12 Great Moments From Sleep No More

Mark McCullough picks out 12 faves from the 9th episode of Series 9.

How do you follow up something like The Zygon Inversion? That’s the question that has been in the back of my mind since last week. The obvious answer was a change of style in how the episode was presented, and an attempt at something completely new for Doctor Who. So in the spirit of tradition, instead of an article this week I’m giving you a video of me writing the article. Enjoy!

Obviously I’m joking, that would be incredibly boring for you all and too big a risk. And that’s my opinion towards found footage in general, it’s an odd almost uncomfortable perspective that often leaves gaps in the story and very rarely comes off as entertaining as would otherwise be possible. This week’s Doctor Who may have just proved the exception to that, which was a pleasant surprise. Although it has to be said, a task of writing 2000 words on something I don’t fully understand feels more like a Uni essay than a DWTV article: but let’s see what happens anyway.

NOTE: These aren’t in order of quality this week, I thought it might be more useful to pick twelve in the order that makes the narrative as congruent as possible

The Intro

Technically not a pre-titles scene because this episode was one which didn’t feature the traditional titles scene, but that fits the theme of the narrative and reinforces the fact that this was far from a typical episode of Doctor Who. This scene is actually pretty important when it comes to understanding the episode and is essentially a warning. We have our narrator established as Rassmussen, which means we have to bear in mind that his perspective is the one which we are going to see things from. He warns us that there are bits missing because he doesn’t fully understand what is going on, this explains the gaps in the narrative and the apparent plot holes. How can we see something that Rassmussen doesn’t know about? For me this is one of the most important concepts of the episode to grasp.

The Crew’s Intro

The start of the episode was always going to need to be quite strong to introduce the audience not only to a completely new set of characters, but also a new way of telling a story. I’ll admit that the found footage effect did take a little time to get used to, however once you got past that I found it to be very effective and extremely well utilised by director Justin Molotnikov still giving off a polished finish to the episode. A particular highlight of this scene was how the dog-tags were used to introduce us to the team, it gave us enough to make everyone feel unique and was possibly the quickest I’ve ever remembered character names within an episode.

Enter the Doctor

The Doctor’s arrival is one of the few light-hearted moments in this episode, and was very welcome as such. It was nice to see our heroes arriving from a different perspective this time. Normally we arrive to an adventure as they do, this time however we meet them mid-adventure, albeit only a few minutes in. Given the unfamiliarity of the episode and the general uneasiness created by the atmosphere and direction I can say it was particularly reassuring when the Doctor appeared. I don’t think I’ve ever actually appreciated the security his presence gives to an episode until now. It was also quite nice to see Nagata put him in his place and quickly establish the fact that she was in charge and he would follow her orders.

Morpheus Machines

Can I have a Morpheus machine, please? It would honestly make life so much easier. I think it is something that everyone can relate to, the fact that there is so much to do, and not enough time to do it in. That’s why I love the concept behind this episode, because it is something I could actually see myself using. Of course this being Doctor Who there has to be some sort of drawback, otherwise the episode would have been pretty pointless, but we’ll get to that next. It is slightly disturbing however to consider that society would encourage this to makes its people more productive. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Sleep Dust

The consequences of using the Morpheus machines turned out to be a rather brutal one that drew on elements of real life and terrorised them. I’m sure everyone is aware of the presence of sleep dust in your eyes when you wake up. The episode takes this, magnifies it creating a horrible creature which wants to eat and digest you. Terrifying thought. But also a useful one too when you remember Doctor Who is a family show. I wonder how many families struggled to get children to go to bed last night. I suspect not a lot, just another valuable life hack from Doctor Who Series Nine!

The Gravity Shields Fail

Something which at the time seemed innocent but eventually turned out to be part of the plan all along was the fact that the gravity shields failed and the ship began to plummet to Neptune. This allowed for the monsters to get into the area where the Doctor was, allowed Rassmussen to escape and split 474 and Chopra from the rest of the group. This allowed the episode to progress nicely onto its next act. Something else to note here is the similarity between a previous Gatiss script, Cold War, where a falling sub also occurred at the same time as a monster attack.

