Doctor Who--35.9 "Sleep No More" by Mark Gatiss
Here we are, with the first (apparently) single part story this season. And, well, it underwhelmed, to say the least.
spoiler space
The "found footage" aspect was certainly an...experiment. But I think it lost me at "sleep dust monsters." I'm sorry, but from that point onwards, I simply couldn't take this seriously.
Not to say there weren't some decent ideas in there--the Morpheus process is certainly terrifying, if highly unoriginal. "We try to get rid of sleep and terrible things happen" is a pretty damn well-worn plot, so much so that it shocks me that Doctor Who hasn't done it before.
Honestly, other than the found footage-style aspect (more on that later, I suppose), the whole thing was pretty bog-standard Doctor Who--up to and including the "weird contagion" part. I suppose the "twist" that it was all an engineered story was new-ish, but it was all gaslighted so heavily ("This doesn't make sense!") that I'm not sure how effective it will be. And if this is the set-up for Clara's possible demise...well, I guess we'll find out soon.
Was anyone else bothered by Reece Sheersmith's "tan-face?" It certainly looked, with the slicked back hair, the slight skin tint and the glasses, that he was trying to do "Indian" to fit in with the Indo-Japanese society. (That was kind of clever, I'll admit.)
And yes, it's pretty damn funny that the society would remember "Mr. Sandman" (and one specific version to boot), yet have forgotten Shakespeare.
So yes, the found footage. It's cute that they folded the cuts into the story. It's cute that Gatiss wrote a clever way of including different points of view. It's less cute that the director stopped following the rules of that clever way shortly after the reveal. (Maybe before, but I didn't notice it until afterward, though I did notice that some of the shots had to be from Clara's point of view fairly early on.) Ok, follow me here. It was made very clear that the only time shots would be in color (apart from the opening and closing) was if they were seen through human eyes. Drifting sand would be in black and white. Yet there were color shots showing Chopra walking around without anyone else. Chopra, who'd never used the Morpheus machine. Shots not from his point of view, with no humans around to colorize them. That's a clear breaking of the rules as we were led to understand them.
And the fact that I noticed this tells you something. Although the one thing that can really be said about the way the story was directed was that it kept the monsters out of full view for a bit. At first, I was annoyed by that...but then I saw them in full view.
And, oh my god, enough of the "you watched this, you're effected/infected" scare. I suppose it's going to be a plot point in the last two-parter (it better be), but man. "Don't blink!" "Looking at an Angel gets them in your eyes." "Watch out for those Dalek particle thingies!" (All Moffat episodes, those. Hmm. Maybe that's why he loved this Gatiss script so much?) It didn't scare me (though I was impressed by the disintegrating effect); it just made me ho hum, "Not again."
So, this wasn't a bad episode. It was kind of fun, and the fact that the Doctor was totally played (i.e. fooled) by the monsters was cute. The infection thing is potentially interesting--though I still say "sleep dust" monsters is ridiculous. (I see what they were going for--it's the old "take something familiar and make it malevolent--that's scary!" But it didn't work for me.)
True, it was full of characters I didn't really care about, which puts it miles below the other base-under-siege story we got this year. I know we were really meant to care about 474, but...again, the drone thing is so cardboard cut-out cliché that I found myself thinking, "yeah, yeah, we know." I'm sure we were meant to care about the others too, but I just wasn't given any reason to. The only reason I even vaguely remember Chopra's name is the big deal made of him never trying Morpheus.
Honestly, I think this is the weakest episode so far this year. I suppose I should be more specific and say the weakest single episode--since it's by no means clear this will be the only part to this story. (Although with the teaser blurbs the BBC has put out, it sounds like this plot thread won't get picked up...but who knows?) That being said, it wasn't bad. Capaldi was excellent, and I'd love to see him do more Shakespeare! (His "Macbeth has murdered sleep" excerpt was wonderful! Best part of the episode.) And not bad Doctor Who is still better than most other stuff. Still, to be honest, the Next Time trailer looked more interesting than this entire story. Speaking of which...
NEXT WEEK: Old friends return and new perils appear! There are entire communities among us, which will make the Doctor and friends "Face the Raven"! It's by Sarah Dollard, and it looks pretty darn fun!
