Recyclingwatch: Blink

Late and rather brief Recyclingwatch-- it's been an annoying week. Anyway, on with the business at hand.

This is another literary self-recycle, since Moffat rewrote a story from the first Nu-Who annual for this.

Rose: Geeks endlessly debating something on the Internet (the Doctor there, the transcripts here), which proves crucial to the plot.

The Idiot's Lantern/Rise of the Cybermen: Damn, more bird names.

Rise of the Cybermen: For the third time this season, a convenient newspaper provides date and/or location exposition.

Love and Monsters: Action revolving around one-off character on the fringe of the protagonists' lives; people's lives getting irrevocably messed up due to coming into contact with either the Doctor or something he's done.

Torchwood: Random Shoes: Action revolving around one-off character on the fringe of the protagonists' lives; grotty DVD shop and Internet geek prove crucial to solving of mystery; story effectively told backwards as the protagonist figures out what happens.

The Fifth Element: Yes, there's one this week too: people in the past affecting foretold events in the future.

Timelash Moment: Something happens in the present which only makes sense in light of future events. Several "Timelash" clips in the Confidential, as well.

Old Skool Who: Ghostlight (mysterious old house where a girl finds something evil yet science-fictiony); The Stones of Blood (stone aliens that move); Battlefield (the Doctor leaving clues for someone in the past to find); The Daemons (Bok!)

Everywhere Else: Warner Brothers' cartoons ("Duck, no, seriously, duck"); any comedy that uses the person-talking-back-to-a-recording gag (I seem to recall Get Smart being notorious for this); Sapphire and Steel, particularly the Railway Station and Petrol Station episodes (abandoned houses, supernatural creatures sending people into the past); Twelve Monkeys (recording from the past that makes sense once the events of the future unfold; man trapped in the past finds romance); William Gibson's novel Pattern Recognition (mysterious messages, transmitted via electronic media, which eventually make sense once their origin is traced); Life on Mars (cop from the present day, sent mysteriously back to the past, and when he returns to the present, he dies).