TV Review: Doctor Who 6.9 - "Night Terrors"

Doctor Who Series 6: Episode 9 Written By: Mark Gatiss

rating: 4.5

As much as I praised last weeks episode in my blog, I did come to a fairly big realisation quickly afterwards. Even though Lets Kill Hitler was extremely enjoyable in my eyes, it required so much previous knowledge of characters and over arching story threads (River Song/Melody/Death Of The Doctor) that if you didn't know every piece of required knowledge you would be left scratching your head and feeling frustrated. After a season that has so far been heavily caked in an over-arching story, we are over due for a one off monster of the week episode. And boy is this one a ride. Enter Mark Gatiss, a regular writer on Doctor Who since its return in 2005 and Writer from the recent BBC re-imagining of Sherlock. With a list of some hit and miss episode under his belt (such as the dull and odd: The Idiots Lantern, the effectively creepy: The Unquiet Dead and the fairly enjoyable but not quiet there: Victory for The Daleks) I've never been able to put my finger on what to make of Gatiss' episodes even though there is a good handful of faults in each story, there is defiantly something of substance shining through in each episode that keeps me watching. A real diamond in the rough kind of writer. His most recent episode Night Terrors, is one of his best so far and on par with Season One's The Unquiet Dead. It harnesses one thing head show runner Steven Moffat and Gatiss both feel very strongly about: Childhood fears. Statues, Shadows, Cracks and now Wardrobes at night. George, a strange child living with his parents in an English council flat suffers from Pantaphobia (A literal fear of everything), sends out a cry to the Doctor which penetrates through time and space itself: "Please save me from the monsters", the Doctor arrives and instantly proves one thing: He is the ultimate social worker and Matt Smith shows once again how good his and in fact all of The Doctor's can be when left to their own devices simply to save a scared child. One thing Gatiss has always done very well is a perfect blend of comedy and horror, two scenes early into this episode sum this up: Our first scene with George, where we quickly enter his mind frame as he gets ready for bed. We feel his fear and remember how it was when we were a child mistaking all and any shadow as a monster and the routines we must all have had at one point in our lives to help us get to sleep. All without showing a single monster. Secondly is the scene where The Doctor, Amy & Rory are now looking for George's house in the block of flats, they do it in the most plausible way possible, knock door to door and try to make general chitter chat while they scope out the location (which they also did in The Idiots Lantern!), it's a quick way to introduce all of the characters in the episode without directly making them stand in a line and have a role call "IM THE OLD LADY, IM THE LANDLORD, WERE THE CREEPY TWINS NEXTDOOR". It's a very effective and funny scene, without a doubt one of Gatiss's best. One problem this episode does suffer from is that because it is such a Doctor focused episode, there is very little for Amy and Rory to do, so quickly someone! Activate classic Doctor Who protocol! Lock them up for 3/4 of the episode and make them run from the monsters! On that note we move onto the monsters of the week, the evil possessed dolls. Personally I'm torn on what I think about these monsters, I've never been one to be afraid of dolls as a child so my head tells me "Ok these should be scary..." but once again it's not all there yet. I'll admit the way in which they transform their prey was quite effective and quite well done effects wise, however all tension was lifted as soon as the dolls began to speak. They were obviously trying to go for a childish creepy glee with the way these dolls spoke, however it misfired for me completely, it took me out of the scene a little but it didn't ruin the show for me by any means. Overall I really did enjoy the final message Gatiss had for this episode: No matter how odd yours may be, family is the most important thing anyone can have. It was a very heartfelt message and one that can hit close to home for everyone, even to the angry landlord with his dog. My biggest gripe with this episode? The final 10 seconds (NOTE: NO BIG SPOILERS YOU WOULDN'T ALREADY EXPECT). In an story that has been a very effective monster of the week, stand alone episode they felt it best to stick an unrelated, out of context shot of The Doctors monitor in the TARDIS, which just happened to have the date and time of his future selfs death on it. Yes we get it, The Doctor is still going to die (even though we know he isn't), much like how we got it when we saw a scan of Amy being pregnant and yet not pregnant on a monitor in the first half of the season every. Single. Episode. What does the Doctor just keep those images as his screen saver or something now a days? Nit picks aside I really did enjoy this episode, it is creepy, tense, heartfelt and definitely one of Gatiss' best episodes. Hopefully it is a sign of what is to come for the rest of this two-parter'less season. This episode shows that one off stories still work extremely well and without a doubt have and always will have a home at Doctor Who, hopefully we can see a return to this approach to the show very soon.