Click here for my previous Doctor Who reviews.
spoiler space
The "found footage" aspect was certainly an...experiment. But I think it lost me at "sleep dust monsters." I'm sorry, but from that point onwards, I simply couldn't take this seriously.
Not to say there weren't some decent ideas in there--the Morpheus process is certainly terrifying, if highly unoriginal. "We try to get rid of sleep and terrible things happen" is a pretty damn well-worn plot, so much so that it shocks me that Doctor Who hasn't done it before.
Honestly, other than the found footage-style aspect (more on that later, I suppose), the whole thing was pretty bog-standard Doctor Who--up to and including the "weird contagion" part. I suppose the "twist" that it was all an engineered story was new-ish, but it was all gaslighted so heavily ("This doesn't make sense!") that I'm not sure how effective it will be. And if this is the set-up for Clara's possible demise...well, I guess we'll find out soon.
Was anyone else bothered by Reece Sheersmith's "tan-face?" It certainly looked, with the slicked back hair, the slight skin tint and the glasses, that he was trying to do "Indian" to fit in with the Indo-Japanese society. (That was kind of clever, I'll admit.)
And yes, it's pretty damn funny that the society would remember "Mr. Sandman" (and one specific version to boot), yet have forgotten Shakespeare.
So yes, the found footage. It's cute that they folded the cuts into the story. It's cute that Gatiss wrote a clever way of including different points of view. It's less cute that the director stopped following the rules of that clever way shortly after the reveal. (Maybe before, but I didn't notice it until afterward, though I did notice that some of the shots had to be from Clara's point of view fairly early on.) Ok, follow me here. It was made very clear that the only time shots would be in color (apart from the opening and closing) was if they were seen through human eyes. Drifting sand would be in black and white. Yet there were color shots showing Chopra walking around without anyone else. Chopra, who'd never used the Morpheus machine. Shots not from his point of view, with no humans around to colorize them. That's a clear breaking of the rules as we were led to understand them.
And the fact that I noticed this tells you something. Although the one thing that can really be said about the way the story was directed was that it kept the monsters out of full view for a bit. At first, I was annoyed by that...but then I saw them in full view.
And, oh my god, enough of the "you watched this, you're effected/infected" scare. I suppose it's going to be a plot point in the last two-parter (it better be), but man. "Don't blink!" "Looking at an Angel gets them in your eyes." "Watch out for those Dalek particle thingies!" (All Moffat episodes, those. Hmm. Maybe that's why he loved this Gatiss script so much?) It didn't scare me (though I was impressed by the disintegrating effect); it just made me ho hum, "Not again."
So, this wasn't a bad episode. It was kind of fun, and the fact that the Doctor was totally played (i.e. fooled) by the monsters was cute. The infection thing is potentially interesting--though I still say "sleep dust" monsters is ridiculous. (I see what they were going for--it's the old "take something familiar and make it malevolent--that's scary!" But it didn't work for me.)
True, it was full of characters I didn't really care about, which puts it miles below the other base-under-siege story we got this year. I know we were really meant to care about 474, but...again, the drone thing is so cardboard cut-out cliché that I found myself thinking, "yeah, yeah, we know." I'm sure we were meant to care about the others too, but I just wasn't given any reason to. The only reason I even vaguely remember Chopra's name is the big deal made of him never trying Morpheus.
Honestly, I think this is the weakest episode so far this year. I suppose I should be more specific and say the weakest single episode--since it's by no means clear this will be the only part to this story. (Although with the teaser blurbs the BBC has put out, it sounds like this plot thread won't get picked up...but who knows?) That being said, it wasn't bad. Capaldi was excellent, and I'd love to see him do more Shakespeare! (His "Macbeth has murdered sleep" excerpt was wonderful! Best part of the episode.) And not bad Doctor Who is still better than most other stuff. Still, to be honest, the Next Time trailer looked more interesting than this entire story. Speaking of which...
NEXT WEEK: Old friends return and new perils appear! There are entire communities among us, which will make the Doctor and friends "Face the Raven"! It's by Sarah Dollard, and it looks pretty darn fun!
Click here for my previous Doctor Who reviews.