DOCTOR WHO-NIGHT TERRORS

 

NEW DOCTOR WHO SERIES-season 6-NIGHT TERRORS

"I've just been turned into a wooden dolly."

 

This starts off well enough. The mundane of the apartment complex and the child’s bedroom of…toys is well handled, at least at the start as is the Doctor, Amy and Rory entering into the situation. I must say that the child, George, isn’t the most expressive of child characters or the most relatable but I believe that’s because of the big revelation, the thing that really destroys most of, if not all of, the entire set up of this story.

 

On a side note, I believe this to be a sort of remake of THE BIONIC WOMAN episode THE GHOST HUNTER, which is a far better episode. It also has a lot in common with…oh heck, not in common with but takes the entire alien backstory to the aliens in THE TOMORROW PEOPLE-THE BLUE AND THE GREEN.

 

When I first saw this, I thought the explanations about George reacting against his parents, the only two beings on Earth to protect him this much, didn’t make sense. BUT we shall see: I believe, like in THE BIONIC WOMAN-GHOSTHUNTER, the explanation about his subconscious makes sense after all: that he feared being taken away, though I don’t understand why this would make him attack the old woman and some of the others. Maybe this episode is flawed but not as bad as I thought. We shall see…

 

As they search for the kid, I wonder where the psychic paper is but perhaps the Doctor forgot about it, too and brought it out at some point. Either way, that doesn’t ruin this at all. I’ve been under the impression that Matt Smith AND the 11^th Doctor work best in more traditional stories and this story is more traditional and rather entertaining at the outset, even if I’ve seen something like this before…in the two aforementioned series above. Matt is rather grand in these early scenes and probably later, too. I could really have liked his Doctor if it weren’t for some of the other stuff and I might be won over anyway after this re-watch. There are some 10/10 episodes during his –uhm---reign.

 

Rory and Amy work here, too. Again, maybe they work in traditional stories, too. Amy has less of a chance to show her selfish side and Rory has a chance to shine in his one liners, observations, and interplay with…well, everyone. Arthur is a good actor and always comes through and I wonder what he might be like AS a Doctor or even if he were a companion to the Doctor alone or even if he were a companion to the 13^th Doctor or any of the other Doctors. It might be fun to find out. I really like both the actor and the character a lot.

 

Elevator horror is pretty scary and this works, too. Though we’ve seen elevator fears in the far superior KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER-DEVIL’S PLATFORM and probably even in the lowly, awful BEAST BELOW episode of season five (by Moffat I believe), here, it isn’t stale and works well.

 

I wonder if the “he hates crayons” and the Doctor’s comment to that as “understandable” is a reference to FEAR HER. Which I like, too.

 

Gatiss goes a bit too far when the Doctor talks to George. The Doctor says he was George’s age about a thousand years ago. He loved bedtime stories: The Three Little Sontarans, the Emperor Dalek’s New Clothes, and Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday. The Doctor also says he’s a bit rusty at interacting with a child (his own children which gives us intriguing clues to the mystery of Doctor Who?).

 

He also name checks an empire of glass (an Andy Lane DW novel) and the color crimson among other things as the Doctor tells father Alex that George’s monsters are real. The Doctor makes a mistake though in thinking George is an ordinary boy. He thinks the fear amplified George’s ability to reach out for help to the TARDIS.

 

During his tirade to Alex, the Doctor spits by mistake.

 

After he and Alex are sucked into the cupboard, the Doctor says something like, “I can’t just plump for Brian like a normally do…” What? He does ramble a lot, doesn’t he? At first, it’s endearing but when he does it too much, it’s irritating and annoying and not at all charming.

 

Amy getting turned into one of the dolls IS a shocking moment as they sing Tic Tok, “…you and I must die.”

 

Okay, so I’ve done a complete turn around. It seems this was and is  good episode and I’m not sure this time I can even blame the cuts made by BBC America or the 70 commercial breaks they put into this to make this overlong episode even longer. Yes, it’s a bit overlong and it takes FOREVER to work things out and the hauntings are…well, effective but only just. BUT it’s not terrible or even illogical, given that George is an alien and his subconscious is doing these things. And in the end, it was heart warming in a way.

 

The Doctor tells Alex he might pop back around puberty, “Always a funny time.”

 

Then they tag on that ending after a nice reunion scene with Amy and Rory. The song plays out and we see that time will run out for the Doctor at the Lake. Sigh.

 

All in all, a better episode than I first thought, even if it is cliché, old hat, and padded to the extreme.

 

Next time: a very over rated episode that annoys me to no end.

 

Just a stray thought: I often wonder if early drafts of this were the sequel to THE LODGER as Alex reminds me of the father in that story.