Sleep No More

--> I am not sure I have a great deal to say about Sleep No More.

It is funny how my opinions about a Doctor Who story can change on re-watch. I thought – on the first watch – that this was the weakest story of Season Nine. I think it still might be. But that isn’t because it is not an interesting episode. It just feels unfinished. We’re left without a solution. The Sandmen won. It seems. Even though The Doctor has escaped the infection is out there and both Clara and Nagata (Elaine Tan) are infected.

Written by Mark Gatiss Sleep No More is a base under siege story that teeters on being properly horrific. A sort of shadow copy of The Ark in Space, except there’s no Noah clinging onto his humanity despite his metamorphosis. No, Sleep No More is bleaker than that. This is no indomitable human race. There is a skulking, greedy scientist who has given up on his species altogether, Rasmussen (Reece Shearsmith). He could not – or would not - even save himself, let alone the rest of the human race.

The story is set in the 38^th century. We some throwaway world-building, which suggests that an Indo-Japanese superstate is the world’s major superpower and except for Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Reece Shearsmith and Bethany Black the rest of the caste are of Asian descent (and I use Asian here to cover the whole continent, not just Indian/Pakistan.) Even if they all have British accents of various kinds, like Nakata’s Geordie. There’s probably a reason for that. I just do not know what it is.

I should mention Bethany Black, who plays the ‘grunt’ 474. ‘Grunts’ are grown to be soldiers. Their intelligence is low and their strength high. Bethany Black is the first openly transgender actor to appear in Doctor Who. It is a fine performance in a limited part. I wish though – having seen her in other things – that she had been given a part with a bit more to it. She does get a heroic death though so what more can one ask for?

The guest cast – apart from Reece Shearsmith – all have limited parts and they seem destined to die in the usual manner among the minor roles in a base under siege story.  I do want to stop though and applaud Paul Courtney-Hyu’s (who is playing Deep Ando) acting when he’s trying to get into a safe room whilst the computer – which was apparently reprogrammed at the Christmas Party to require everyone to sing ‘Mr Sandman’ for access. It manages to be both funny and tense at the same time, whilst you can feel Paul Courtney-Hyu makes you really feel Deep Ando’s barely suppressed panic and desperation.

Reece Shearsmith does a good job of making Rasmussen's cowardice and corruption add up to more than just a bog-standard Doctor Who villain. He feels like the sort of person who right-wing governments would put in charge of an unpleasant project and who would carry out his orders without question. The living embodiment of the banality of evil. 

Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman are up to their usual standards. I genuinely think Capaldi is the best actor to have played Doctor Who.* I know there are many rivals to that title, particularly Troughton. Yet I am going to stick to my guns on this one. Capaldi’s Doctor is my favorite Doctor. Tom Baker will always be MY Doctor because he was my first Doctor and I grew up watching him. If I’m feeling down, it is always a Tom Baker Doctor Who story that I’ll reach for. If I’m feeling really down, it will be The Horns of Nimon.**

I digress.

So, although this is not an amazing story I am a little baffled about why I disliked it so much on the first watch. The director, Justin Molotnikov, does good work bring Gatiss’s ideas to life. This does have the feel of a Classic Doctor Who story made to be cheap filler while other more ambitious stories surround it.

Perhaps it is simply the Gatiss desire for a clever pay-off meant it seems not to have an ending. I am not sure a second episode would have been justified. It does need something. Perhaps I am being unfair. Perhaps I should be content to leave loose threads dangling. Not everything has to be wrapped up in a neat bundle after all. 

*Yes, I went there. Sue me.

** So, sue me. Part Two.

The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion

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This, for me, is a story of two halves. The first episode has its moments but just seems to annoy the hell out of me for some reason.

Well, for several reasons.

Firstly, the Zygon’s additional powers: why? You take a perfectly good Doctor Who monster and you power it up. Not only can they now copy people’s body patterns, but they can copy body patterns from people’s memories and then use their own memories against them. And from a long, long way away too. That makes them more difficult to kill because the last thing you want to do if you’re a soldier is to be confronted by something or someone that makes you think about what you are about to kill. But, why? It shows a distinct lack of faith in your choice of monster.

Secondly, why hire an actress like Rebecca Front and then give her next to bugger all to do. Oh, and add insult to injury by making her character's exit so pathetic. Exit pursued by barely any character development. 

