Doctor Who (Spoilers!) Review: "Sleep No More"

                Did you see the last Paranormal Activity movie in October? Isn’t found footage a great gimmick that will never die?

                I was pretty worried when I found out this episode of Doctor Who “Sleep No More” was going to be done as a found footage film. The fact that it was also a monster episode after a poor monster two-parter earlier this series didn’t do anything to alleviate my dread. I thought it would be corny jokes at the expense of the style while not using the style to convey terror, just be the framing device.

                What we actually got though? THIS is how you do a Doctor Who monster story! Not only was it a one-off episode, not only was it properly creepy in its mood and set-up, but it takes full advantage of the found footage gimmick and actually uses it to heighten the fear and as a very smart story device. It adds to the style and the scenes, gives us some variety with new point of view shots (I don’t know if we’ve seen the Doctor’s arrival in a situation from someone else’s perspective before). It renders the monsters unclear and unfocused adding to their terror, and as the genre is supposed to do, adequately frightens the viewer by putting them in the action as a first person viewer.

                But enough about style, let’s talk about story. A crew in the 38^th century are investigating an abandoned space station in response to a distress call and run into the Doctor and Clara. Together they discover Morpheus, a new technology that has managed to condense sleep into a manner of seconds and one person preserved in the Morpheus system, Professor Rassmussen (Reece Shearsmith) who’s also giving narration as the compiler of the footage we’re seeing. Rassmussen talks of monsters on board and the Doctor theorizes that these monsters are made up of sleep dust, the crust and molecules that build up in the corners of our eyes when asleep. But as expected, these monsters who Clara nicknames Sandmen start showing up and picking off the crew one by one.

This episode was written by Mark Gatiss who still has my vote for next showrunner ever since he scripted the brilliant An Adventure in Space and Time, the biopic on the making of Doctor Who and to me the greater 50^th Anniversary Special. His writing here is very sharp as always setting a tone very well. The title derives from a line in Macbeth the Doctor quotes, and while he does give some speeches about the importance of sleep and the short-sightedness of humanity to try and shorten the process, it is by no means the show’s defining factor. This episode has a lot of dark atmosphere and does a great job building a slow but steady tension. Admittedly a lot of this does come from the camera style but it works and that’s what counts. It’s not entirely original in plot: a crew coming onto a derelict spacecraft on a rescue mission sounds a lot like Aliens (I’ve already referenced Aliens in these reviews? Okay then, I’ll go more obscure: Event Horizon). But the episode seems self-aware of this and unlike the last monster episode doesn’t try and develop characters who we all know are just monster bait. Once again it’s the atmosphere that matters as well as the style and of course, the monsters. The Sandmen are a really great design! As I noted before, they are kind of unfocussed a lot of the time due to the nature of the episode’s style but it adds to their effect. Looking like giant sacks with gaping mouths they curiously remind me of the Oogie-Boogie Man from The Nightmare Before Christmas. This is great for a couple reasons: first, the Oogie-Boogie Man is one of the scariest characters ever in a kids’ film. And second, it’s an unusual look that we haven’t seen before in Doctor Who.

The few problems with the episode do come from the setting up of the characters who we’ll never remember. One of them is ostracized by the others for being some kind of non-human who eventually dies to save them but seeing as most of them die anyway, it’s pretty pointless. Reece Shearsmith is good, but the narrator element for most of the episode doesn’t need to be there and is kind of distracting. I like the Sandmen but their biological make-up and the Doctor’s explanation is really corny. Fortunately it’s a corniness that’s just enough welcomed in Doctor Who. And as much as you try episode, “Mr. Sandman” will never be scary.

But come on, you know the best part of this episode was in the final act when a couple really smart twists were dropped on us. The whole episode we’d been seeing this found footage style which was giving us something new stylistically but not adding detrimentally to the plot, apart from a couple times the Doctor looked quizzically into the camera. However while secure on their run from the Sandmen he reveals to Clara and the one survivor that they’ve been seeing this footage (the same as the viewer has) on monitors throughout the station, but some of them aren’t wearing cameras on their helmets. He notes that the Sandmen who are blind are seeing them and it’s THEIR sight that’s being projected everywhere. That’s why only those who’ve experienced Morpheus (Clara too by this point) have POV shots. I love when horror movies or shows or anything have these revelations hiding in plain sight. When you think back, the Doctor was suspiciously absent from the POV shots, a number of characters who were given these shots were shown in the next WITHOUT a camera helmet. Also leading into the second twist being that one of those supposedly killed was the earlier revealed narrator. But if he’s narrating from the future how can he actually be dead? I love figuring out these things we miss and how subtlely they’re dropped throughout the episode. It makes the horror that much more effective especially once they escape, how we see the TARDIS fade away. The final twist reveals that Rassmussen this whole time had in fact been a Sandman and that there were no humans left on the station. Forced to see it from this perspective without the Doctor present, is very chilling. Even more so is the fact the entire recording is deemed to be a ploy so the Sandmen could transmit themselves to the viewer through the static. Thus we’re left wondering how much of what we saw really happened and how much was constructed just to keep us watching. Rassmussen was a storyteller and in his own glorification of how the story unfolded even with a few critiques, made me wonder if he was an allegory for Moffatt. Without resorting to setting up an unnecessary second half we may have gotten an indication these villains may return. Though if not, it’s all the more frightening. And seeing the character dissolve into sand in a really good really creepy effect; that hammers the terror home.

“Sleep No More” was scary Doctor Who done right. A thrilling episode with genuine scares, done in a gimmicky style that actually manages to work, and some great writing, it’s a wonderful sign. It’s self-contained, feeling no obligation to stretch itself out to a two-parter like “Under the Lake”/”Before the Flood”. After last week’s disappointment in “The Zygon Inversion” and this week’s looking like a standard monster story without anything new, I was worried that the back-half of this series might falter. But after this episode and the glimpse of the next weeks’: which features the return of Rigsy from “Flatline” (how forgettable an episode was that??) and Ashildr, it looks like those fears are unfounded. Doctor Who and especially Doctor Who monster stories are as fresh as ever!