Midnight
15/06/08 09:38 Filed in: Media
The current series of Doctor Who just keeps on
getting better and better.
So last week having said that Silence in the Library
and Rivers Run where the best Doctor Who stories so
far in the new series, I’ve now got to revise that
statement. They are now only the second best story,
last nights story, Midnight is now the best.
We have, for the first time in a very long time, the Doctor on his own. He has no companion to support him.
Also we have the Doctor facing a complete mystery, he has no idea what he is facing and we the viewers are also kept in the dark. And like a lot of really good sci-fi, we are still left with the fundamental mystery at the end of the story. What was it? Was in fact a bad guy or was it just a totally new form of life trying to make contact? We don’t find out. Which means we have to guess and work out our own version of what happened, which is great!
The Doctor also has to fight on his own something which he just can’t beat, human nature. In the panic of the first hours of any crisis I think that what we see happen in this story is what would actually happen. People panic, it’s every man for them selves and they look for some one to blame. The person that stands out from the pack, the person that is different or seems the weakest will usually be the target here. Thanks to our origins as a family animal once someone starts to pick a scapegoat the rest will probably quickly follow.
I think that this sort of thing wouldn’t really last that long and after a few hours people would start to show better sides of human nature, which is why this story had to concentrate the peril in to an hour.
Talking of concentrating, the setting for this story, a cramped passenger cabin was perfect, it set up feelings of claustrophobia even before the bad stuff starting happening.
Also the...thing, what ever it was, repeating everything that was said was a fantastic idea. When someone does this to you it is incredibly annoying and as they said in the Doctor Who Confidential afterwards having some one repeat your words does seem to reduce there power. They are not just your words any more, their power is spread out and diluted.
And of course the final thing, having the bad guy (if it was a bad guy) never seen, just heard until it possess someone was a master stroke.
Steven Moffet may have been constantly the best writer on the new series, but Russel Davis has written the best Doctor Who story to date. But there’s always next week, which starts the story arc which is going to take us to the end of the season and that looks as sounds a other good’un!
We have, for the first time in a very long time, the Doctor on his own. He has no companion to support him.
Also we have the Doctor facing a complete mystery, he has no idea what he is facing and we the viewers are also kept in the dark. And like a lot of really good sci-fi, we are still left with the fundamental mystery at the end of the story. What was it? Was in fact a bad guy or was it just a totally new form of life trying to make contact? We don’t find out. Which means we have to guess and work out our own version of what happened, which is great!
The Doctor also has to fight on his own something which he just can’t beat, human nature. In the panic of the first hours of any crisis I think that what we see happen in this story is what would actually happen. People panic, it’s every man for them selves and they look for some one to blame. The person that stands out from the pack, the person that is different or seems the weakest will usually be the target here. Thanks to our origins as a family animal once someone starts to pick a scapegoat the rest will probably quickly follow.
I think that this sort of thing wouldn’t really last that long and after a few hours people would start to show better sides of human nature, which is why this story had to concentrate the peril in to an hour.
Talking of concentrating, the setting for this story, a cramped passenger cabin was perfect, it set up feelings of claustrophobia even before the bad stuff starting happening.
Also the...thing, what ever it was, repeating everything that was said was a fantastic idea. When someone does this to you it is incredibly annoying and as they said in the Doctor Who Confidential afterwards having some one repeat your words does seem to reduce there power. They are not just your words any more, their power is spread out and diluted.
And of course the final thing, having the bad guy (if it was a bad guy) never seen, just heard until it possess someone was a master stroke.
Steven Moffet may have been constantly the best writer on the new series, but Russel Davis has written the best Doctor Who story to date. But there’s always next week, which starts the story arc which is going to take us to the end of the season and that looks as sounds a other good’un!
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