Yeah it was already a pretty low-key episode, and coming after something as wacky and fast-paced as Let's Kill Hitler, it couldn't help but feel a bit dull in comparison.
Watched it a second time though, and I thought it worked a lot better.
6.5X09 Night Terrors (Grading/Discussion) (SPOILERS)
- Thread starter Samurai8472
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Yeah it was already a pretty low-key episode, and coming after something as wacky and fast-paced as Let's Kill Hitler, it couldn't help but feel a bit dull in comparison.
Watched it a second time though, and I thought it worked a lot better.
I wasn't too impressed with this one. I remember commenting last year when the pictures first leaked that the dolls looked creepy, but after a year I've gotten used to them, and seeing them in action isn't nearly as scary as a picture of one staring. The fact that Amy and Rory were inside the kid's closet (oh sorry, "cupboard") became obvious long before anyone in the show figured it out. As soon as Amy is "assimilated" by the dolls, it becomes obvious that everyone who has become a doll will be turned back to normal. In the end the episode felt like a retread of other child-centric episodes. Fear Her, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, just to name a few.
The episode wasn't a complete loss. The Doctor had a lot of good dialogue this week ("The Dalek Emperor's New Clothes" being my favourite) and I enjoyed the douchebag landlord and his pet dog Bernard.
Is the Doctor going to spend a minute in every episode this half of the season staring at his death certificate like he spent a minute performing a pregnancy scan on Amy in every episode during the first half? It's only the second episode and I'm already tired of seeing the death certificate.
The episode wasn't a complete loss. The Doctor had a lot of good dialogue this week ("The Dalek Emperor's New Clothes" being my favourite) and I enjoyed the douchebag landlord and his pet dog Bernard.
Is the Doctor going to spend a minute in every episode this half of the season staring at his death certificate like he spent a minute performing a pregnancy scan on Amy in every episode during the first half? It's only the second episode and I'm already tired of seeing the death certificate.
It was a nice little break from the big picture arc. Also, I didn't think DW could have anything creepier than people's faces transforming into gas masks but I was wrong. *shutters
I thought this was a great standalone. It's funny how people complain when there are arc episodes and they complain when there are standalones. Guess folks can't make up their minds. Remember, if all they focused on was the arc we wouldn't have had The Doctor's Wife a few months back.
As far as I'm concerned the story was classic old-school Doctor Who. In fact, it's the closest - IMO - that "nuWho" has gotten to the classic feel since the show came back in 2005. A reviewer also cited the Sapphire and Steel vibe, and I agree - this would have made an excellent S&S episode.
I only gave the episode a "fish fingers and custard" rating though because, frankly, even The Doctor's Wife would have felt a little "lesser" after the events of the last few episodes. Also because I'm getting the vibe we could be in for a stone-cold classic next week if the advance word is any indication.
Alex
As far as I'm concerned the story was classic old-school Doctor Who. In fact, it's the closest - IMO - that "nuWho" has gotten to the classic feel since the show came back in 2005. A reviewer also cited the Sapphire and Steel vibe, and I agree - this would have made an excellent S&S episode.
I only gave the episode a "fish fingers and custard" rating though because, frankly, even The Doctor's Wife would have felt a little "lesser" after the events of the last few episodes. Also because I'm getting the vibe we could be in for a stone-cold classic next week if the advance word is any indication.
Alex
I don't know about "people" and "folks," but I complain when there are bad episodes. This week we got a bad standalone episode, last week we got a bad arc episode. Nothing more, nothing less.
Cryptic nursery rhyme, cryptic poem (Good Man Goes to War). I wonder what it all means.
It does seem to be leading to
It does seem to be leading to
The Wedding of River Song
i.e., the death of the Doctor/non-death of the Doctor
Sapphire and Steel had a level of creepiness this episode never got anywhere near...or maybe I just feel that way cos I was a kid when I watched S&S?
Who knows, though modern Who has creeped me out (Midnight, Blink, parts of The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit-which for me is the closest the show has got to classic for me) and frankly as I think about it now, I've seen episodes of the Sarah Jane Adventures that had a more unsettling vibe than this one.
A bit of trivia-The Doctor says he was a child about a thousand years ago. When I think back on what was revealed in "The Doctor's Wife", where the TARDIS says that the Doctor 'stole' her 900 years ago, that the Doctor was roughly a hundred years old when he went on his adventures. She called him young then, and he calls himself old now. (He refers to his old eyes.)
I didn't get all he said about what the distress call passed through to get to his ship, but I remember crimson suns and civilizations existing on pure thought alone. Fascinating stuff.
I am vaguely confused about the alien species Tenza. I remember the Doctor saying that this species was born in space, that there were a million babies, and one of these babies connected with Alex and Claire, and became a human baby. Does this now mean that the Tenza has metamorphosed into a human, and will live a human life? (It's a nice change of pace for once that an alien species wasn''t planning or attempting an invasion of Earth.)
I think placing this story out of sequence hurt the story. My understanding was that this story was set earlier in this season, and for some reason this story was moved forward. This show felt disjointed and out-of-place, and didn't work with the flow of the season. Hopefully, next week, the flow runs smooth again.
