Sally Sparrow

Sally Sparrow
Main aliases:	Sally Shipton
Species:	Human
Place of origin:	Earth
Partner:	Larry Nightingale
First appearance:	Blink
Appearances:	WC: A Ghost Story for Christmas
Main actor:	Carey Mulligan
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You may be looking for the original, prose version of this character.

Sally Sparrow was a young photographer from London who indirectly assisted the Tenth Doctor, and encountered the Weeping Angels.

Biography

Helping the Doctor

Sally had an interest in "urban exploration" (the hobby of entering abandoned buildings to take photographs) which led her to explore Wester Drumlins one night. While taking photographs, she found strange messages addressed to her left by someone called the Doctor. She went to her close friend, Kathy Nightingale, for advice; this led her to meet Kathy's brother Larry Nightingale for the first time. On a second visit to the house (with Kathy this time), Sally briefly met Malcolm Wainwright, who claimed to be Kathy's grandson. Baffled, Sally went to ask Kathy for an explanation, only to find that she had vanished. Malcolm gave Sally a packet of letters and photographs from his grandmother.

Sally read the letter, in which Kathy asked Sally to tell her brother Larry that Kathy loved him. Sally went to the DVD store where Larry worked, and told him that his sister had gone "on a trip" when she had actually been transported to Hull on 5 December 1920 by the Weeping Angels. She saw a mysterious man on a TV screen that seemed to reply to what she said. Larry explained that this man was on seventeen completely unrelated DVDs, almost like an "easter egg" and then gave Sally a list of the DVDs.

Sally also met Billy Shipton, a police officer, and he asked her out. Billy was sent by the Weeping Angels back to 1969 and given instructions from the Doctor to tell Sally an important instruction: "Look at the list". She sat with him on his last night of life, in a hospital, as Billy had said that that would be the last day that Sally and he met.

Afterward, Sally looked at the list of seventeen DVDs, and realised their connection: they were all seventeen DVDs that she owned; the messages on the DVDs were meant for her. She called Larry and told him to meet her at Wester Drumlins. They found the Weeping Angels and were warned by the Doctor not to blink, because the Angels moved when they were not seen. On one of the DVDs, the Doctor told Sally about the Weeping Angels. Sally and Larry found and trapped the Weeping Angels and returned the Doctor's TARDIS to the Doctor and Martha Jones.

Over the next year, Sally and Larry took over the video store Larry had been working at and converted it into a used book-and-DVD store. While Larry wanted to pursue a relationship, Sally remained distant as she compiled detailed notes of her experiences. Some time later, she met the Doctor and Martha in person and delivered her important package of information. Only then did she finally allow herself to pursue a relationship with Larry. (TV: Blink)

Legacy

While revisiting London in 1969, the Thirteenth Doctor remarked that Sally Sparrow was "rather brilliant", and wondered whatever happened to her. (COMIC: A Little Help from My Friends)

Kathy Nightingale's letter to Sally was later included in Justin Richards' book The Secret Lives of Monsters. Additionally, a write up of (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters) the Tenth Doctor's half of the DVD discussion with Sally (TV: Blink) was also included, though Richards and others simply referred to him as the "Easter Egg Man", (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters) as they did not know the full details like she and Larry had. (TV: Blink)

Personality

Sally Sparrow was a photographer who liked to study the past. She said she liked old things because they made her feel "sad" albeit in a good way. Sally was compassionate and stayed by Billy's bed until he died in order to comfort him. Even when scared, she proved very courageous as proved when she faced her fears and return the TARDIS to the Doctor.

After her encounter with the Angels, Sally was quite distant with Larry, still obsessing over how the Doctor knew everything she did at Wester Drumlins. Eventually, she met a slightly younger version of the Doctor and gave him a packet with all the information on the angels that he needed, ending her obsession and allowing her to start a relationship with Larry.

Sally was also quite intelligent. She was able to figure out that the events she had experienced had not yet happened in the Doctor's timeline when they met, showing that she had a logical mind. (TV: Blink)

Behind the scenes

• Blink writer Steven Moffat had originally created the character of Sally Sparrow for his short story What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow in the Doctor Who Annual 2006. This Ninth Doctor adventure depicted Sally as a young girl who communicates with the Doctor via pre-recorded messages, much as in Blink. The implied setting of the first story and Sally Sparrow's age in it makes it hard to reconcile the characters as the same. In the short story, Sally grows up to become a spy.
• According to Steven Moffat, she was supposed to become a companion, but Carey Mulligan declined the offer.
• Sally serves a similar function to Marc Cory in Mission to the Unknown and Elton Pope in Love & Monsters, in that she is a one-off guest character who serves as the protagonist of the story.
• There was a plan in one draft to have the book and DVD shop run by Sally and Larry to be crushed by a Dalek ship in The Stolen Earth, but this scene wasn't filmed.
• In The Lonely Assassins, Larry has Sally listed as a contact on his phone. According to the game, Sally moved to the United States to work as a photographer in 2017. In 2020, she returned to London for an exhibition of her pictures, which included photos from her store. She returned to the United States at the end of it. When Larry revealed his suspicions that his wife, Natasha, was captured by a Weeping Angel, Sally proposed to return to London and help him, but Larry said it was better that Sally stay at home to be safe.