I am – Hercules!!

Our limey cousins are all over the place on “Midnight,” the BBC’s latest installment of “Doctor Who” scripted by lame-duck showrunner Russell T. Davies. There’s like and dislike. The word “filler” pops up a lot.

“Spud McSpud” says:

Hey Herc,

Episode 10 is upon us - an RTD script straight after a triumphant Moff two-parter! I wasn't hanging out for a great episode...

And I didn't get one. But it was still better than expected.

The episode is basically a holiday destination gone wrong scenario - the opener being set up to get Donna to stay at her interplanetary hotel, soaking up the sun (through fifteen feet thick windows!) while the Doctor goes on a tour with a bunch of tourists to see a sapphire waterfall. There's a lot of scene-setting about how dangerous it is to go out onto the airless, highly irradiated surface... so there's the jeopardy.

Then some time into the journey, there's a problem. The vehicle they are travelling on stops, Ominous creaking and breaking sounds are heard. And, in the midst of lots of 20th century Earth cliches (can RTD EVER understand that FUTURE drama should NOT be the same as present time drama? I mean, parents bellowing at kids who ignore them while listening to music?) the tension begins to kick in.

The passengers are a typical bunch: an elderly Professor, the aforementioned couple (Biff and Val) with son (Jethro) in tow, the Tour Guide, a young girl (Dee Dee), and a recently split-from-her-girlfriend (yep, it's RTD) traveller Sky Silvestri. The threat is a strange hammering noise, like something trying to get INTO the vehicle. The strangeness comes from the fact that NOTHING could exist outside, due to the extreme conditions: so what IS IT? And when the hull is almost breached, and the prerequisite Star Trek lurching-from-side-to-side explosive interlude is over, Sky isn't herself any more: she looks, well, possessed, and by what we don't know. What we do know is that the entity copies everyone's words, driving them to paranoia and possibly murder, and is utterly terrifying. And even the Doctor's famed reasoning abilities and endless verbal diarrhoea may actually be his downfall in this Lord-of-the-Flies type psychological horror that shows that when you put a bunch of humans under pressure in a claustrophobic situation, the results ain't pretty - they're terrifying...

The Doctor is genuinely adrift here - like in the Tom Baker classic THE DEADLY ASSASSIN, he's companion-less, and his usual tricks of empowering people by showing them what they're capable of is ably undermined here by the paranoia the passengers feel at the actions of this creepy entity that is suddenly among them. Whatever it is, it wants the Doctor out of the picture... and that it remains unexplained and nameless only makes the whole situation much more frightening. This is a far, far better RTD effort than we are used to, and while it remains light years behind efforts such as FOREST OF THE DEAD, it has some excellent tension and believable reactions by a bunch of frightened victims in an unendurable situation who act just like people would - they attack, they scapegoat, they don't listen to reason, they just let their fear rule their instincts. There are minor quibbles - the endless LOST rip-offs in the incidental music, the 20th century set-up as if holidays don't alter in the next few million years (and this from a writer who thinks THE WEAKEST LINK and BIG BROTHER will still be broadcasting thousands of years from now), the tiresome cram-it-in-there gay reference (well, it is RTD) and the abrupt ending - I was still waiting for the resolution! It feels like the run-up to another, more final episode, and in a season with only 13 episodes, that's throwing away 1/13th of the season just to set up a bit of foreshadowing. The unkind among you may suggest that Lesley Sharp is already quite scary, but the way she contorts her face in this, with no make-up and only a change in lighting, to convey the malevolent intelligence of an utterly alien entity, is breathtaking - she gives one of the great performances in new Who, and makes you wonder how great she would be if she was given a much better part in a better episode. I felt she was more the Beast from IMPOSSIBLE PLANET than any other new Who baddie, that was the atmosphere I got from this (Jethro shouting "666" at her adding to the atmosphere).

In conclusion - quite good, great as an RTD episode, but still one of the lesser episodes in a so-so season. Never follow up a Moffat script - you'll inevitably come out looking less than. nd next week (cue spoilers for next week's trailer):

**SPOILERS - DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU!**

Rose is back! Donna's Grandad looking to the skies, saying "The stars are going out!". Rose warning us that "all the universes are in danger". And a shot of the Doctor, under a sheet, on a stretcher, his arm hanging limp, dropping his sonic screwdriver - and Donna's anguished voice: "He can't be dead!"

