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.

Day 803: Robot of Sherwood

Robot of Sherwood is not a brilliant episode. But, to be fair, it never set out to be a brilliant episode. A concept along the lines of 'The Doctor meets Robin Hood' is clearly opting for more of a rompy, throw-away episode than the two previous episodes in Capaldi's first series. And, looking at it through that lens, it's a very fun and happy episode. The Doctor gets interesting things to do whilst still being a hero, the villain (the Sheriff of Nottingham as played by Ben Miller) isn't bothering with such concepts as subtlety, which ends up giving us one of the best moments in the entire series ("First Derby, then Lincoln, then THE WORLD!"). In general, it's all just a generic episode of Doctor Who.

But there's clearly something that makes it a Capaldi era story. That something is Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald, whose character has gone down a very interesting direction that we're beginning to see built upon here. As I mentioned in The Bells of Saint John, Clara is set up to be the Doctor's equal. Whilst this isn't so much focussed upon in the rest of Matt Smith's time as the Doctor, which focuses more on the Doctor puzzling over Clara as the perceived 'Impossible Girl', in Capaldi's time it certainly comes more to the forefront. Take, for instance, in Robot of Sherwood, where it's Clara that gets to have the more interesting conversations with the villain than the Doctor. Whilst he's locked up in a cell in the basement of a castle. Clara sits at a dinner table with the Sheriff of Nottingham and they discuss his evil plan. So, in terms of the overall structure of the story, we see Clara as the main driving force instead of the Doctor, which is a reasonably interesting thing to see.

What's also interesting to see is that Clara's actually acting like the Doctor. The Sheriff isn't eager to reveal his plans to her so she tricks him by using a mixture of psychology and guesswork to figure out what's happening. It's a far cry from the Clara that we saw in Deep Breath, where she faced down the villain and was able to take control whilst clearly being very afraid at the same time. In Robot of Sherwood, she shows a mixture of confidence and arrogance, noted at the point where she explains what she's done to the Sheriff at the conclusion of the scene, showing off how clever she is. And these things feel very Doctor-ish, which shows just how much she's been absorbing from the Doctor in their travels together.

So it's a hint towards a very interesting story arc for Clara's character, one that shall continue all the way up to her departure. But we'll have to wait and see how that all pans out, for tomorrow we've got far more of a Doctor heavy episode than is first apparent...

Day 796: The Crimson Horror

The surprise break-out stars of the second section to Steven Moffat's era of Doctor Who - the BIG section, were the characters of Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax, all of whom were introduced in A Good Man Goes to War. They worked because they were all based on strong concepts, be they Sontaran nurses or a Victorian Silurian/human couple who solve mysteries which gleefully enticed the viewer to want to see more of these characters at a future point, something that was helped by the strong performances from the actors who play them. So it's no surprise that they were called upon to return to the worlds of Doctor Who, which they first did in 2012's beautiful Christmas special The Snowmen, and then later in the rather more distinct episode that is The Crimson Horror.

The Crimson Horror doesn't necessarily feel like a Doctor Who episode, instead it feels more like a theoretical episode of the spin-off series 'The Paternoster Gang', starring Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax, with the Doctor and Clara making a guest appearance. The writing, for instance, feels more overtly comical than what you'd normally expect from a Doctor Who episode, such as one of the greatest exchanges in Doctor Who history:
"In the wrong hands that venom could wipe out all life on this planet"
"You know what these are? The wrong hands!"
It's that comedic approach to this episode, where almost every scene should contain some form of joke that makes this episode feel completely unlike an episode of Doctor Who, where the focus is clearly on story first - jokes to be inserted if and when they are needed.

And you get a certain feeling of oddness from the design as well. Previous historical adventures in the Moffat era have at least made an attempt to give the feeling of living in that era, from the low lighting and uniforms in the Russian submarine in the 1980's that we see in Cold War to the fog and murkiness of a pirate ship on the high seas that we see in The Curse of the Black Spot. The Crimson Horror, on the other hand, doesn't feel like a Victorian story, instead it feels like an artist's impression of a Victorian story - steampunk-esque rocket controls and old fashioned and over-large gramophones. It makes the story feel just that little bit more odd; lending to the impression that it's a Doctor Who story where the Doctor's intruding on another television programme.