I was amused to learn that the Doctor doesn't always know what the psychic paper will say, and there are times when he has to improvise. The psychic paper seems to respond to some innate need of the reader and presents for them an identity that they can accept and will not conflict with their reality. And, like this show demonstrated, the Doctor sometimes has to fit himself into that reality and play a role in that reality. I think it shows the versatility of the Doctor and how he has been able over the centuries to adapt and survive.
I didn't get all he said about what the distress call passed through to get to his ship, but I remember crimson suns and civilizations existing on pure thought alone. Fascinating stuff.
I am vaguely confused about the alien species Tenza. I remember the Doctor saying that this species was born in space, that there were a million babies, and one of these babies connected with Alex and Claire, and became a human baby. Does this now mean that the Tenza has metamorphosed into a human, and will live a human life? (It's a nice change of pace for once that an alien species wasn''t planning or attempting an invasion of Earth.)
I think placing this story out of sequence hurt the story. My understanding was that this story was set earlier in this season, and for some reason this story was moved forward. This show felt disjointed and out-of-place, and didn't work with the flow of the season. Hopefully, next week, the flow runs smooth again.
I was amused to learn that the Doctor doesn't always know what the psychic paper will say, and there are times when he has to improvise. The psychic paper seems to respond to some innate need of the reader and presents for them an identity that they can accept and will not conflict with their reality. And, like this show demonstrated, the Doctor sometimes has to fit himself into that reality and play a role in that reality. I think it shows the versatility of the Doctor and how he has been able over the centuries to adapt and survive.
I found the Tenza a tad more creepy than the doctor did. If they are extraterrestrial cuckoos, do they ensure the acceptance of their offspring by ensuring that there are no competing mouths to feed? Cuckoos don't just lay their eggs in other birds' nests; they destroy the existing eggs as well.
Don't read too much into the Doctor's stated age in order to find out when things happened, he's kind of forgotten how old he is.
I don't think it's unfair for the series to demonstrate some emotional realism. The poster on Gallifrey Base who called out the episode for Amy and Rory's "callous indifference" to the fate of Baby Pond was bang-on. Just because they spent their whole lives as best friends with their own daughter and they've seen what happened to her doesn't mean that they shouldn't be grieving for their loss and railing against the Doctor for it happening.
And no, the argument that the episode was made to go in the first half of the season doesn't wash. They did pick-up shooting for "Let's Kill Hitler" as late as July. They could have done pick-up shots for "Night Terrors" to better represent the emotional beats of the post-"A Good Man" storyline.
The only thing I can figure is that there's a great whacking difference between what the audience thinks the series is about and what Moffat thinks the series is about.
Actually there's a great difference between what Moffat thinks the series is about and what a segment of the audience thinks the series is about, which is to be expected.
It's a difficult one to pin down though. Moffat and RTD seem to come at this from different directions, and I'm not sure either of them is particularly right. Even as a fan of Moffat the resolution (if you can call it that) of baby Melody seems a bit off. Moffat kinda of wants to shunt it out of the way so he can get on with new and exciting stuff. Contrast that with the ghost of Rose who clung like a bad smell to Who long after she'd gone.
RTD can't let go sometimes, Moffat seems to let go too easily sometimes.
I somehow doubt that the Curse of the Black Spot was full of Rory/Amy angst.
Of course we don't know if Rory and Amy might spend the next few episodes dealing with their emotions around the loss. But it is shame that an episode dealing with children and abandonment/parenting issues couldn't shoehorn in at the very least an "I don't want to talk about it." from Amy.
Fair enough.
I tend to think that Moffat is making Who for his sons, and I can't imagine that a ten-year-old boy is going to care about the emotional realism (or rather, the lack thereof) in Doctor Who.
I remember being a ten-year-old boy quite vividly, and enjoying the "emotional continuity", for lack of a better term, I used to found, for example, in Spider-Man or Daredevil comics, while getting frustrated that Disney duck comics never showed the same kind of lasting emotional consequences in their characters. And I wasn't a particularly bright kid, so I don't think it's uncommon.
You've got to remember that Moffat is basically Jeff off Coupling.
Actually, the TARDIS said the Doctor stole her 700 years previous. If we believe this statement about his age being a thousand, than he was 300 when he stole the TARDIS. Still pretty young for a Time Lord, I guess.
This episode was supposed to be the third episode of the season, though it was switched late in the game with The Curse of the Black Spot. Officially, the reason for this was that some folks felt the first half of the season was too dark and they wanted to lighten things up with a light-hearted adventure story. Unoffically, some people think BBC wanted to have the pirate-themed episode air at the same as the newest Pirates of the Carribean movie was being promoted.
Although some minor changes were made to the episodes (Black Spot has a scene with Eye Patch Lady and a scene of the Doctor performing a pregnancy scan of Amy, this episode has the Doctor looking up his death certificate) both episodes are essentially the same as they would have been had they aired when they originally intended. Since Black Spot really doesn't do anything with the ramifications of last week's episode, one can resumably assume Moffat intended not to deal with this until possibly the finale.
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