Weeping Angels

Weeping Angel
Doctor Who alien
A Weeping Angel as seen in "The Time of Angels"
Type	Winged humanoids
Home planet	Unknown
First appearance	"Blink"

The Weeping Angels are a race of predatory creatures from the long-running sci-fi series Doctor Who, resembling stone statues. They were introduced in the 2007 episode "Blink", making repeat appearances in "The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone" (2010) and "The Angels Take Manhattan" (2012) as well as cameo appearances in "The God Complex" (2011), "The Time of the Doctor" (2013) and "Hell Bent" (2015). They also feature in the spin-off series Class, in the first series finale "The Lost" (2016). Since their initial appearance, they have been persistently nominated as one of the most popular and frightening Doctor Who monsters. Steven Moffat, their creator, attributes their appeal to childhood games such as Grandmother's Footsteps and the notion that every statue might secretly be a disguised Weeping Angel.

According to The Doctor, the Weeping Angels "are as old as the universe (or very nearly), but no one really knows where they come from." He also describes them as "the deadliest, most powerful, most malevolent life-form evolution has ever produced." Weeping Angels are unusual as predators in that they neither kill nor directly parasitize their prey. Their usual mode of feeding is to make use of time paradoxes - with a single touch, a Weeping Angel can send a person into the past to a point before his/her own birth, and can then feed off the "potential energy" of the years which that victim would have lived in the present. The Doctor describes the Angels as "the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely" because their victims are otherwise uninjured and may live out their lifespans in the past.

In their usual form, Weeping Angels resemble silent human-sized stone statues in the form of winged angels in draped clothing (such as might appear as tomb statuary in a Victorian graveyard). Apart from the wings, their standard form appears to mimic Earth humans (two arms, two legs, two eyes) even when they are infiltrating worlds on which the inhabitants differ from this form. Generally, their facial features are bland and serene and their proportions human-normal. However, as they close in on more aware victims they transform to a more horrific, bestial and demonic aspect with wide-open mouths, vampiric teeth, and clawed hands. In the episode "The Angels Take Manhattan", another form of Weeping Angel is shown, the cherubim. 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 Angels, but they are referred to as "the babies". It is also implied that Angels can mimic the forms or dimensions of a broader range of statuary if required: in "The Angels Take Manhattan", one 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" suggest that any statue might be a disguised Angel.