Thirdly, why is Clara a virtual superhero? I like Clara a lot, but she can resist Zygon podding – for want of a better word. Of course, I know the answer is that if she can’t resist podding then we miss out on some rather wonderful scenes between Clara and Zygon-Clara aka Bonnie aka Zygella. But why can't other people resist it? Especially those who know what they're up against?

Wat The Zygon Invasion/Inversion does though it is to prove that Jenna Coleman is a bloody good actress. I forget until I re-watch a Clara story how good she is. So, after all that negativity here’s some positivity.

I like to be positive about my Doctor Who, but I really struggled with The Zygon Invasion. Even as it built up to a fine cliffhanger. I kept wanting to skip through it. Plus, I’m pissed off at the way the killed off Jac (Jaye Griffiths). It’s like they felt someone in UNIT had to die but they didn’t want it to be anyone important. But she died and no one seemed to care. *

Which brings me on to something else: forgiveness. Forgiveness is a strong part of The Zygon Inversion. The Doctor’s willingness to forgive Bonnie for what she’s done is the foundation the return to the peace treaty is based on. What gives the Doctor that right? Bonnie has killed lots of humans and Zygons, but the Doctor doesn’t even wipe her memory because he thinks she’s learned her lesson because she’s gone a bit Clara? I love the Doctor’s speech in The Zygon Inversion, but I’d like to see his point of view challenged a bit more and not by Zygella but by Kate.

Kate has lost soldiers and Jac – who I assume is a friend of sorts as well as a colleague. That’s not counting everyone else who died at Zygella’s hands, but Kate gives in first to the Doctor’s blandishments and this subject barely gets a mention.

Like the Thirteenth Doctor’s outright refusal to kill Tim Shaw – I’m jumping ahead here – I want to hear someone say, ‘Hang on, what gives you that right. What price will we pay for not killing him.’ And The Doctor's willingness to forgive to the degree that Zygella goes from wanting war to becoming the new Osgood is miraculous. But perhaps that’s as much to do with Osgood trusting her as anything else, but still. That’s a leap in trust I’m not sure I’d be willing to make. The Doctor is obviously right when it comes to forgiveness being the foundation of peace, which is a lesson humanity seems keen not to ever learn. We prefer peace built on punishment. True forgiveness is hard, which is why I’d like the Doctor to get challenged about it more thoroughly. Here is the Doctor in genuine Jesus mode. 

About Osgood: Ingrid Oliver is brilliant. The whole idea that she is unwilling to reveal whether she is Zygon or Human because she is the core part of how peace is kept. The Osgood Box is rather clever too. Your prize is not quite the prize you think it is. She who wins shall lose to steal a quote from elsewhere. 

Yes, the Doctor’s whole speech – and Capaldi’s performance – is brilliant. I’m a particular sucker for the moment he says, ‘And do you know what you do with all that pain? Shall I tell you where you put it? You hold it tight… till it burns your hand, and you say this: No one else will ever have to live like this! No one else will have to feel this pain! Not on my watch!’ That, more than anything else, seems to be the perfect explanation for the Doctor’s ‘mission’.

I’ve rambled on a lot about the bees that this story released in my bonnet, rather than giving a full review, which is what these blogs are about really. Doctor Who is a television show that has had a lot written about it so if what you want is just a breakdown of the storyline then they are easy enough to find. I write these blogs because I love Doctor Who and I like to work out what the hell it is about each story that I like and hopefully people find it interesting. 

*A perennial Doctor Who problem this. After all, if the series stopped to properly mourn the death of every passing character then it would have a whole different set of problems. But sometimes a character that’s played a pretty major role in a story, who seems to be friends with other major characters dies and no one mentions it or seems to care.

The Girl Who Died / The Woman Who Lived

These two episodes are ostensibly a two-parter linked as they are by the character of Ashildr (Maisie Williams). But they don’t follow immediately on from each other. Indeed, The Girl Who Died is written by Jamie Mathieson and Steven Moffat, and The Woman Who Lived is written by Catherine Tregenna. 

The Girl Who Died seems to be a straightforward base under siege story – if the base is a Viking village. The Doctor and Clara turn up and defeat the enemy with a combination of intelligence and potential internet-based humiliation.