He could well be. This is the first of the three part RTD finale (God help us all) - and it begins next week!

If you use this, Herc, I am SPUD McSPUD, reporting under Article 17 of the Shadow Proclamation, and I'm out of jelly babies. Damn.

“The Handsome 12th Doctor” says:

I don't wish to make this too political but I've realised Steven Moffat is like Barack Obama. During the last couple of weeks we've been envisaging this wonderful future where America has world peace and every episode of Doctor Who will be ace.

But then the dawning realisation kicks in and we remember we still have some time to go yet with the other guy in charge.

Ah no, that's being harsh isn't it. RTD isn’t Bush bad.

Russ has done some brilliant work. Bringing Who back, hiring top writers like the Moff, and he has turned in some good episodes.

It's just that all too often his grasp of sci-fi is a touch flimsy. Tonight's episode "Midnight" had some of his worst traits in it. The plain generic plot, the simplistic ending, the pop culture references. They were all there. Mixed in with some bonus bad ideas. Like a planet being called Midnight. Seriously???

I did like the build up of the group paranoia though, if maybe a little overdone. The knocking scenes were really effective in a Monkey's Paw way. And I loved how he adapted the line "No, don't do that. Really" when Donna copied the Doctor's accent, changing it from its usual joky approach into being something poignant.

But on the whole it was a lesser ep. An obvious filler ep. Mostly taking place in the smallest set you could possibly ever get in a telly show. To her credit the director Alice Troughton was able to get a lot out of that space. I wonder if she's any relation to Patrick. Doctor Dan probably knows this doesn't he.

I do know David Troughton is related. He's his real-life son, which makes him the second child of a former Doctor to appear in this season. He was rather good tonight.

In fact the tiny cast were universally good. The stand-out being Lesley Sharp. That repeating speech idea might not have worked with a less skilled actor but she really sold that.

The production design and effects team also did sterling work. The brief glimpses of Donna's spa and the alien landscapes looked beautiful.

I think RTD is very fortunate that even on his worst scripts the show's crew always strive to produce something watchable.

I'd say they managed this again. I found it watchable enough for a filler ep. Though at the back of my mind I was constantly thinking 'The next few episodes had better be bloody good!'

“O Goncho” says:

I'm stunned. Seriously stunned.

I've just watched what is easily one of the best Doctor Who's yet. This episode was something rare, something to be treasured - an episode of New Who which relied on real character and suspense, full of genuine creepiness instead of tacky cliches and fish-headed aliens!

After an unexpected accident aboard a... well, aboard something (I missed the intro) the Doctor and a... box... of passengers come into contact with a mysterious lifeform who begins to mimic everything they say. That's really all there is to it, and put like that it sounds a little flat, but the basic premise is used as a chance to explore the dark and violent natures at the heart of humanity, which forces the Doctor to confront his own naive fascination with humans whilst struggling to maintain some degree of control in a situation poised on the brink of chaos. The mimic itself is an ingenius idea, executed flawlessly and proved thoroughly unsettling throughout; forget Moffat's space skeletons, I'm betting this shit will cause a few nightmares tonight.

And to make this roaring success seem all the more shocking, it was written by Russel T. Davis! Stunning. Bravo to the man; I long since gave up hope of him ever producing a Who episode of any worth, but if anything Midnight will now forever stand as the brilliant exception to his otherwise flawlessly bad bibliography.

Still stunned,

“Wilftonville” says:

Russell T begins his four-episode dash to the finish with an almost entirely Donna-less episode that almost single-handedly proves how much the Doctor needs a foil. The twosome have gone for a relaxing spa-break, which brilliantly means something completely different for each of them. While Donna wants to kick back and sunbathe, the Doctor is itching to go see things. If there’s one thing that Davies has always captured well, it’s the personality of the Doctor, and this episode gives him a strong showing. He goes off and leaves Donna (who gets her own Donna-centric episode next week), thus becoming the star of his own show as the trainride he takes is hijacked by… something.

