Do you find oldy worldy Dolls a bit scary? Like old Peg Dolls? Well I do, in a big way; they’re up there with Clowns , mask wearing psycho murderers and other super scary stuff of nightmares. So with much trepidation and clutching a cushion to hide behind, I sat down to watch episode 9 of series 6 of Doctor Who; ‘Night Terrors’.
Again, this was broadcast weeks ago so all bets are off and its spoilers ahoy from here on in.
The Doctor receives a message on his psychic paper from 8 year old George who wants saving “from the Monsters”. The Doctor and Alex, (Georges Dad) try, through the night, to find out why George is so afraid of everything whilst Amy, Rory and some of the other residents of his council estate go missing and turn up in a super creepy Doll’s House.
This episode harks back to episodes like ‘The Empty Child’ (“are you my mummy?”) from series 1 and ‘Fear Her’ from series 2, there’s a peadophobia theme running straight through it. In fairness George in himself isn’t as creepy as Chloe or the kid in the Gas mask but the fact he can shrink you down and put you in a Doll House in his wardrobe is pretty god damn scary.
It’s an excellent idea. That an alien child comes to earth, takes on a Human appearance to be raised by a couple that can’t have kids. It’s like a cuckoo but nicer. Penned by NerdyRachelMay favourite Mark Gatiss (while we’re here let’s clear something up, you say it ‘Gate-iss’ like gate and hiss without the ‘h’, ‘Gate-iss’) it features some great ideas throughout. This is the fourth episode of ‘Who’ that Gatiss has written (the other three being 'The Unquiet Dead', ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’ and ‘Victory of the Daleks’) and this is by far my favourite. It’s lovely and dark, very old school in its sinister-ness. Some have said that such a contained story following on from such a story arc heavy episode like ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ jarred but I don’t think it did. I think the answers we got from ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ were enough to satisfy viewers so we could enjoy an excellent piece of television like this.
It’s a pretty companion-lite episode. Although Amy and Rory are in danger for most of the episode their scenes never really have the same impact as the ones with George, Alex and the Doctor. Rory is, for my money, the funniest companion to have flown with the Doctor and Arthur Darvill is excelling himself. I like that they’re referenced how many times the character has died (three and counting) to great comic effect. I thought Amy’s transformation from Human to Doll was glossed over a bit and there was never any peril because the audience knew she’d be changed back eventually.
I thought as a ‘baddie’ the Dolls were pretty terrifying. The genius use of the sound of children playing and the way they spoke gave me shivers. They reminded me a bit of the clockwork people from ‘The Girl in the fireplace’, (an episode that divides fans but I really liked) in the way that they’re not being evil for personal reasons, they’re doing it because they’ve been told to.
Matt Smith is on form again. He’s acting his little socks off and it’s lovely. He acts along side Jamie Oram (George) a lot in this episode and their scenes together are really nice. Praise must go to Daniel Mays as Alex. I love Daniel Mays; I think he’s one of the best Actors in the
I really liked this episode. It was a really good idea executed really well and for me that’s what great telly is.
Tune in tomorrow to find out what I thought of ‘The Girl Who Waited’.
No ‘Reasons to be cheerful’ today because this morning we all woke to the sad news that Steve Jobs has died. Steve Jobs was a co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apple Inc and a member of the Disney board of Directors who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004. It’s hard to imagine a world without Apple, I mean that sounds ridiculous but think about it. No Macs, No Ipods, No Ipads, No Iphones, No Itunes and lets not forget that Steve Jobs was the man that funded Pixar in it’s infancy so without him there may have been no ‘Toy Story’. What ever your opinion of Jobs or of Apple you can’t deny that he was a visionary and that Apple has forever changed how we look at technology. He strove for perfection and the impact of his work will be felt for years to come.
“There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will.” —Steve Jobs
Goodbye till next time :-)
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