Karen Gillan Forever

Patrick Ballesteros drew this image of Doctor Who characters playing hide and seek with a Weeping Angel, which is funny if you know the show—that game normally ends with everyone dead or displaced in time or whatever horror the Weeping Angels have planned. But in the Tardis, locked away from the real world, it’s just silly fun. I’d just started season six when I ran across this, and I was beginning to understand why everyone cared so much about the show.

It shouldn’t work. The writing is uneven, the effects are cheap, the tone shifts wildly from horror to comedy to genuine emotion. But you stop noticing those things pretty quickly because you’re too invested in the characters. Amy Pond is the core of it. Karen Gillan plays her with this casual confidence and irreverence—she’s not starstruck by the Doctor, just genuinely interested. She questions him, she jokes, she’s got her own life. That’s not typical for companion characters. Usually they’re just there to marvel and get rescued. Amy does plenty of rescuing.

Anyway, Karen Gillan forever.