6.9 Night Terrors I hope that, now the episode is out there for all to see, you see what I mean. Mark Gatiss does – both physically and metaphorically – bring Doctor Who back to Earth, back to Britain, and back to the urban environments we were more used to seeing back in Rose’s time. It’s not a bad thing; we’ve been around the Universe with Mr Moffat a few times already, and it’s just worthy of note how much the story telling of Who is shaped by the money and effects that producers see fit to lavish on any given episode. Richard Clark, the director of Night Terrors, recently helmed the excellent Neil Gaiman episode The Doctor’s Wife, a story which the writer himself – in an interview with this site – noted had to be pushed back a series and then rewritten because of issues with budget. One would suspect that we were denied a good look at House in that episode in favour of the all the CGI used during its finale; anyway, I digress. When, before the titles credits have even rolled, the Doctor virtually winks at the audience and quips that he hasn’t made a “house call” in a while, he’s not wrong. It’s a little over a year since the last (what I would characterise as) budget-saving episode, The Lodger, was broadcast – restricted, as that was, to a few rooms of a flat and some not-so-hilarious kickabouts down the park. That, for me, was indicative of what can go wrong when you try to bring Who down to a smaller scale, which is why I mention it; the slapstick tendencies of Smith’s Doctor are far better showcased here, juxtaposed against the dark tale (“it’s off the scale” was great, wasn’t it? As was the tea scene) than they are in lighter-hearted fare, such as that episode offered. More importantly, this episode sees no need to compensate for its smaller scale with novelty. This episode, let me say, is much, much better; it’s steered away from such misguided folly by its lack of a novelty comedy knockabout guest star (Daniel Mays, of Outcasts and Ashes To Ashes, is a suitably incredulous foil to the Matt Smith’s histrionics here, but keeps his performance rooted and suitably understated), and its writer’s keen eye for the horror in the dark corners of everyday life. What impressed me about Night Terrors – and I really did enjoy this episode – is that what it achieves is largely done with its strong ideas. The concept of an alien ‘cuckoo’ child (the Tensa, Tensor, Tenser? You tell me) with psychic powers strong enough to communicate with the Doctor across galaxies, doesn’t feel completely original, but it didn’t need to be because it’s used well, not least as a way of allowing the viewer an insight into the unusual and warped way that children can perceive the world. The parent’s solution of ‘putting everything in the cupboard’ is a psychological crutch that quickly becomes as much of a problem as the things it was solving, and reminds us of the way that George, like other children, can easily pick up on the attitudes and words of the adults around them like sponges. In these times, where talk of societal breakdown is seldom out of the news, these are all strong themes; not only do they offer a view on how we turn innocent children into anti-social and dangerous young adults, the way that the episode is filmed and conceived also taps into the isolation and desperation of the environments in which children are often placed and their effects on them. Clark, along with his director of photography, Owen McPolin, make good use of these backdrops, moving through these dark, stark spaces of a high-rise block into even more claustrophobic interiors. It’s interesting, though – when one considers the larger story arc that is being played out across the second half of this series – that the real thematic drive here, the one that underpins all of the actions in Night Terrors’ finale, is to do with the often-dysfunctional relationship between parents and their children – contrasted to the strong bonds that exist between them simultaneously. Daniel Mays gets the really important line here, I feel: “whatever you are, whatever you do, you are my son…” I get the distinct impression that sentiment may have resonance later in the series, when whatever comes to pass between Amy’s offspring and the Doctor to cause his ‘demise’ plays out. I’d say that the necessity of the show’s budget, is the mother of much of the invention here. What Who achieves with grand views of the universe and all the whistles and bells that go with it is laudable, but what it achieves here with a few well placed lights, nice production design and the imagination of its crew is equally impressive – if not more so. The costume design for the dolls-inside-the-house-inside-the-cupboard chimes perfectly with the show, and the gothic twist of the tale. Like those older shows, the directorial pace is markedly slower here than we’ve seen for many episodes of Who. The usual intense, concentrated TV experiences which the show serves up are replaced by this story’s slow burning drive – typified by a narrative and direction that allows its ideas to breathe. A synopsis of this episode would, I suspect, be much shorter than some, so rather than trying to make sense of what’s flashing before our eyes at breakneck pace, here we are allowed to ruminate on what’s unsaid, hinted at, implied, and created by our own imagination. It’s nice to be able to do that for a change. Like bubble and squeak, this episode makes a fantastic meal out of what’s left over. And we all know that bubble and squeak can often be even better than the feast you enjoyed the day before. It’s far from ‘cheap and cheerful’, though, this is good stuff. Maybe ‘cheaper and creepy’ is a better description – and that’s something Doctor Who has consistently done well throughout its history. A couple of strong wind machines and some backlighting can work wonders, it seems – and when all the CGI in the Whoniverse has faded away, the far-flung corners of the universe visited and all manner of monsters vanquished, we’re left with a kind old Doctor, a boy, his dad and the “the scariest place in the universe.” P.S.I’m choosing to frame this as a P.S., because that’s exactly what the show does… “Tick tock goes the clockHe cradled and he rocked her,Tick tock goes the clockEven for the Doctor…” The last two minutes of the show, as has become the way of standalone episodes, once again reminded us of a larger scale of events within which this story sits, by showing us the Doctor looking at the date of his own death (obtained from the Tesselecta during the last episode), displayed on the screen in the Tardis. If, after last season’s brilliant reveal of Amy’s bedroom wall at the end of the series, you still think events and ideas introduced in this episode are totally unrelated to what’s going on in the bigger picture, I’d be surprised if you’re right. Also, she appears to be the subject of next week’s episode – which, based on my interpretation of the trailer, appears to involve a parallel version of herself from another timeline (alluded to by the mention of multiple universes during the end of episode banter too, perhaps). Considering that the key part of dialogue in that clip was “You didn’t save me”, it doesn’t look good. Just saying.
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