(779) Night Terrors

Night Terrors is another story written by Mark Gatiss who has a good track record in the series. To date I think he is the only person that has appeared and written an episode of Doctor Who. The story takes place on a housing estate which is enough to give anyone night terrors. The thing about this episode is that it feels very claustrophobic. The whole vibe of the episode is creepy and whilst it might seem like a cheap episode, the effectiveness of the episode is down largely to the low lighting.

The dolls are very good and one of the things that works for this story is how they manage to come across as so dangerous even though they don’t have facial expressions but it’s the giggling that makes it seem more crazy than it could have been.

If you think about it the story has a small number of characters. Apart from the regulars the story features just five characters and one appears at the beginning and the end and the old lady spends slightly more time in the story. Really its just the boy and the dad feature in the story and I thought that the boy was actually quite good and its not often that young kids in Doctor Who are anything other than annoying but Jamie Oram did very well as George. Daniel Mays is an actor that I have never really rated highly however in this I thought he was really good and believable as the dad.

When Purcell is turned into a Doll right on screen I thought that this was a great moment and was quite a grim moment to air on BBC One on a Saturday night. Purcell is such an unlikeable character that when he does meet his unfortunate ending then it’s hard to feel sorry for him and instead you end up thinking that it could happen to a nicer bloke. When the change happens to Amy then it’s different because she has been good in this episode.

I really liked this episode but to be honest I haven’t written much because I spent so long enjoying what I was watching. This was a very good episode that had good writing and good directing. This might be Mark Gatiss’ best story that he has come up with and I do love The Unquiet Dead. The next episode looks like they its going to be another corker. There were questions about whether this episode was right to be shown at this stage of the season but I think that it was perfect.