Friday, June 20, 2008

Doctor Who S04E10-Midnight

While Donna sunbathes in the pleasure palace on the planet Midnight, The Doctor boards a local flight to witness the beautiful crystal waterfalls of the planet. All is going well on board for most of the trip: the passengers are friendly and the mood is absolutely pleasant. That is, until a mysterious force attacks the ship and infects one of the passengers. Trapped in the middle of nowhere with help a long ways off, The Doctor soon finds himself just as helpless as everyone else as fear and paranoia quickly grip the passengers.

I’ll give Russell T. Davies one thing; if he wants to he can almost absolutely find new and unusual ways to blow an audience away with a Doctor Who serial. And here with “Midnight” he both succeeds and fails in this regard.

First, this is not your ordinary Doctor Who outing. It is more a psychological thriller/horror piece designed to terrify and genuinlly freak out to the best of its ability. Again, as with “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead”, the supporting characters are typecast in roles that fit such a genre story such as this. Even The Doctor finds himself out of character, a man not in control of the situation but rather the soon to be helpless victim of a paranoid crew determined to use the airlock on him. Props again to David Tennant for showing another side of The Doctor we have never seen before.

However, putting the story in one tiny setting is something that I feel should be reserved for only those seven minute “Children in Need” specials Doctor Who has done in the past. Doctor Who to me is supposed to be above and beyond epic proportions. Keeping the story confined to one tiny shuttle for 45 minutes can be as effective to the horror atmosphere as it was aggravating for me hoping that the story would move elsewhere for a minute or two.

So yeah, this is a mixed episode, both excellent and frustrating as well. Luckilly, Davies must again be given credit for trying something new with the series. I’m sure he will take what this episode did best and be sure to add it to future installments if he opts to stay on as a guest writer in the series future.

Next Week: As Donna’s world falls down around her…Rose Tyler returns to help her save The Doctor and the world. I think the important part is that after a year and a half of waiting…ROSE IS BACK!!!

Rating-8/10

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