10 Doctor Who Episodes That Had The Balls To GO THERE

9. Sleep No More

Much can be said about Mark Gatiss's contributions to Doctor Who, and it's not all glowing – but he is nonetheless a writer willing to challenge the limits of the show’s storytelling.

Set aboard an abandoned space station orbiting the distant reaches of Neptune, the episode follows the Doctor and Clara as they join a rescue operation sent to uncover the fate of the station’s missing crew.

A bog-standard Doctor Who 'base-under-siege' story on paper then, but Gatiss takes it one step further by showing the entire story through the eyes of the cast, edited together in-universe by Rassmussen (played by Reece Shearsmith).

Rassmussen frames the events as a warning, a desperate attempt to document what befell the station’s inhabitants. This approach was startlingly new for Doctor Who, as it had never before relied on the found footage format to tell its stories. Found footage immerses us in the terror and claustrophobia. There are no breaks; you'd better hide behind the sofa because we’re locked in (literally) alongside the Doctor. The removal of the iconic theme song and opening title sequence only added to that unsettling feeling.

The episode does its best to explain why we can see through everyone's eyes... unfortunately, sentient eye-dust monsters do not quite live up to the bold narrative risk.