The Weeping Angels are a race of predatory alien creatures from the long-running science fiction series Doctor Who. They were introduced in the 2007 episode "Blink", making repeat appearances in later episodes. They also appeared in the spin-off series Class. Since their initial appearance, they have been persistently nominated as one of the most popular and frightening Doctor Who monsters. Steven Moffat attributes their appeal to childhood games such as Grandmother's Footsteps and the notion that any stone statue might secretly be a disguised Weeping Angel.[1]
Description
The Cherubim angels, shown at the Doctor Who Experience.
In their usual form, Weeping Angels resemble female human-sized stone statues in the form of winged angels in draped robes, such as might appear as tomb statuary from a Victorian graveyard. As they close in on more aware victims they tend to show a horrific, bestial, and demonic aspect with wide-open mouths, vampiric teeth, and clawed hands paired with a furious expression. It is also implied that Weeping Angels can mimic the forms or dimensions of a broader range of statuary if required: in "The Angels Take Manhattan" (2012), one Weeping Angel takes the form (or hijacks the existing form) of the Statue of Liberty (manifesting as a full-size Liberty with Weeping Angel features) and the final moments of "Blink" (2007) suggest that any stone statue might be a disguised Weeping Angel.
In the episode "The Angels Take Manhattan", another form of Weeping Angel is shown, the cherubim.[2] Unlike the Weeping Angels, the cherubim are not silent, making a childlike giggling and having audible footsteps. It is not explicitly stated that these are young Weeping Angels, but they are referred to as "the babies".
When they're not being observed, Weeping Angels can move extremely quickly which is usually accompanied by a stone-scraping sound. Their phenomenal speed allows them to close distances of metres literally in the blink of an eye. However, they possess a unique ability known as a "Quantum-Lock", which is a biological defense mechanism that causes them to turn to stone when observed by any living being, In this state, they're entirely frozen in place and cannot be killed. This also applies when they are being observed by another Angel, and as a result, the Angels often cover their eyes, giving the appearance of "weeping", to prevent accidentally locking eyes with another Angel, and becoming frozen for eternity.
Weeping Angels are physically very strong, although they rarely physically kill their victims; instead, when an Angel is able to touch a person, that person is sent decades into the past, often far enough to result in them being deceased in the present. The Angel then feeds on the time-potential energy of that person's unlived life they could've had, prolonging the Angel's life. If an Angel goes too long without touching someone, it begins to crack and decay, eventually resulting in the Angel's death. They can also drain energy from other forms such as that from lights (typically torches or light bulbs), or other electronics.
Weeping Angels have also exhibited a startling ability to project themselves from anything that depicts a physical image of a Weeping Angel, although this requires an enormous amount of energy. Using this ability, the Weeping Angels can appear to manifest themselves from anything such as videos to drawings. Weeping Angels can also imprint a mental image of themselves into a person's mind when the victim looks straight into their eyes for a certain amount of time: the image then gestates and takes over the person's body to manifest as a new Weeping Angel or can kill the host through escaping the body once fully developed.
Appearances
Angel of the Waters, one of the real-life angel statues appearing in the episode "The Angels Take Manhattan"
In a poll conducted by the 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. 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.[4] In a 2012 poll of over ten thousand respondents conducted by the Radio Times, the Weeping Angels were again voted the best Doctor Who monster with 49.4% of the vote. The Daleks came in second place with 17%.[5]
The Weeping Angels came in at number three in Neil Gaiman's "Top Ten New Classic Monsters" in Entertainment Weekly.[6] They were also rated the third "baddie" in Doctor Who by The Telegraph, behind the Nestene Consciousness and Daleks.[7] The Angels were listed as the third scariest television characters by TV Squad.[8] In 2009, SFX named the climax of "Blink" with the Weeping Angels advancing on Sally and Larry the scariest moment in Doctor Who's history.[9] They also listed the Angels in their list of favourite things of the revival of Doctor Who, writing, "Scariest. Monsters. Ever."[10]
Weeping Angel is the name of a hacking tool revealed in Vault 7, co-developed in 2014 by the CIA and MI5, used to exploitsmart TVs for the purpose of covert intelligence gathering. Once installed in a suitable TV, the tool enables the television to record its surroundings while appearing to be turned off (so-called "Fake-Off").[12][13]
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