In the process though we’ve been introduced to Ashildr, who is a young Viking woman who immediately draws the Doctor’s attention. Ashildr is different. She’s a dreamer and a creator. It is her creation that helps defeat the Mire (for that is the name of the cruel but easily dispatched enemy.) Unfortunately, the process of saving her village kills Ashildr.

But the Doctor is in one of his moods. He’s tired of losing people so, after a moment of reminding himself why he chose his current face - which is a scene I like - he decides to save Ashildr using a chip cobbled together from Mire technology. In doing so though he doesn’t consider – or doesn’t want to consider – the consequences, which is that he has made Ashildr functionally immortal. He doesn’t dwell on that for long, but he is aware that he might have made a mistake. The Doctor also throws in the first mention of ‘hybrid’. This we are given to believe might turn out to be important because of how it is played. We shall see.

The episode ends, not with a cliffhanger, but with a beautifully filmed scene.  We see Ashildr looking at the countryside and sky. Then we realize that time is passing. We watch as the sun rises and falls. Faster and faster. * And as we watch Ashildr’s expression changes. It’s a brilliant short-cut to show the impact of immortality on Ashildr. Everyone involved deserves a round of applause: the writers, Ed Bazelgatte, the Director and Maisie Williams as Ashildr. It still has an impact now on re-watch even though I know it is coming.

The Woman Who Lived picks up much later. We are in England and it is the time of the Commonwealth and Cromwell. Ashildr – or Me as she now prefers to be called – is a highwayman. And she’s got a plan to get her off the planet. Whatever the theoretical plot of this episode – an alien has an artifact and plans to use it to do something nefarious – that’s not the point of it at all. This is an episode that – for all its laughs, often provided by Sam Swift (Rufus Hound) – is a meditation on immortality and the consequences of the Doctor’s involvement in the world.

Ashildr/Me’s life, which is we can see stretching out before us represented by shelf after shelf of her diaries**, is a living reminder of what happens when the Doctor gets involved in your life without thinking of the consequences. It’s also a reminder that immortality is not all it is cracked up to be, which I think is an ongoing theme of Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who: the value of a short life lived to the full versus the cold, cold emotional life of an immortal. There are only so many family members, friends, lovers and children you can lose before it starts to make you cold-hearted. Unless, as the Doctor does, you travel with us mayflies to remind yourself of the value of life.

Ashildr/Me has managed to convince herself that she doesn’t care for anyone. She doesn’t even remember all the people she’s known and loved. Her initial home, which she would have died for, and her father are all memories she has lost. She has written down what she can remember but has torn out some of the pages because those are the most painful of her memories except she has kept those pages that describe the death of her children though as a reminder never to have any more.

Ashildr’s story is heartbreaking, but the Doctor – and her own actions – draw her out of herself and (almost) final scenes have her and the Doctor talking over a pint about why he can’t take her with him and why she will now spend her time tidying up after the Doctor’s interference on Earth. Once more The Doctor is accused of running away. Of not dealing with the consequences of his actions and there’s a good case to be made on that score and not just with the stories set on Earth. I'm always reminded of the end of 'Creature of the Pit' when the Doctor and Romana leave without considering whether they're leaving the right people in charge. I have always wanted to write a series of short stories outlining what happens in various places after the Doctor has left.

The interesting thing about The Woman Who Lived is we are without Clara so that The Doctor and Ashildr/Me can be given the dramatic weight it deserves. Clara would have been a distraction. Here the Doctor is forced to face the consequences of his actions, even if he feels that he isn’t entirely to blame for what Ashildr has become. But then he admits to having seen her before now and not saying anything or doing anything, which seems harsh to me.

This is a fine two-parter. It plays with the format. It’s well-directed and well-written, even if the two episodes don’t seem to be too plot-heavy. It’s the arc of Ashildr/Me that makes it excellent. There’s some good acting too. Not just from Capaldi and Coleman, which goes without saying these days. Although I’d say some of Capaldi’s scenes with Maisie Williams are amongst his best work in the part. I also enjoyed Maisie Williams's performance and I’m assuming she’s going to pop up again before we’re done. Plus, a round of applause for Rufus Hound who I enjoyed a lot as the useless but important Sam Swift.

This didn’t reach the heights of The Wizard’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar, which is the season’s strongest story so far, but it managed to combine telling a story and examining the Doctor’s life without becoming either boring or self-indulgent.

