to the Crack to seal it, but he used the failing gravity, whose power was ironically drained by the Angels themselves, to force them into fall into the Crack, sealing the Crack and erasing them from existence.
In several prose stories, the Doctor, Amy and her husband Rory Williams have several encounters with the Weeping Angels. The Weeping Angels make a cameo in The God Complex in the form of illusions based on a person's greatest fear. The Doctor initially presumed that they were Amy's fear, but they were in fact the Tivolian Gibbis's greatest nightmare, with him shutting himself in a cupboard out of terror. This was because the Weeping Angels, unlike other invaders, would rather kill their victims rather than enslave them.
The Angels Take Manhattan[]
The Weeping Angels took over 1938 New York City and made it into their feeding ground due to it's massive population. They transformed the majority of statues into themselves, including the Statue of Liberty. They would keep victims imprisoned in Winter Quay and send them back in time whenever they tried to escape. Crime lord Julius Grayle captured an Angel, and several baby Angels, keeping the adult manacled in his office, torturing and damaging it, and the babies locked in his dark cellar. In response to the captive adult Angel's distress, at least two other Weeping Angels watched over Grayle's home, disguised as ordinary statues. They eventually attacked when it was left defenceless. The Eleventh Doctor, Amy, River and Rory travelled to Winter Quay, where they were trapped by the Angels. However, Rory jumped from the Quay's roof, creating a time paradox (as an alternate timeline in which the Angels kept Rory imprisoned in Winter Quay until he died of old age already existed), which poisoned and killed the majority of the Angels. However, a surviving Angel in 2012 sent Rory back in time, and Amy chose to follow him, separating them from the Doctor forever.
Time of the Doctor[]
In the far future, the Weeping Angels travelled to Trenzalore along with many other races, such as the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Silence and the Sontarans, in response to a mysterious message broadcast through time and space. Unlike the other species, they managed to make it onto the planet, where they were discovered by the Eleventh Doctor and Clara Oswald. The Weeping Angels surrounded them, but the Doctor summoned the TARDIS to them and they escaped. During the Siege of Trenzalore, a Weeping Angel tried to invade the town but was trapped by the Doctor using a mirror on which he wrote "with love from the Doctor!".
Flux[]
Many Weeping Angels were recruited by the Division, to act as agents, being allowed free reign to be as sadistic as they liked as long as they achieved their goals. One of the Angels went rogue, taking with it all the information of the Division, including the Doctor's erased memories when they worked for the Division. In The Halloween Apocalypse, a Weeping Angel attacked Claire Bown, transporting her back in time. In Once, Upon Time, during the Great Disruption, the Thirteenth Doctor caught glimpses of a Weeping Angel while she and her friends were lost within their own timestreams. It infiltrated Yasmin Khan's time stream, where the Doctor had hidden her to keep her safe during the storm. Once the Disruption had been resolved, the Angel used Yaz's phone to appear in the Doctor's TARDIS and hijacked the ship, bringing it to Medderton Village on 21st November 1967.
In Village of the Angels, the Doctor triggered a manual reboot of the TARDIS interior to expel the Angel from the interior, leaving the TARDIS grounded in Medderton. Here, the Weeping Angels were attacking villagers in both 1967 and 1901, causing the village to become deserted both times. The Doctor discovered Claire, who had been sent back to 1965, was now sketching the future in the form of images of Angels (which The Doctor subsequently tore up to stop them becoming new Angels). Dan and Yaz, while investigating the missing girl Peggy, were attacked by an Angel and sent back to 1901 while The Doctor and Claire were trapped in the house of Professor Jericho, trying to secure the house against the Angels. The Doctor was able to destroy an Angel that manifested from one of Claire's sketches by burning it, but Claire's visions of Angels began to manifest as another Angel within her own mind. The Doctor engaged in telepathic contact with Claire to try and draw the Angel out, but learned that it was the Angel that had drawn the TARDIS to Medderton. The Angel revealed how these Angels worked for the Division, how it had gone rogue, and wished for the Doctor's aid. The Doctor was forced to break telepathic contact as the Angels entered the basement. Using the Professor's equipment, The Doctor was able to trap the Angels while she, Claire and Jericho fled through a secret tunnel in the house, but the tunnels were filled with Weeping Angels.
In 1901 Yaz and Dan found Peggy in the past city, who revealed that the Angels spoke to her in her mind and revealed that they had quantum extracted the village from the rest of the universe. Yaz, Dan and Peggy found a rift leading to 1967 where they met Mrs Hayward, Peggy's future self, who revealed that the burial site in the area was actually the broken fragments of Weeping Angels, who left them alive just to tell the story of their power. Back in 1967, Professor Jericho was sent to 1901 as he, the Doctor and Claire tried to escape the tunnels, the Doctor emerging from the tunnel to find the rift, and Claire surrounded by an army of Weeping Angels. Yaz and Dan were able to explain the situation to the Doctor, allowing her to confirm that the village had been taken out of time to find the Rogue Angel, but it had already agreed to betray the Doctor for its own safety. With The Doctor recalled to Division, she was transformed into a Weeping Angel herself, and was transported to Division Control. Despite this, the Doctor was eventually able to defeat the Division and stop the Flux.
Gallery[]
Images[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- Flesh and Stone is the only episode when the Weeping Angels are actually seen moving physically, as one angel was seen moving its fingers to prepare to grab the Eleventh Doctor's coat, and another scene when the angels realize that Amy Pond was not seeing them due to having her eyes closed to prevent the angel in her head from entering her mind, and the angels started turning their heads to her.
- They are often considered the scariest villains in Doctor Who due to their design and abilities.
- In the original plans for Class, the Weeping Angels were going to feature as major antagonists of Series 2, such as visiting their home planet, and seeing an Angel Civil War. However these plans were scrapped after the series was cancelled.
