photos copyright BBC
I do love a good, creepy horror movie and this week’s episode certainly uses that as a template for a terror ride that will leave you terrified.
A planet on which nothing can survive, an empty base filled with shattered bodies where every mirror is smashed with the only survivor, a deaf woman desperate top go home to see her daughter. The smashed mirrors evoke the idea that evil cannot face itself and in Doctor Who lore, could this be the Mara from the 5h Doctor episode? Can we have another god on the loose?
Colony 15 is a base that was mining planet 6767 for carbon 46 through a giant well that went straight down into the planet. Again, this evokes the doorway to Hell. Given the Doctor’s words in the trailer for this one, fan speculation was that this was a sequel to a previous episode. It was either The Satan Pit or Midnight. Or are we way off the mark?
I loved the fact that the sole survivor, Alice Fenley the cook, is deaf which immediately plays into the overall story. So could this be the Beast reborn? Is Alice his new vessel eager for the troopers to take her off world?
Everything sings horror and superstition. With the arrival of The Doctor and Belinda, the normal troop compliment is eleven but now it makes them thirteen. Unlucky for some. Jump scares abound as something seems to be flitting behind Alice just as Donna had something on her back. Could this be The Trickster, the bane of The Doctor and Sarah Jane’s existence?
For someone that has decided disability will make everyone associated it with evil (see my previous article; https://timewarriors.co.uk/2024/05/19/disabled-davros-is-a-dodo-amputee-vs-rtd/) he uses Alice’s deafness to make the viewer believe this evil has hidden itself in her or it is using her body somehow. The fact that it is against the law for a nurse not to know sign language and everyone has portable screens that shows what they are saying is wonderful. Having learned just a smattering of sign language myself, it is something that I actually want to get back into and learn. It’s a great reminder that society is more diverse and we should be aware of everyone.
For the second week in a row, we get a sequel.
Planet 6767 is in fact the planet Midnight 400,000 years in the future, strip mined of all its diamonds and confirms that this is the entity that almost destroyed the 10th Doctor by mimicking his words to turn a trainload of passengers against him. The entity came out of the remains of Midnight laughing and it wants out into the universe. There are shades of Event Horizon here with the massacre of bodies.
This time it hides behind you being seen in glimpses but evoking enough fear that it turns people, even friends, to murder their friends. If you kill the person it hides behind, it simply jumps to another. This thing seems eternal and Alice can’t hear it whispering in her ear which makes her the perfect victim. Who is going to kill a deaf girl? But since killing her isn’t the answer, the answer lies in reflection. Open the mercury tubes and Alice can escape.
The biggest issue with the episode was Belinda seeing the entity then denying it twice. Now after seeing cartoons rise from a cinema screen and rampaging robots, she has a savvy enough brain to realise that in the midst of a mysterious massacre where bodies have been pulverised that anything out of the ordinary, she would tell the Doctor. To have her deny seeing anything, dilutes the character that called the Doctor out at the end of her first episode as being dangerous.
But while it frees her, it simply jumps to Belinda. The fear and terror it instills in the soldiers is a replay of what happened to the original crew. Order imposed by leader Shaya Costillion, played by Caoilfhionn Dunne, falls apart when trooper Cassio overrides her and tries to take the thing down. Indeed we have paranoia and fear at the levels that echo Event Horizon and The Thing. People fall apart when faced with an unseen enemy. I loved the analogy Belinda uses that Alice is like a clock face and if you walk behind her, you literally die at midnight. When the troops are picked up and smashed to the ground dead when they walk behind her is Forbidden Planet for sure. Shaya tells Alice to turn to her causing Cassio to be smashed into a wall ending his tactic and undermining of her authority.
This is such a good episode because the monster is always just out of sight but its effects are very real. Bringing back the Midnight monster is brilliant because we get to see it in full control, not a repeating entity living on a planet of galvanic radiation. Nothing bar it can live as the radiation is lethal as we saw in Midnight.
So to save Belinda, Shaya, the best shot in the army takes the one shot close to Belinda’s heart, killing her momentarily so the creature jumps to Shaya. She runs and ,Ripley-like, throws herself down the well allowing the others to escape. It’s great to see the Irish save the day. I have a thing about even the slightest characters having a backstory and we see Shaya’s childhood running through fields of fire in the Wildlands and running from the monsters out into the galaxy to help, protect and bring hope. Everything we need to know about her is right there in that soliloquy and her death once again, like those highlighted by Davros to the Doctor-like Harriet Jones and the nameless hostess in the original Midnight, Shaya is now one of those that gave their lives to save he universe so the greatest hope of all could live on and fight; The Doctor. Did I mention Shaya is Irish?
The planet is nuked from orbit and The Doctor and Belinda go on their way having discovered that no-one here has heard of Earth or knows what a human is.
We see Mrs Flood asking a trooper what happened and if The Doctor was carrying a vindicator; he was and she claims this is very good news. Is she a villain or something else guiding The Doctor against the real enemy?
And like all great horror movies, there is a twist. Is the Midnight monster, officially named It Has No Name, really gone or did it sneak aboard on a trooper’s back? Who knows?
What I do know is that is three for three so far; all excellent stories and a huge leap from last year. It all shows that there is life in the old dog yet and as long as we keep getting quality stories then Doctor Who is far from dead.
Superb.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 