*It reminds me of the description of what the Time Traveler sees in H.G. Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’, which may be its genesis.

**A personal line of thought I went meandering along at this point is when did she start writing these and in what language. We’re the first volumes in Viking Runes? Did she learn Old English and did she change as the language changed or did she have to re-learn English as it developed.

Under The Lake/Before The Flood

Well, that was a base under siege story with a nicely creepy atmosphere, a dash of timey-wimey plot diddling and some good performances from both the whole cast.

Written by Toby Whitehouse it didn’t quite have the panache of Series 9’s first story, ‘The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar.’ But it did feel sufficiently Moffatesque that it couldn’t have really come from any other era in the programme’s history, even if the ‘base under siege’ is a Doctor Who staple. There’s something about the scenes with the Doctor and Bennett (Arsher Ali) watching their earlier selves that are signature Moffat era, even though it wasn’t written by him.

Under The Lake also features an absolutely brilliant cliffhanger. Because New Doctor Who doesn’t do huge numbers of multi-part stories there aren’t a lot of cliffhangers but this one is a peach. And it makes you realize that sometimes Doctor Who is the Columbo of science-fiction series. We know, however bad the cliffhanger makes things look, that the Doctor is going to get out of this corner, but what we want is a good explanation as to how they* do it. This cliffhanger is fabulous. The Doctor’s get out doesn’t quite match it, although the seeds for it are sketched out throughout Under The Lake and then explained in Before The Flood. Perhaps cliffhanger disappointment is a regular thing for Doctor Who fans.

Under The Lake does all the heavy lifting as it introduces us to characters and then bumps them off. Indeed, one of them – Moran (Colin Macfarlane**) dies before the Doctor and Clara even turns up. Except for the slightly cliched capitalist greedhead Pritchard (Steven Robertson) who the Doctor gets to treat with exactly the right amount of contempt you would expect they’re a sympathetic bunch, which makes you care – at least a little – as some of them die. I think one of Whitehouse’s strengths here is that you feel that this is a crew that knows and likes each other. 

It includes Cass (Sophie Leigh Stone), who is the temporary base commander after Moran’s death. The interesting thing is that Cass is deaf. She can read lips but has a sign translator in Lunn (Zaqi Ismail). No one quibbles about her ability to do her job and it adds a certain frisson to a scene in Before The Flood. Sophie Leigh Hunt who is deaf 'in real life'*** does an excellent job too. There’s a lovely scene between her and Jenna Coleman after they’ve sent Lunn off to do a dangerous job. Her anger is rather lovely.

Talking of Jenna Coleman – he says, shifting topics with all the subtlety of a Panzer Tank – this is the first story where her behavior is starting to concern the Doctor. We hear of the Doctor’s ‘duty of care’. Once again Coleman is rather wonderful. I know people have issues with Clara as a companion, but I think Coleman’s performance is top-notch. And since Moffat’s let go of ‘mysterious Clara’, she’s blossomed. And she and Capaldi are such a good team.

Peter Capaldi too is brilliant. He nudged Tom Baker off the top spot in my favorite Doctor list and I love everything he does here. Yes, sometimes there are things which I think seem unnecessary – the cards here for example – but Capaldi’s acting just hammers home scene after scene. I think he’s the best actor to play the part. And he’s got real charisma too.

Before The Flood introduces us to Prentis (Paul Kaye), a Tivolian undertaker. The Tivolian’s being the rodenty most cowardly race in the universe introduced in The God Complex. And, more importantly, The Fisher King (Neil Fingleton) who is the villain of the piece. We are also introduced to the concept of ‘the bootstrap paradox’ via a nice little lecture to the camera by the Doctor. It’s an interesting beginning to an episode that lecture. It gives us a little rest before throwing us back into things. A kind of palate cleanser before we’re back into the adventure.

Indeed, it will turn out that this story is a variation on Time Crash but without the other Doctor. The Doctor’s solution to his very real difficulty is already known to him because he’s seen it. So, he just does what he’s heard or seen already. Who then came up with those ideas? It’s quite philosophical a theme. You can imagine whole semesters in Gallifreyan Universities on bootstrap paradoxes.