474’s Sacrifice

Going by my regular ranking system this moment would probably have taken the top spot. That statement might surprise you, but in reality it shouldn’t. Throughout the narrative 474 is presented as sub-human, she was grown in a hatchery, and has sub-optimal intellect. Yet despite this she is the only character in the narrative that actually does anything heroic, which in light of what the Doctor does later is even more impressive. So why is this a big deal within the story? Because it reinforces the message that Doctor who has delivered on numerous other occasions: All you need to be a hero is a good heart. I’m the type of soppy git who will always rank that as a top moment.

We don’t have Helmet Cams

Sadly I picked up on the fact that some of the perspectives we had seen so far should have been impossible, so I was waiting on this type of reveal. Nonetheless it was still delivered extremely effectively and was extremely chilling. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Then we also have the reveal that the protagonists (who had used Morpheus) were having their visual systems hacked. This included Clara which is perhaps the only flaw of the episode in that nothing ever came of it. But I guess we have to assume the Doctor sorted this without Rassmussen’s knowledge

Rassmussen’s Nature Revealed

I’ve chosen to highlight the scene where it is revealed that Rassmussen had not been as innocent as he had pretended to be all along because of its importance in the context of the narrative. Bear in mind that this is our narrator, so these are his version of events. He can paint any character in any light he wants. But it does limit the scope of the episode somewhat in relation to the viewer’s experience. Normally we know everything about what the Doctor or companion is doing outside of what Rassmussen knows. For example let’s take the key aspect of their arrival at the start, as far as we know they have just arrived, but have they? It’s the first they have been witnessed as being there, but who really knows how long they had been there for, or what they got up to.

The Doctor escapes in the TARDIS

I’m sorry but there is no way this scene sits right for me at all. The Doctor running from a situation where he (like the viewer I suppose) has no idea what’s going on. This doesn’t seem like the man who went back in time to find the origin of the ghost a mere few episode ago, it’s just not in the Doctor’s character to run away when there is something to fight for. He knows the stakes here and that the whole human race is in danger. Granted in leaving his goal was to try and save the scenario, but I refuse to believe that he was actually blind to what was really going on all along. Then there’s Nagata who we aren’t actually 100% sure what happened to due to a change in camera angle. The only thing I would be sure of is there is no way the Doctor actually left her for dead.

Rassmussen’s Apparent Victory

As far as episode endings go, this one is something else. The revelation that the episode itself had actually been the plan all along was a stroke of genius from Gatiss and something I found to be very meta. I can almost imagine Gatiss saying to himself as he finished the episode “I do hope you’ve enjoyed the show. I did try to make it exciting. All those scary bits. All those death-defying scrapes, monsters, and a proper climax with a really big one at the end! Compulsive viewing” because it genuinely was, one of the most exhilarating pieces of television I have seen in a while. Not only that but it appeared to give me something I’ve wanted for a while, and episode where the Doctor loses. Yet still I refuse to believe it…

The Lack of Communication

The actual driving force behind the narrative was something that went largely unnoticed by any of the characters within it. This was the fact that the station went dark 24 hours prior to the events of the narrative, and the fact that the crew members were unable to communicate with each other despite the fact that their devices were otherwise functional and able to display maps of the station. Why do I feel this was important? Because as mentioned in the previous point, I don’t think it is in the Doctor’s character to just leave, especially when he doesn’t have all the answers. But remember too, we see the perspective of Rassmussen only, which means we see things from the antagonist’s eyes. Therefore what I believe to be the case is that it was the Doctor who disabled all forms of communication on the ship, which would have also included transmission of the message itself. This means we only think Rassmussen’s plan worked because he died thinking it did. The timing of the episode’s ending would have corresponded nicely with his death as he crashed to Neptune. We were told there was going to be gaps in the story, but Gatiss gave us enough to fill them in ourselves.

Conclusion

I wanted to add a conclusion this week to congratulate Mark Gatiss on an astounding script, clever with interesting characters, full of twists and turns and tense from first moment to last. It was a risk to try something so bold, and Gatiss is one of the few writers who could actually pull it off. It’s just a pity much of his work is undervalued by some of the fandom. I for one certainly can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!