This episode was a brave move into uncharted territory. It was risky. It was edgy. It was strangely disturbing. It was written by Mark Gatiss and its warped psychological angles showed it. It opens with Gatiss's 'League Of Gentlemen' cohort Reese Shearsmith talking into the camera through a fuzzy CCTV type presentation. "You must not watch this" he say. "I'm warning you, you can never un-see it" a warning which many viewers would wish they had heeded. Shearsmith introduces himself as Gagan Rassmussen and gives a few more details to set the scene before the screen flickers and is filled with letters and numbers looking like code. Two vertical groups of letters glow briefly to reveal the words "Doctor Who" whilst also subtly drawing attention to a horizontal group of letters which both words cross "Clara Oswald". There's just enough time to perhaps make out what could be another name before the screen clears again. In the episode's first departure from the norm, that is as close as it gets to a title sequence. This is not an episode of a TV program, this is an edited collection of found footage...
On closer examination later, all the characters can be found in that screen full of letters and Rassmussen introduces each of them, a rescue crew sent to the space station orbiting Neptune to investigate why communications suddenly went dead and to potentially rescue everyone. However, they didn't find any crew only a couple if strangers... We first see Clara and the Doctor walking across the end of a corridor mid conversation, something light and trivial commenting how the place looks like a Chinese restaurant or a 'space restaurant'. The Doctor argues that nobody does that, put the word 'space' in front of things, it just sound silly yet when the rescue crew find them they are accused of being 'space pirates' - a nice comedic moment, but also a subtle reference to the Patrick Troughton adventure of the same name.
There's another lovely moment later when Clara first gives the monsters a name and the Doctor objects. "You don't get to name things. I'm the Doctor, I do the naming. It's like the Silurians all over again", referring to the conceit that their name referred to a different time period to when they were said to have lived. Despite his objections however, the Doctor agrees that Clara's naming was spot on!
I don't feel like I have a lot to write about Sleep No More because it is heavily laden with mystery, suspense and action. There isn't much to say that wouldn't re-tell the story or spoil it as it is a very simple plot. But it is not the plot that matters. It is how things are revealed and fits in and what doesn't. At the heart of it all are the Morpheus sleep pods that can whiz you through a night's worth of sleep in just five minutes. That and the fact that everything you see has been recorded by security cameras and head-cams which the Doctor hacks into with his Sonic Sunglasses... yet there are shots from Clara's point of view and she isn't wearing a camera...
It's easily to get confused and disconnected from the story especially when this found-footage format is so far removed from the usual style of the show. Things don't add up and are not as explicitly explained as we might be used to. The Doctor kind of works it out but as he and Clara eventually make it back to the TARDIS, his parting words hang in the air as un unsettling reassurance that viewer isn't alone in their thoughts "It doesn't make sense. None of this makes any sense!" But it does when viewed more closely, more analytically, but some things still hang confusingly as Rassmussen presents his final thoughts to camera explaining that it has all been a bit of a show to keep the viewer watching so his subliminal code can get through to infect our brains. His parting shot is to rub his eye and we see his face gradually disintegrate in the most gruesome special effects seen on Doctor Who...
It's a clever, dark, creepy horror story that you have to watch to understand (or not), but you can never un-see it. May the gods look favourably upon you.
No comments:
Post a Comment