The Doctor – as usual – works things out. Perhaps one of the weaknesses of this story is that although it has a delightful level of creepiness, particularly in ‘Under The Lake’ the Fisher King himself never feels that much of a threat. And the Doctor’s victory seems to have come at minimal cost, for him. But not for Bennett, who seems to suffer the most at the loss of O’Donnell (Morven Christie). He uses that loss to…well...spoilers. 

So overall an enjoyable couple of episodes without being spectacular. And there’s nothing wrong with that. If every Doctor Who story was spectacular we’d have to adjust our expectations and something would end up not being quite so spectacular.

*I have just realized that the advent of Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor means that the default ‘he’ for Doctors just don’t apply anymore. Ah, change.

**Who I saw being brilliant in Pinter Five at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London, particularly his two-hander with Rupert Graves in ‘Victoria Station’, which was funny as hell.

***That seems such a dumb thing to say. Forgive me if it is. I try. I really do. 

The Magician's Apprentice / The Witch's Familiar

So, The Magician's Apprentice and The Witch's Familiar kicks off Series 9 in an entertaining style.

Firstly we find ourselves on Skaro. There's a child trapped in a field of hand mines. His life is at risk. The Doctor shows up and promises to help. Until the child tells him his name. Then, well, then the Doctor seems to do something un-Doctorish. This takes a metaphorical argument that the Doctor uses in Genesis of the Daleks and makes it a literal moral challenge.

The Doctor has apparently disappeared, which is concerning to everyone but particularly Missy who has received a Confession Dial from him. That's a bad sign from a Time Lord point of view. We find ourselves joining Missy and Clara as the zip off to 11th century England to find him.

And find him we do. He's throwing a party. With a tank, an electric guitar and some sunglasses. This is the Doctor as rock and roll star. It turns out that he's been invited to see Davros who is dying. Allegedly. Davros sent out his serpentine servent Colony Sarff (Jami Reid-Quarrell) out to find him. Colony Sarff is a fine invention and I like the way an interesting idea is bought to life. He's certainly a little creepy.

Skipping along the Doctor, Missy and Clara find themselves held on a space station about which the Doctor is suspicious but he is taken away to meet Davros before the truth is revealed. There's great chemistry between the three of them, but I particularly love Missy's amused contempt for Clara. who she treats like an annoying child. I don't know if I've commented much on Michelle Gomez's performance as Missy so far but this was the story when I finally fell in love with it. She's brilliant throughout. Odd, but nasty. Funny, but cruel. And she's clever, which I like. She's not going to have rings run around her by the Doctor.

We are led nicely towards a mighty cliffhanger with a great revelation. It's looking bad for the Doctor, but then when doesn't it.

The Witch's Familiar picks up where we were. And things take a turn. The scenes between the Doctor and Davros (Julian Bleach) are brilliant. I'd go as far as to say that Bleach is the best Davros since Michael Wisher. He brings out a breadth in Davros that is sometimes missed. Their conversations feel like they've just picked up from their chat in Genesis of the Daleks, although there is an element of Alan Moore and Brian Bollard's 'Killing Joke' in there this time around.

Davros is trying to use the Doctor's compassion against him and to trap him. Everyone - The Doctor, Clara, and Missy knew it was a trap - but the Doctor walks into it anyway and then flips it all around and screws Davros over. Like always. One of the problems with recurring villains in something like Doctor Who is why, once the Doctor arrives, they bother going on with their plans. They always lose. I mean if I was The Master/Missy or whoever as soon as the Doctor arrived I'd pack my bags and go off somewhere else. I actually quite like the idea of a story whereupon The Doctor's arrival the Master (or whoever) decides to quit and the story shows how the Doctor thwarts even this limited ambition.

The Doctor wins, although Missy tries to stitch him up near the end in a rather unpleasant manner as is her wont. The Missy-Doctor relationship feels the more like a friendship that has gone awry than usual, although it was there with Delgado and in little bits with Simm. Missy wants the Doctor's attention and friendship again but can't help but sabotage the attempt by some act of cruelty.

It's a good start to a season that will be made up almost entirely of two-part stories, which is a brave choice from Steven Moffat. There are some wonderful performances - and I haven't raved about Capaldi much this time even though I could rave for hours about how brilliant he is. But Julian Bleach, Michelle Gomez and Jenny Coleman are equally good. The dialogue - mostly - sparkles. The different interactions between them all - in the various combinations - work wonderfully.

On a final note, there's something very Doctor Who about zombie Dalek sludge.