And, weirdly, it all works amazingly well. I keep on being drawn to this episode as something truly splendid and odd and I love every moment of it (even the Thomas Thomas joke - any story that has an entire scene devoted to a single bad pun gets a thumbs up in my book). It's one of the great disappointments in Doctor Who that the idea of The Paternoster Gang has seemed to have died out; they've made one more appearance in Capaldi's first story and haven't appeared since. Hopefully we'll get to see them again in the coming series though, they're probably one of the greatest things to come out of Moffat's era of the programme.

Day 793: Cold War

Cold War is actually quite an interesting story that I can appreciate very much. Writer Mark Gatiss wished to bring back the Ice Warriors for a new generation, making them genuinely threatening creatures again. The way in which he did this was to riff on 'Dalek', the brilliant 2005 episode, by presenting a scenario with one single Ice Warrior in a confined space, and putting it in the situation where it could destroy the entire planet.

Granted, it doesn't work as well as 'Dalek' because the Ice Warriors are entirely different beasts to Daleks. Unlike the Daleks, the Ice Warriors are not constructed to be purely evil, instead they have their own agenda and their own creed that, whilst different to that of humanity, is still recognisable enough as being able to speak common sense. That leads to the conclusion of Cold War, which isn't able to be as fundamentally powerful as the ending to 'Dalek' because the Ice Warrior is someone that can be talked with and reasoned with, meaning that he chooses not to blow up the world and leave humanity be for the time being, showing mercy on his prey. And whilst this makes for an interesting character decision, and I'm sure that it could have been used as an excellent jumping off point to any future Ice Warrior stories of a similar vein, it just lacks bite, which is what you'd kind of want after what has been a reasonably tense story.

Looking at it positively though, there's some excellent foundation for Clara's character which will become very noteworthy later on in the series. So much of the episode is dedicated to putting her into a situation where she's allowed to be afraid, so we can see how the character copes under that sort of pressure. And whilst that's fairly good in it's own right, I far prefer a brief exchange of dialogue that she has with the Doctor after she gets out of a sticky situation with an Ice Warrior. She asks the Doctor "How did I do. Was I OK?" and the Doctor responds by saying "This wasn't a test, Clara". It hints at this whole idea of Clara, subconsciously or not, attempting to emulate the Doctor, which will become more overt in later episodes. But that's a character arc for another time, for the moment we're just meandering through time and space from one adventure to another, and we'll see that next one tomorrow.

Day 779: Night Terrors

One Saturday evening in 2011, I decided that I was fed up. After five years of reading spoilers for Doctor Who episodes before I would have a chance to watch them myself; five years of having every little surprise ruined for me before I got a chance to watch it, I decided to take a stand. So instead of reading a synopsis of Night Terrors the next morning, I decided to go with the slightly less than legal method of streaming it. This all meant that Night Terrors was the first Doctor Who episode that I went into relatively unspoiled in a very long time*.

Now, whilst Night Terrors may not be the strongest episode in the world, it'll always be an episode that I'll look upon fondly because I was allowed to be surprised by it. Moments like Purcell and Amy turning into Peg Dolls, as well as the revelation of George as an alien all felt like gob-smacking moments, just because I found them to be genuine surprises. And being able to be surprised for those moments helped the overall tone of the story - taking the peg doll transformation as an example, I was far more struck by the overall creepiness of the stop motion transformation on first viewing than on my most recent viewing a couple of hours ago where I knew that it was just another quirk of the episode.

But that's sometimes the magic of watching a Doctor Who episode for the first time. Unlike almost any other programme on television, you're allowed to try and figure out what sort of story it's going to be. It could be a creepy story about transforming dolls hidden as a simple tale about a young boy afraid of monsters. It could be a beautiful piece about a woman realising who she really is beneath an adventure where you punch Hitler. Or, as we'll look at tomorrow, it could be something truly heartbreaking masquerading as just another story.

*Just putting a small footnote to say that I also watched A Christmas Carol without reading an episode synopsis beforehand, but I'm not going to count it because I seem to recall reading some fairly big spoilers regarding the end of the episode and Abigail's fate a couple of days before I watched it, which slightly damped that supposedly spoiler-free experience for me.

Day 759: Victory of the Daleks

Victory of the Daleks, whilst not a brilliant story, is still one that I admire deeply. Perhaps I don't admire what turned out on screen – a poor design for the rebooted Daleks doesn't quite live up to expectations and is notably discarded as the series progresses – but I do admire what the plot sets out to do in terms of the ongoing story of the Doctor and the Daleks.

