Day 822: Sleep No More

OK, I've got to be honest: Sleep No More does nothing for me. The gimmick of the episode, i.e. that it's all based around found footage, isn't something that particularly excites me; I'm not a big fan of horror, and I'm even less of a fan of found footage movies. I'm also not that interested in the setting either; the low lights and minimalistic design just makes me feel a little bit bored rather than allowing me to get excited in the plot. And the story's not something that I'm a fan of either, it just doesn't gel for me. So, weirdly, when I saw that this episode was getting a bit of a beating from the fan community, I was incredibly angry. Because even if I don't like Sleep No More, I am very willing to defend it for what it is.

Even though there are plenty of things that I don't like about this story, there's quite a bit that I do appreciate as something really fantastic. For instance, I love that the viewer can deduce the story from the camera alone, because of the shifts in POV to Clara (and to a lesser extent Professor Rassmussen). When I first watched it, I put it down to directorial incompetence on behalf of director Justin Molitnikov, and decided that I would try to ignore it. But then, as the story progressed, I began to question whether Molitnikov could really be that incompetent, and it dawned on me that it was done on purpose, due to Clara being infected by the Morpheus machine. And that's kind of a fun thing to experience as a viewer, the ability to figure something out before any of the characters can, just because you've received vital information that they don't have yet.

But, beyond that, I think the reason why I'm so keen to defend Sleep No More is that every criticism that I have about it boils down to "It's not my cup of tea". I may not be a big fan of this episode, but I don't think it's particularly bad. And beyond that, I'm very sure that there are plenty of people who watch this episode and think that it's fantastic, and all power to them, they're allowed to think these things. And I guess what this comes down to is to ignore 'received fan wisdom' and to just go out and experience Doctor Who for yourself and try to love as much of it as possible. That attitude has certainly made the last 800-odd days all the more bearable.