Davies takes this admittedly short premise and plays it as a psychological affair, seeing how different people react to the pressure of, y’know, alien stuff. The Doctor is accompanied by a ragtag gang of clichés, including a professor and his assistant, a family where the son is infinitely smarter than the parents, and the mysterious stranger, played by Lesley Sharp. This is where things fall apart. Whilst the premise is competent enough, Davies flunks because each of his characters has to bend around the will of the plot. Remember how I said the Doctor is always well-characterised? I lied. He’s well characterised until Davies needs him to not be in order to further the plot. The episode thus descends into an array of shouting which gets nobody anywhere.

The atmosphere that was all around during the two library episodes is completely gone, creating an episode that seems strangely dull and certainly not as intense as would be required. Things happen, and I won’t spoil any of them, but they don’t seem to be as bad as the central characters make out. The actors here, by the way – playing it by the book. They’re all decent, and lord knows Lesley Sharp has a VERY difficult job with what her role asks of her… and they’re all competent enough. Nobody really shines out, and by the end you want most of them to die (and maybe they do? I will never tell). Then again, that’s usually the way with supporting casts.

So basically a load of people are trapped in a small area, strange things happen, things escalate, and then there’s a kinda flat ending which doesn’t help matters much. Donna seems to be acknowledged by the entire Dr Who team as a calming presence now, though, which helps the final scene out tremendously. It's nice to see her transition from fishwife to actual person. Overall though, the episode has FILLER written all over it with black marker-pen. It’s not awful by any means, just… competent.

Rating: C.

“DJ Bollocks” says:

Oh good God....

Gay references - check !
Ex Eastenders star - check !
Bottle show - check !

I'm sure someone else will recap this car crash of an episode only notable by I believe a Double Troughton connection - Patrick's brother David and his daughter Alice ?

Can you imagine if they'd gone from the Moff 2 parter to the finale 2 parter... but no we had to have this...

We're half an hour in and I'm so bored - not even interested - the acting is poor, the writing is poor the concept (The Doctor's voice has been stolen) is like something Moff would have gone "Nah, that's a bit shit..." And it's really quite unpleasant to watch people shouting badly at each other because the writer or director couldn't come up with any better way to bring the idea to life.

What are we left at the end ? Pretty indifferent really until the "Next Week" trail comes up with the Doctor apparently dead, Donna with something on her back and Rose saying that Donna's already dead...

“Kelvington” says:

As filler episodes go, this one isn’t terrible. It’s a nice mix of Twilight Zone, and Airport. Now while this is NOT the Doctor-less episode we get every year, it is a Donna-less one, and that’s not a bad thing. As much I’ve been enjoying Donna this year, it’s nice to get a little breather from her, this go round.

The action is very standard, truck/plane is flying along, it breaks down, people panic, people die. Lots of great moments of panic and not knowing what’s going on, (very TZone-ish) and the Doctor trying to be the calm in the eye of the storm.

We hear how impossible it is to live outside the ship, thanks to an handy expert of the planet, and how NO ONE EVER has come here before. This type of obvious foreshadowing is neither original or new, but it is something we’ve come to expect from RTD. Complete with a bit of Trek thrashing about, a glimpse of Rose.

This was a very cost effective episode, and is just a nice easy one to get you set up for the what will no doubt be a race for the finish of the series. This could have been an opportunity to do a Doctor Who episode live, since it mostly takes place on one little set.

While I didn’t hate this episode, it did feel very familiar and very much like the flying cars episode last year. It won’t go down as the worse Who ever, but I doubt it will be remembered as anything more than filler.

Just my 2¢

“Palimpsest” says:

Hey Herc

In short, another excellent episode from the quality season 4 of WHO. This week, we're Donna-lite as the Doctor and Donna go off for a holiday. Except Donna decides to so sunbathing while the Doc takes an excursion to the nearby local beauty spot, the Sapphire Waterfall. Except in the shuttle vehicle taking him and a few tourists there, things start to go awry...

"Midnight" has clear debts to the TWILIGHT ZONE ep "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" and to various eps of UK cult scifi SAPPHIRE AND STEEL (or, hell RIO BRAVO, depending on how you look at it), but it's none the less entertaining for that.

Basically, there's a something outside that wants to get in - or might have found a way in. Cue shouting, possession, lotsa proper acting, Christina Rosetti's poem "Goblin Market" and a hefty emotional impact.

Solidly entertaining, and a real actor piece. Tennant is terrific throughout, particularly in the very effective coda, which sets things up nicely for a dark, dark season climax...

Till then, then!