Doctor Who S32E9 - "Night Terrors" [spoilers]

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

Objective Interim Spoiler Policy: All prior episodes of Doctor Who up to and including this one may be discussed without spoilers. Recent EU publications and upcoming episodes must be spoiler tagged and labelled. Previews (as released on BBC, website, etc) of the next episode are not spoilers, nor is speculation derived from them.

Anyway, discuss!

[Crazedwraith]

3/5. Not brilliant but at least not as painful as last weeks.

fun stuff from the Doctor as always but it had painfully long set up and relatively little pay off. Rory and Amy might as well not have been there.

[Revy]

4

Much better than last weeks episode I thought. Seeing as the overall season arc this time around focuses on River-sue so much, I reckon I'll be liking the standalone episodes more. Next episode preview made me think of Red Dwarf for some reason.

[Iroscato]

I gave it a 3, almost a 4. It was clever and fast-paced, though obviously very much a money-saver episode.
Those pesky Perception Filters, eh?

[Bedlam]

Seemed rather similar to Fear Her a few years ago.

Creepy child which turned out to be an alien which had the power to send people to a spooky place which was dealt with via the power of love.

[DaveJB]

I saw the similarity as well. I wouldn't quite call this story "Fear Her done right," but the execution was a lot better, IMO. This time they managed to keep it pretty suspenseful and atmospheric throughout, whereas Fear Her was just 40 minutes of boredom followed by an intensely stupid wrap-up.

Of course, considering Fear Her was apparently written in the space of about two weeks after Stephen Fry's story fell through, they didn't exactly have a hard task in making this one better.

[Starglider]

I gave it a 3, almost a 4. It was clever and fast-paced, though obviously very much a money-saver episode.

Really? I thought it dragged a bit. Boring locations, not much plot content so the episode relied on characterisation for interest, but the situations the characters were in were just lower-stakes cheap looking versions of situations we've seen before. I will grant that it is a competent execution of the 'Fear Her' premise, but it was still sawdust-flavoured, predictable filler. I found the previous episode more entertaining despite its glaring flaws.

[Minischoles]

Gave it a 3

It's a filler episode/money saving episode, but at least it was relatively well done - at least in comparison to some of the other money saving episodes. Pretty average overall as a standalone episode, not amazing but not terrible either.

[TC Pilot]

Much better episode than last week's. Very similar to "Fear Her," but much better, with bits of "The Empty Child". Aside from that, not really much of a payoff. Overall, a pretty average, unremarkable episode. Some nice Doctor lines about how old he is, I thought.

One thing though... why dolls?

[Soontir C'boath]

It's ok; 3. Probably an episode children will remember and cherish as one of those scary ones that made them hide behind the couch. As soon as George started approaching the cupboard, my bro and I knew it was going to be easily resolved in some way by him.

[The Yosemite Bear]

well we now know what the doctor would do with Anthony from the twilight zone

[FaxModem1]

well we now know what the doctor would do with Anthony from the twilight zone

Ask his parents to give him a hug?

It was okay. I'm kind of surprised that they don't care about finding their daughter Melody anymore. Guess dropping her off at the hospital counts as closure or something. 3/5.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Damn, my usual sources for finding episodes online aren't working. Can someone PM a suggestion?

[Crazedwraith]

It's ok; 3. Probably an episode children will remember and cherish as one of those scary ones that made them hide behind the couch. As soon as George started approaching the cupboard, my bro and I knew it was going to be easily resolved in some way by him.

Considering that was 40 minutes into a 45 minute episode that was hardly a huge leap of intuition

[Iroscato]

I'm kind of surprised that they don't care about finding their daughter Melody anymore. Guess dropping her off at the hospital counts as closure or something. 3/5.

Yeah that is getting a bit stupid now. The only reference to the larger series story arc was just ANOTHER close-up of the Doctor's death stat screen, with the creepy kiddy song mentioning him.

[Crazedwraith]

I'm kind of surprised that they don't care about finding their daughter Melody anymore. Guess dropping her off at the hospital counts as closure or something. 3/5.

Yeah that is getting a bit stupid now. The only reference to the larger series story arc was just ANOTHER close-up of the Doctor's death stat screen, with the creepy kiddy song mentioning him.

Pretty much standard as Moffat/DW goes. They were doing the same thing with the pregnancy test in the first half of the story and The Doctor never investigated the cracks in time right up until the time the TARDIS exploded.

[The Guid]

I'm kind of surprised that they don't care about finding their daughter Melody anymore. Guess dropping her off at the hospital counts as closure or something. 3/5.

Yeah that is getting a bit stupid now. The only reference to the larger series story arc was just ANOTHER close-up of the Doctor's death stat screen, with the creepy kiddy song mentioning him.

I presume then you mentioned the Doctor saying how nice it was to have them both back "in the flesh"?

[xerex]

an episode that was solely aimed at small children with little for the adults to care about.

[Soontir C'boath]

It's ok; 3. Probably an episode children will remember and cherish as one of those scary ones that made them hide behind the couch. As soon as George started approaching the cupboard, my bro and I knew it was going to be easily resolved in some way by him.

Considering that was 40 minutes into a 45 minute episode that was hardly a huge leap of intuition

I should've wrote: When I looked at the time left and George starting to walk towards the cupboard, that it was going to end in an anti-climatically lame and quick way.

Wasn't trying to give the impression of intuition there.

Edit: Seriously though, the darn episode was still going through the motions 3/4 of the way in and part of me actually thought this was going to be a two-parter.

[ChosenOne54]

3/5 from me. It was okay, but not very scary at all. The ending was kinda 'meh' also.

[xerex]

:

Edit: Seriously though, the darn episode was still going through the motions 3/4 of the way in and part of me actually thought this was going to be a two-parter.

I did too. I was wondering if they'd decided to pull a trick on us. Making us think this was going to be filler episode and then they'd reveal Silence involvement somehow at the end leading to a "to be continued"

[Minischoles]

well we now know what the doctor would do with Anthony from the twilight zone

Ask his parents to give him a hug?

It was okay. I'm kind of surprised that they don't care about finding their daughter Melody anymore. Guess dropping her off at the hospital counts as closure or something. 3/5.

That's because the episode has been shown out of order, it was supposed to be shown in the slot the pirate episode took, so the events with Melody/River wouldn't have happened for a good few episodes.

[Broomstick]

I liked having a stand alone episode that didn't grind obessively through the season story-arc, that was a nice change.

However, it wasn't Epic TV.

So - enjoying ride one time through, average to meh. Certainly there have been worse Who stories, but it's not a deathless classic.

[Hillary]

That's because the episode has been shown out of order, it was supposed to be shown in the slot the pirate episode took, so the events with Melody/River wouldn't have happened for a good few episodes.

Really? That does explain a lot, I have to say - it was much lighter than the tone of recent episodes. Was this down to the decision to split the series in half?

I rather liked it. Mark Gatiss is very good at writing creepy stories and parts of it could have come straight out of the League of Gentlemen (the twins specifically).

[Minischoles]

That's because the episode has been shown out of order, it was supposed to be shown in the slot the pirate episode took, so the events with Melody/River wouldn't have happened for a good few episodes.

Really? That does explain a lot, I have to say - it was much lighter than the tone of recent episodes. Was this down to the decision to split the series in half?

I rather liked it. Mark Gatiss is very good at writing creepy stories and parts of it could have come straight out of the League of Gentlemen (the twins specifically).

Yeah, it was filmed as Episode Four - from what I remember, it was to give the first block of episodes a greater variety and so you get some odd continuity concerning River, considering they couldn't re-shoot chunks of it once they were done.