Yep!
"Sleep No More" Grade and Discussion Thread
- Thread starter The Nth Doctor
- Start date
Yep!
You get your laptop out with everything you watch sis
I don't get the ending because well the Doctor didn't save the day? the tape is going out and the infection will spread surely and end Humanity? Next weeks episode looks a little underwhelming IMO especially with how significant its supposed to be.
I miss the old formula for Who, a big bad per season.
The ending was blatantly breaking the 4th wall. The entire story was meant to keep us watching, so Morpheus could implant the sleep sand infection in us, with the static blips being the relevant signal. The rest was just entertainment.
Didn't really work, through.
I kept waiting for another this is all just a dream reveal like in the christmas special with Clara or everyone waking up from the pod.
And next week the Doctor and Clara go to Diagon Alley?
This was terrible. I am hesitant to watch stories that try to be scary because I am easily scared and I don't like being, but it is usually worth it (some of my favourite films are horrors), but when the story falls apart at the seams, I can only hate it with passion. And I think there had been a concentrated effort to fill this one with Judoon crap.
(Ha, you really thought I liked and disliked things? Gotcha!)
What I loved:
1. The recording – watching the Doctor from a third-party perspective was a nice idea, and having everything from the villain's perspective is also cool. They didn't fully use that, but whatever – that was cool.
2. The breeding of grunts and the end/sacrifice of Grunt, including how the poor soul pretended to be completely incapacitated to fight off the sleep dust. Touching and sad. I never knew if that was a genuine sacrifice, or just the “programming”/brain washing kicking in, but I don't think it matters, or if there's any difference in fact.
3. In more general terms, portraying the future as an uneven mix of utopia and dystopia is always interesting. And I do think that if someone from the 16th-17th century saw today, they would also think of it as exactly that of us. (What that ended up entailing in the episode is a different matter...)
4. We were hovering over Neptune!... We were hovering over Neptune!... When we entered the first room with a window I thought “Forget the monsters, what you see below us is Neptune!” And Triton was colonized!... *gasp*
What I hated:
1. It is just a week after the story of understanding and empathy for the Zygons, something that the world needs more of right now. Last two episodes made a somewhat big and hard to accept leap in that direction. Yet, this week the Doctor was quite unmoved that he would need to eradicate these sentient sandmen, without even considering a second option.
2. The ability to replace sleep would be an actually awesome invention, one that I would readily use if invented. Outright calling this research effort an abomination is a horrible “playing God” anti-science message, and it is doubly horrible when the sleep dust didn't make absolutely any sense. The explanation that the Doctor gave so embarrassing; he should have stuck to listing the five Shadow Proclamations departments he would cut if he were president.
3. The tape – when it started I thought it was a nice shout-out to The Ring, and it was going to end up metaphorical. Making it literal was incredibly underwhelming. On the upside, yes, it did make me think “OK, am I now turning into one of those?” which was the intent, but that wasn't enough to salvage the story.
4. Was that supposed to be a cliffhanger? Dear God, I hope not.
What I loved:
1. The recording – watching the Doctor from a third-party perspective was a nice idea, and having everything from the villain's perspective is also cool. They didn't fully use that, but whatever – that was cool.
2. The breeding of grunts and the end/sacrifice of Grunt, including how the poor soul pretended to be completely incapacitated to fight off the sleep dust. Touching and sad. I never knew if that was a genuine sacrifice, or just the “programming”/brain washing kicking in, but I don't think it matters, or if there's any difference in fact.
3. In more general terms, portraying the future as an uneven mix of utopia and dystopia is always interesting. And I do think that if someone from the 16th-17th century saw today, they would also think of it as exactly that of us. (What that ended up entailing in the episode is a different matter...)
4. We were hovering over Neptune!... We were hovering over Neptune!... When we entered the first room with a window I thought “Forget the monsters, what you see below us is Neptune!” And Triton was colonized!... *gasp*
What I hated:
1. It is just a week after the story of understanding and empathy for the Zygons, something that the world needs more of right now. Last two episodes made a somewhat big and hard to accept leap in that direction. Yet, this week the Doctor was quite unmoved that he would need to eradicate these sentient sandmen, without even considering a second option.
2. The ability to replace sleep would be an actually awesome invention, one that I would readily use if invented. Outright calling this research effort an abomination is a horrible “playing God” anti-science message, and it is doubly horrible when the sleep dust didn't make absolutely any sense. The explanation that the Doctor gave so embarrassing; he should have stuck to listing the five Shadow Proclamations departments he would cut if he were president.
