Night Terrors: Doctor Who Review

** CONTAINS SPOILERS **

Week two of Doctor Who, and this week it was “Night Terrors” penned by Mark Gatiss . As I said at the end of my last review, this episode looked like it was set to be one of my favorites. I love the Doctor Who episodes that play on the fears of the eight-year-old inside us all, the part of our brain that whispers cruel things to us when the lights are off and the shadows on our bedroom walls look like they’ve been cast by something other than our desk chair. These plots work so well because pretty much everyone can relate to them, and can scare even the least superstitious amongst us. Episodes that do this so well include “Silence in the Library” and “Forrest of the Dead”, which justifies a very primal fear of the dark. Another is “Blink”, which ends beautifully by suggesting that every statue is in fact a Weeping Angel. The drive “Night Terrors” can be summed up by one of the Doctor’s opening lines; “We’re going to the scariest place in the universe; a child’s bedroom”.

I really enjoyed watching the character of Alex in this episode, as he was quite believable as the confused and worried father of George, the little boy whose desperate plea to “Save me from the monsters” called the Doctor from across the universe. I love watching the interactions between various human personalities and the Doctor, and this one was particularly enjoyable with echoes of the relationship between the Doctor and Craig Owen (from “The Lodger”, series 5). Alex will do anything to try and help his frightened son, though once the Doctor starts talking about real monsters he panics and demands he leave the apartment, accusing him of making George worse. Once he accepts the idea that George’s monsters in the closet are genuine, the pair of them make a great team at eliminating them. When separated from his companions, I love watching the Doctor make new acquaintances and introduce them to his crazy, scary, wonderful alien world.



The Doctor and Alex

Some more in depth character development for George would have benefitted this episode. Revealed to be a Tenza child, an empathic alien, we discover that George that out Alex and Claire who were desperate to have children but unable to conceive. But apart from this revelation, all George seemed to do was stand/sit there terrified, which was fine for the first half of the episode. I think it would have been brilliant for him to have full on faced his fears instead of just staring at them, and for him to have opened up the cupboard that held everything he was most scared of and shout “I’m not afraid of you!” at the contents, vanquishing the creepy wooden dolls and saving all those inside the doll house. Personally I feel that would have been a more satisfying ending that the whole “Whoever you are, you’re my son” thing with Alex, which was bordering on cheesy.



"Thanks Dad, but I asked for an X Box..."



I would have also really liked to know a bit more about the monsters of this episode, the eerie clockwork dolls that haunted the dollhouse in George’s wardrobe. Were they merely figments of George’s terrified imagination, animations of real dolls (though I’m not entirely sure what kind of parent would buy their child any toy that looked that creepy)? They were a brilliant concept, and beautifully scary… my step-sister whom I was watching this episode with could barely look at them. To me, this means that the idea is spot on. But I still don’t quite understand what they were in relation to George. I’m all for mystery, but some things an audience needs to know otherwise they’re just left confused rather than spooked. For example, why did other characters in the episode, including Amy and Rory, fall through into the miniature doll house world from various parts of the apartment building? It is explained that George is terrified of the lift, so it sort of makes sense that he would “put this in the cupboard” with the doll house. But the living room floor of the landlord? The overloaded bins outside? This needs a bit more than the sweeping generalization that “George is scared of everything” to explain why people disappear in these places.

Sweet dreams kids!

Finally, I really wish the writers would stop using the whole “perception filter” as a shortcut in every other plot. It was a great idea in “The Eleventh Hour”, acceptable to use in “The Time of Angels”, and getting old by the time it was used in “The Lodger”. Now it just feels like cheating. Maybe it has something to do with the Silence, the fantastically haunting race of aliens that you forget as soon as you look away, but personally I’m getting a little board of every other alien using a perception filter to hide their misdeeds. If anything, you’d think that the Doctor would be completely used to it by now.

Once more, this episode has all the components, characters and concepts to be a classic Who episode. Unfortunately the plot remains jagged and doesn’t flow as well as it could do, without the much needed explanation and development. Though I have to say I did enjoy Rory’s reference to the fact that Moffat loves to kill him off whenever possible, with his line “We’re dead, aren’t we? Again.” Something to make the regular fans chuckle is always appreciated.

Here’s hoping that next week’s episode “The Girl Who Waited” will approach some of the personal dilemmas that were disappointingly absent in “Let’s Kill Hitler”.