Series 9 - Sleep No More

Busy, busy and WAAAYYY behind on things so expect a mini flood of entries over the next few days! First off, I’ll take a look at what seems to be one of the most divisive episodes of Series 9, “Sleep No More”.

Spoilers Ahead!!

        When I first learned that this was going to be a “found footage” episode, I was happily intrigued. I remember seeing The Blair Witch Project back in the day, but since then I haven’t watched many found footage movies to have a definitive opinion on the sub-genre. (One exception is Chronicle, a pretty refreshing take on superhero movies with a great build-up but mediocre third act). It was also a Mark Gatiss script whom I usually enjoy, even if his stories tend not to be my favorite of any given season. All in all, I was predisposed to get some enjoyment out of this story, and I did. Is it the best of the season? Not by a long shot, frankly, and I might even rate at the bottom of the poll for Season 9. To be honest though, Season 9 has been so good, that even stories which don’t necessarily rock my world are still worthy of some kudos.

          And kudos I have. The “found footage” aspect of the story, at first just appears to be a gimmick, a bit of playful cinematography and script writing. The idea that the way we as viewers are seeing the story unfold is actually a plot point was a clever bit of misdirection. The reveal was done so subtly that I almost missed it the first time watching. I also enjoyed the multi-cultural, Indo-Japanese make-up of the rescue crew. Between this and the “Under the lake” two-parter there’s been a definite uptick in the diversity of casting this year. Additionally, the actress playing the grunt, Bethany Black, is the show’s first trans actress, and was refreshingly not playing a trans character.

          The concept for the story itself was good, but there was just *something* I can’t quite put my finger on that didn’t quite jell for me. I LOVED the use of “Mr. Sandman” and the Sandmen themselves were realized pretty well. I do think they were well served by the low lighting in the story; I’m not sure how well they’d do in some brightly lit corridors.

          Reece Shearsmith. As I sit and write this, I keep coming back to his performance as Rassmussen, and I think it’s one of the biggest stumbling blocks in this story. It was obvious from the beginning that he would be the villain of the piece, and not the big eye-booger monsters. But even with that knowledge, there was no real subtlety to the performance, nothing that could make a viewer second guess Rassmussen. Even his “death” halfway through was anti-climactic since he is the one narrating. “Of course, I’m not dead” doesn’t really cut it and completely undermines the Doctor and company’s discovery of him later.

We, as the audience shouldn’t be steps ahead of the Doctor. Yes, the Doctor lost in this one, and that’s a fair dramatic conceit – he’s our hero, but he IS fallible. What is a sticking point is that the Doctor doesn’t know the extent to which has lost. Gatiss has said he has a second part to this story in mind, and I’ve heard (rumors only) that it could be a prequel. Either way, I’m not necessarily keen on a return to this story without some major overhauling. 

Wow, my vehemence above makes me realize that I have stronger feelings on this story than I thought! I’m still a fan of Mark Gatiss, both as actor and writer. Heck, I still have Nightshade, his first Doctor Who book up on my shelf of NA’s! “Sleep No More” isn’t his strongest work, not by a long shot. Personally I’m still a big fan of “The Unquiet Dead” from Series One. “Sleep No More” attempted to be different which always scores points in my book, but not everything worked together to really make this episode special. If there’s a good way to do it, I’d love to see another try on found footage, but as it stands, this attempt is less than successful.