The title of the story: Victory of the Daleks, proves to be the most important part of the episode because this is a story where the Daleks unambiguously win. They don't set out to destroy the human race, instead they just want to survive, and the second half of the story is entirely based around this notion. We have the Doctor coming up against Daleks on their last legs, ready for him to take them out once and for all, and yet he still loses to them because they outwit him, running away when the time is right. But how do they manage to win in this story when they are on the verge of loss?

Consider that their attack on London is halfhearted, consisting of them turning all of the lights of London on, and then when that fails, turning an android into a bomb. It's not that Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat aren't writing the Daleks to be dangerous, it's instead that they're writing the Daleks to be cunning. They take advantage of the Doctor wishing to save people and so they distract him at every possible opportunity such that they can make him do what they need him to do whether that be leave the Dalek ship so that they can escape, or recognise the Daleks so that they can activate the progenitor. It presents the Daleks as far more interesting villains than the simple forces of destruction that they were in the latter half of the Russell T Davies era, and it's a shame that this wasn't followed up on more in the Moffat era.

But still, it provides the backbone for what is an enjoyable, if a little underwhelming story, but another key part of the fantastic Series 5.

Day 717: The Idiot's Lantern

The Idiot's Lantern is, quite simply, a romp. It's a fun run-around in 1950's London with no major consequences for the series ahead. And whilst it generally succeeds in being watchable, it's mostly forgettable, aside from a few brief images and concepts. So what else is there to talk about with respect to this episode?

Well, there's Euros Lyn's direction, for a start. He has made the curious decision to shoot almost all of the episode on a Dutch angle, tilting the camera to one side so that everything looks slanted and slightly unnerving. And whilst this does create a certain amount of atmosphere in the episode, it is unfortunately over-used. This ended up taking me out of the story completely, because I became fixated on the angle that the camera was on, trying to figure out when it would go back to being normal again. So whilst Euros Lyn clearly had the best of intentions with this decision, I can't help but fault him for what he did.

There's also the basic design of the episode, which feels as if it has been based on the Quatermass serials in the 1950's. Now, these are actually some rather fantastic pieces of television, filled with paranoia. But while the design of the story feels as if it wants to be part of that, having men in suits, and dark rooms with mysterious goings-on, it never quite works because the story just doesn't have the tension of the original serials, leaving this to feel like a pale pastiche of a better story.

But, despite the fact that I've been reasonably harsh on this story, I did enjoy it, and it has gone to further cement Tennant in the role of the Doctor, giving him a story where he can be the complete hero. He runs about, drops witty remarks, and saves the day whilst praising ordinary people. It's a fun performance to watch, and clearly part of why Tennant was so loved in the role, even if some of his stories weren't particularly good.

Day 699: The Unquiet Dead

The Unquiet Dead is the first story in the revived series to be credited to someone other than Russell T Davies, being written by Mark Gatiss. Gatiss will continue to be a figure throughout the revived series, writing 8 stories, including one which has not yet aired by the time that this post is written. So looking at this story, it's interesting to consider what sort of stories Gatiss will provide for the series.

For a start, this story is reasonably safe. There's no big scene like the ending of The End of the World here, where the character of the Doctor is revealed to have changed and to be completely different from what we would expect him to be. Instead, we get a fairly light historical romp with ghosts and Charles Dickens. It's not a bad story, with some engaging characters and a darkly comic beginning where an undertaker discovers a zombie walking about, not with shock, but instead with a sort of resigned sadness that says that this is not the first time that zombies have been coming to life in this home. The only problem with the story is that it doesn't really do much that's new and interesting with the characters.

However, that last statement isn't entirely true. There's a moment halfway through this story where the Doctor realises the truth behind the ghosts. They're gaseous beings that have had their bodies taken from them due to the events of the Time War. This plays on the Doctor's guilt, and he's given a strong amount of drive to help them get some form of their bodies back, even if it is through possessing the dead. It's not a major moment for the series, but it does show that Gatiss is able to understand the character of the Ninth Doctor, and write him convincingly. So, in short, Gatiss, whilst not writing strong and earth-shattering stories, is able to write basic and fun romps where the characters are all strongly written, giving us an enjoyable little story.