3. The tape – when it started I thought it was a nice shout-out to The Ring, and it was going to end up metaphorical. Making it literal was incredibly underwhelming. On the upside, yes, it did make me think “OK, am I now turning into one of those?” which was the intent, but that wasn't enough to salvage the story.
4. Was that supposed to be a cliffhanger? Dear God, I hope not.
...or Demon and Course: Oblivion.
Yeah me too!
As for the episode...
I don't know, I mean I really don't. I'm torn between saying it was terrible and saying it was brilliant. I think it's reach went beyond its grasp, but it was certainly original and I actually liked the ending. It reminded me of the kind of horror short stories you used to get where the twist is that the story was inserted into the book and the killer's right behind you kind of thing. Does the Doctor always need to win? (and clearly humanity won't be wiped out in the 38th Century given we've seen humanity in existence way beyond this) clearly the Doctor knew there was something he was missing, so a sequel isn't a terrible idea, just maybe not quite in a found footage kinda way (although I liked the fact that it wasn't found footage, loved the "We don't have helmet cams" bit!)
Going slightly off tangent, on Strictly last night in reference to one dance Craig said he couldn't decide whether to love it or hate it, and in the end decided to love it, and I think that sums up how I felt about Sleep No More and I think, given it kept me riveted to the screen even when it was sliding into cliche, that I'm going to choose to love it.
Bzw, I like the grading options. 4 different options for more or less less positive ratings and a single one for negative.
The text descriptions are generally superfluous, I think. 2 out of 5, which I gave this episode, is always going to equate to something like "pretty decent" or "somewhat dodgy but not terrible".Bzw, I like the grading options. 4 different options for more or less less positive ratings and a single one for negative.
This is the weakest of the season so far for me. It had me figuratively watching the clock, and adds to the pile of Gatiss episodes that I consider misses or not-quite-hits. Still, at least he was prepared to experiment with the format and also have the Doctor "lose".
Also, we learned that the Doctor apparently does sleep. Though that, and his three-week bender in The Magician's Apprentice, raises the question of how long a day lasts on Gallifrey.
Four million viewers and that's after starting with a potential ten million fron Strictly straight before it. Interestingly, there were half a million less people watching the episode by the time it finished, so maybe it would be best just to quietly forget about the sequel?
Even better, just quietly dissalow Gatiss from ever writing for DW ever again. Or at least, for a number of years. Its clear he just can't anything thats not shitty.
If Gaitiss wants more involvement in Doctor Who, let him play Mycroft in a Sherlock crossover. That would be much less bad than today's episode, even if it didn't work.
I suppose the jump cuts and the pov way of shooting the ep. was meant to be nightmarish, but it only served to confuse me and take me out of the story. This is the second base under siege storyline they've done this year and still can't quite seem to get it right. Strangely enough though with all the dakened corridors I was reminded of how different it was from the brightly lit seabase was in Warriors From The Deep.
OK, that was just dire. So bad it made the confused mess that were the last two episodes look halfway watchable.
I've never been a super fan of 'Doctor Who', but I've always watch the show since it came back and enjoyed most of it, but since the anniversary the quality of the writing has just plummeted.
It used to be that most episodes were pretty good and you'd get one or (at most) two stinkers in a season, but now the ratio appears to have totally flipped. So far this season I've only seen one episode I'd call "enjoyable" while all the others have been a complete shambles. Even last season which was weaker than previous was still miles better than this.
I'm not surprised this show is loosing viewers. They need to turn this around or I think Who will be going away for a while again.
I've never been a super fan of 'Doctor Who', but I've always watch the show since it came back and enjoyed most of it, but since the anniversary the quality of the writing has just plummeted.
It used to be that most episodes were pretty good and you'd get one or (at most) two stinkers in a season, but now the ratio appears to have totally flipped. So far this season I've only seen one episode I'd call "enjoyable" while all the others have been a complete shambles. Even last season which was weaker than previous was still miles better than this.
I'm not surprised this show is loosing viewers. They need to turn this around or I think Who will be going away for a while again.
My worry is this: With both Moffat and Capaldi returning next series (whenever that is) what can they do to persuade people who've already tuned out to come back?
You know, I don't mind if they reuse the sets but they could've come up with more creative ways of filming them.
I completely didn't follow where the monsters came from. If we don't sleep, gunk in your eye becomes a sentient monster? Why? I realise we're not meant to think too hard about the logic in the show, especially in recent years, but this is some of the vaguest hand-waving yet.
Your last sentence feels as if it's missing a verb and an apostrophe, but I concur with the sentiment.
It's funny to think that, given its position in the series, Sleep No More (or next week's, perhaps) is probably meant to be the low-budget episode that isn't really meant to matter.
Oddly, the tone of this episode felt rather like Silence in the Library for some reason.