Night Terrors

When I was your age – about, ooh, a thousand years ago – I loved a bedtime story. The Three Sontarans, The Emperor Dalek’s New Clothes. Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday, eh? All the classics.

The Eleventh Doctor

Synopsis

The Doctor must deal with sinister dolls coming to life as he fights to help a terrified child and his father.

Review

Night Terrors is a story that brings the show crashing back to Earth, to a council estate not entirely dissimilar to the Powell Estate from the Russell T Davies era of the show, and into a child’s bedroom, with a terrified child, something the show states is the scariest place in the universe.

No offence, Doctor…

Meaning the opposite.

…but we could get the bus to somewhere like this.

The opposite.

Rory Williams and the Eleventh Doctor

Night Terrors has the traditional Mark Gatiss problem of being a story that does not feel as though it particularly fits into the series, but this story might be the culmination of that. It is so inconsequential that it was able to jump from the first half of Series 6 to the latter half. As a result, it moves this story closer to another similar story in the shape of Closing Time, also a story about fathers and sons. It seems a bit bizarre that they should fall so close to each other, especially given that both George and Alfie’s mothers leave early in the story and play no further part in proceedings.

I think that Mark Gatiss is good at writing quite good and scary scripts, though, and Night Terrors is pretty creepy. The Peg Dolls are effective, if one-dimensional, and the effect used for transforming Purcell and then Amy into Peg Dolls does work quite well. Gatiss taps into the mundane here, taking everyday childhood fears, like the dressing gown on the back of a door, or the shadows cast by toys in his bedroom – there are a lot of incredibly creepy toys. I for one, had one of those disembodied eyes that rolled around which was certainly a bit eerie if you did not expect it!

When comparing the story to Closing Time, it feels as though they could almost be competing for the same slot in the series; to fall in the gap we have between The God Complex and The Wedding of River Song, especially when it seems clear that Mark Gatiss doesn’t really know what to do with Amy and Rory once he has put them into the creepy doll’s house and Alex becomes the surrogate companion. I do really like the hints that Amy and Rory are trapped in a doll’s house, like the wooden frying pan and chicken and I think that the house that the production team chose – Dyrham Park, a National Trust near Bath – does feel like the interior of a doll’s house too. I think that, as a twist, it does become increasingly less effective the more you see this episode and the pacing really does go to pot here. I think Rory is given more to do than Amy, but both Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill are solid as ever here.

Whatever you are, whatever you do, you’re my son and I will never, ever send you away.

Alex

Child actors are always a bit of a lottery, regardless of being in Doctor Who or not, but I must say that I think that Jamie Oram does a really good job as George. He finds a really creepy way of blinking which makes him inherently seem odd, which is something pays off when he is revealed to be a cuckoo in the nest. George is afraid of everything, from Mrs Rossiter and her squeaky walker to landlord Purcell and his dog, Bernard, to the lift that operates in his block of flats. Children do not understand things, and George is even more at a disadvantage being a different species, not understand his parents’ money worries. There are some inconsistencies in the writing of George; specifically when Mrs Rossiter is shouting at the bin bags and states that George is messing around in there. There’s nothing else in the story that indicates that George could be a menace to Mrs Rossiter, which I don’t think the story otherwise suggests. Equally, George’s fear takes Purcell into the doll’s house as it increases, but doesn’t take Purcell’s dog, Bernard, too. If George doesn’t entirely understand why Purcell is scary to Alex and Claire, surely a more primitive fear of the dog would mean that Bernard should have joined his owner in the doll’s house.

The story is certainly helped by the chemistry between Matt Smith and Daniel Mays who bounce off each other really nicely. Mays is perplexed by the alienness of the Doctor, but deserves credit for making the comedic relief really work and be powerful. Something that Matt Smith does really well is sell the fact that he is just as afraid as the audience, which is something he does really well after scanning the wardrobe in George’s room. Ultimately, Smith, like Peter Capaldi after him, interacts really nicely with children in his role of the Doctor and this story is no exception.

Verdict: Night Terrors is a solid enough story, but one that loses something in rewatching. 6/10

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Daniel Mays (Alex), Jamie Oram (George), Emma Cunniffe (Claire), Andy Tiernan (Purcell), Leila Hoffman (Mrs Rossiter) & Sophie Cosson (Julie).

Writer: Mark Gatiss

Director: Richard Clark

Producer: Sanne Wohlenberg

Composer: Murray Gold

Original Broadcast Date: 3rd September 2011

Behind the Scenes

• This story had the working title of House Call and What are Little Boys Made of?
• Night Terrors was originally meant to be the fourth episode of Series 6, but was moved when Steven Moffat felt that the first half of the story was too dark. This meant that a scene with Amy seeing Madame Kovarian had to be removed, to be replaced with the data file from Let’s Kill Hitler.
• It is also the first story since Fear Her not to feature a single casualty and the first episode written by Mark Gatiss not to be mostly set in the past.
• It was initially thought that this story would have to be double-banked, with Amy and Rory not featuring after being drawn into the doll house.
• The Peg Dolls were sufficiently creepy when stationary, however, believed to be missing something in motion. Gatiss came up with the idea of a nursery rhyme, which Moffat ran with and made into a recurring motif.

Cast Notes

• Emma Cunniffe also played Caleera in the Big Finish Eighth Doctor anthology Doom Coalition.

Best Moment

It might be the sappy side of me coming through, but the moment where Alex tells George that he will not tell him to leave in the culmination of the story.

Best Quote

I’m not just a professional. I’m the Doctor.

What’s that supposed to mean?

It means I’ve come a long way to get here, Alex, a very long way. George sent a message – a distress call, if you like. Whatever’s inside that cupboard is so terrible, so powerful, that it amplified the fears of an ordinary boy across all the barriers of time and space.

Eh?

Through crimson stars and silent stars and tumbling nebulas like oceans set on fire, through empires of glass and civilisations of pure thought, and a whole, terrible, wonderful universe of possibilities. You see these eyes? They’re old eyes…and one thing I can tell you, Alex: monsters are real.

Previous Eleventh Doctor review: Let’s Kill Hitler

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