After last week’s fiasco of an episode – in retrospect it
could have been so much better – ‘Night Terrors’ proved to be a much
appreciated continuation of the brilliance of Doctor Who. Of course with Mark
Gatiss at the writing helm of this episode, it was bound to have a few
typically strange parts: Along with some serious Whovian areas (‘The Seven Keys
to Doomsday’), and of course following along with the idea that all aliens look
like Humans – then again, the alien involved in this episode had a natural
perception filter upon it and had been altered to suit it’s environment, which
is fair enough – and with the thankful creepiness presented in this first New
Who episode (‘The Unquiet Dead’) which, fair enough to say, has been lacking in
the his past episodes.
Scary though parts of this episode were, on a whole it took
a serious amount of time to get into. Daniel May’s acting, maybe with the
highly emphasized London accent, along with the boy’s accent was slightly a
put-off, but on one hand it couldn’t be completely avoided. Moving on, it
seemed slightly pointless to include the neighbours such as Mrs. Rossiter with
the bin bags and Landlord Purcell and his dog if a story toward them was only
half-played out – Purcell and his dog had a good bit of story considering,
including him turning into a Peg Doll before Rory and Amy’s eyes, altering the
pair and viewers to the dangers of the temporary dangers placed upon them.
Also, his sinking into the floor (the floor is made of lava-esque) verily reminded
me of a scene from Sixth Doctor Trial of a Timelord, which was nice to connect.
That’s another thing that concerns me: if, as the Doctor
said, all of George’s fears come to life in that cupboard, and somehow within
the scary dollhouse that represents no fears such as hauntings or destruction,
then why would a child dream that a touch from a peg doll would turn them into
one of them? I understand that dolls of different types scare different people,
but to believe that you must have very odd parents (no offense meant), which
May’s character, Alex, and the woman whom played his wife definitely wasn’t.
Continuing on from that whole perspective, as George was revealed to be an
alien who had hidden himself in plain view as the couple’s child… how did he
get there in the first place? If he himself placed himself in their
companionship, how could he possibly forget to become ‘fully’ human? It seems a
few plot holes were in place within the episode.
Nevertheless, it seems that Mark Gatiss really has a
knowledge now as to what Amy, Rory and the Doctor are like – his writing of
them, and of course Karen, Arthur and Matt’s portrayals – were spot on, with
the perfect amount of Rory-comedy, Amy-bravery and Doctor-ness that has made
some of series six the best it can be (although still not that good, indeed ‘The
Doctor’s Wife’ has been voted favourite for you readers – see to the right for
more detail). With that in mind of course, the dynamic between the two Ponds
was hilarious; Rory almost certain that they had died again and still equipped
with his little torch first seen in ‘Vampires of Venice’ – a nice link between
the two series. Of course one could write Amy in any way and Karen would
perform with gusto, so one needs not be concerned for her character, and the
same could be said for Matt Smith, although his Doctor’s dynamic with Alex was
really well done and obviously properly thought out – and you may also notice
that the Doctor was back to his old coat due to the fact that this was meant to
be part of the first half of Series Six but was swapped with ‘Curse of the Black
Spot’ for variety…
Anyone else think, although disproportioned for obvious reasons,
that that dollhouse was really creepy? On a normal day I enjoy the design of
dollhouses, the architecture etc., but the perfect way the production team
darkened the place, wood-ified it so to speak, made it feel as if a ghost
involved wouldn’t have gone amiss? And why SHOULDN’T there have been a ghost?
Little George was literally afraid of everything – make up a ghost, maybe an
old sheet that resembles one and lock it away in that cupboard and voila. Shame
Gatiss didn’t think of THAT one; he was probably too busy considering the peg
dolls and their unique way of multiplying.
One thing that did get to me with this episode, although it
can be hard as hardcore fan I am, was the reference at the end to the Doctor’s
death at Lake Silencio – that was reintroduced last episode, had been a weight
on Amy’s shoulders all through Part One AND was the main theme of that half, it
seems almost insulting that they had to remind the viewer yet again, but never
mind, I suppose it’s a way of keeping viewership and despite everything Moffat
IS doing a better job than Russell T did (bar series three…) and don’t get me
started on him or his ideas of a good show – speaking of, Torchwood review
soon; much sooner than almost a week like this one has been.
And now to bizniz:
- The Doctor = 9/10 – Love Matt Smith, of course, but there was something forced behind this story that’s a slight put-off for the viewer, no matter how Matt Smith tried to cover it.
- Amy = 9.5/10 – As brilliant as ever. Although I WOULD talk about how Amy doesn’t seem to be concerned about Melody at all, but half of that consideration were badly answered last episode, and the other above….
- Rory = 10/10 – Maybe I’m being slightly partisan toward him now, but I really do love Rory. It seems that time and effort have really been put in to the writing of his character and Arthur Darvill does the character more than justice.
- George = 7/10 – Okay, he’s an eight year old boy, the acting wasn’t going to be THAT good, but to place the character in the central rank of the episode was questionable to an extent and the story reflected that. Although that’s not, of course, to say that the episode was bad, as it wasn’t.
- Alex = 7.5/10 – Well Daniel is a great actor, but the use of a heavily incorporated London accent was a put off, especially as the estate was actually a building in Bristol! ;)
Episode Rating: 7 out of 10. For me it took time to get into
and when I finally did, when the action really started, it ended quite quickly,
which put me off slightly. But still a confortable episode, easier to
understand than last week’s and without stupid plot twists like the sudden
creation of ‘Mels’. Overall, when comparing this towards the other
Gatiss-penned episode, it would sit snugly between the brilliant ‘Unquiet Dead’
and the adequately done ‘Idiots Lantern’, with ‘Victory of the iDalekPlaydoh’s’
coming in, without doubt, at last place.
No comments:
Post a Comment