Sleep No More Review
Clint Hassell gives his verdict on the ninth episode of Series 9.
It’s difficult to not cheer on Mark Gatiss. Like Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat, or David Tennant and Peter Capaldi, Gatiss is a life-long Whovian both talented and lucky enough to actually affect Doctor Who’s official canon. This is part of the reason why it is so frustrating that his episodes are wildly uneven. For every Gatiss-penned episode that finds just the right balance between madcap adventure and dark science fiction (“The Unquiet Dead,” “The Crimson Horror”), or that capably mines the emotional context of its characters (“Night Terrors”), there is an episode as nonsensical as “The Idiot’s Lantern,” boring and joyless as “Victory of the Daleks,” or inane as “Robot of Sherwood.”
Unfortunately, Gatiss’ latest script most resembles his previous “Cold War,” which failed to capitalize on the potential inherent to its title. A standard “base under siege” episode with an unoriginal “new technology has a nasty, unforeseen side effect” plot, “Sleep No More” seems better suited as a comic strip adventure in a Doctor Who Annual. With several scenes contributing nothing to the overall plot – – Deep-Ando having to sing “Mr. Sandman,” being the worst offender – – the episode seems to be a 25-minute idea stretched to fit a 45-minute run time.
To differentiate its timeworn plot, the episode is presented as found footage, a narrative challenge that “Sleep No More” doesn’t even pretend to meet. The joy of watching a found footage film is in appreciating how filmmakers cleverly tell a complete story using only the specific camera angles that can be believably justified within the context of the narrative. Rather than constraining itself to footage from, say, Clara’s cell phone, the rescue team’s helmet or chest cams, or the station’s closed-circuit television (the lack of which strains credulity), and then rising to the task of explaining how said footage becomes edited together, “Sleep No More” presents “sleep dust” as having vague video recording and transmitting properties to explain its continued use of traditional, omniscient camera angles. Yes, a found footage episode of Doctor Who can be done well – – see the fiftieth anniversary minisode, “The Last Day,” as an example – – but it requires a vastly different narrative style and tone than a traditional adventure.
In most episodes, the Doctor/companion dynamic is structured to allow the Doctor to be the de facto narrator. The companion, an audience surrogate, asks questions, which the Time Lord answers, feeding information to the viewer in a way that is less overt than an infodump. Since, by definition, a true found footage episode would be less focused on the Doctor, it would allow the audience a unique, almost voyeuristic perspective on the Time Lord. “Love & Monsters” utilizes this concept effectively. By focusing on Elton Pope, the episode is able to examine how the Doctor both adversely affects and inspires those around him, and the sadness of living in the Time Lord’s wake, in a way that no other episode has quite matched. Because “Sleep No More” tells its story from the Doctor’s point-of-view, Rassmussen’s fourth wall-breaking narration is mostly redundant, as there are now two central figures guiding the story.
Unfortunately, the extraneous narration means that there is little time for character development. As a result, of the newly-introduced characters, only Grunt 474 is in any way developed. True, the base-under-seige plot practically requires that some of the characters are written into the script for the sole purpose of dying, in order to establish stakes, however, it is possible for good characters to make a lasting impression in a short amount of time (see: Lynda “with a ‘Y’” Moss, Jenny, Adelaide Brooke, Journey Blue, or Shona McCullough – – all from base-under-siege stories). The rescue team are the definition of “red shirts” and never rise above the stereotype. Further, neither the Doctor, nor Clara are expanded upon, with only the briefest mention of Clara’s impending doom as advancement of any ongoing theme.
It is evident that Gatiss tries to imbue an everyday occurrence – – this time, the “sleep” in the corner of one’s eye – – with malice, much like Steven Moffat mined angel statues, shadows, and the fear of what’s behind you to create iconic episodes. However, the sleep monsters amount to little more than the shuffling zombies seen in “Journey to the Centre of the Tardis.” The reasoning behind the Sandmen is nonsensical, at best, so the narrative strains when it asks the audience to invest in the monsters’ “scariness.” Worse, the episode’s final scene reveals the Sandmen to be capable shapeshifters. Not only does Doctor Who’s canon not need yet another shapeshifting monster, the reveal is particularly poorly timed, directly following a two-part Zygon adventure.
Surprisingly, “Sleep No More” makes no use of sleep motifs or dream imagery. Perhaps, this is to differentiate the episode from the recent “Last Christmas,” or from “Amy’s Choice.” Instead, this episode pins all of its twisted story logic – – the station’s angtigravs shutting down, the monsters being blind – – on Rassmussen’s creating a “story.” In doing so, Gatiss misses an opportunity to offer a meta take on the construction of a standard Doctor Who episode. Yes, the viewer is given an in-narrative reason as to why events are so ridiculously convenient, but that doesn’t make the episode any less painful to watch.
Frustratingly, there are seeds of a great episode present in “Sleep No More,” none of which see fruition. Small hints of cultural context, like the repeated phrase, “May the gods look favorably upon you,” beg the audience to question which “gods” exist in the 38th century. Grunt 474, with its crush on Chopra, broaches the subject of grunts grown for pleasure. What are the moral guidelines in growing an army? Isn’t that better than killing already existing people? Isn’t this how the Sontarans operate? How is this ethically different from planting trees for the sole purpose of harvesting them to make paper? Would creating a grunt expressly as a service clone be better than slavery?
In fact, the biggest fault with “Sleep No More” is that it fails to examine a society that no longer sleeps. Great science fiction uses fantastic plot elements to examine some aspect of the human condition; “Sleep No More” certainly contains the former, but fails to capitalize on the latter. The Doctor gives a grand speech about how sleep is “essential to every sentient being in the universe,” but doesn’t explain why, only that “it keeps us safe . . . from the monsters inside.” Rassmussen teases that the Mopheus system has “changed Triton society forever,” but the episode never makes it to the moon’s surface to examine how. With more available time to spend with family, are relationship dynamics different? Do Tritonian “wide awakes” ever truly feel “rested”? Has science and economics indeed prospered? Is time demarcated differently, since days and nights now endlessly flow one into the other? Most importantly, what effect does the elimination of dreams have on a person’s psyche and on society as a whole?
It’s a shame that a writer with Gatiss’ passion and talent couldn’t produce a better script. Perhaps, freed from the constraints of its found footage conceit and its extraneous narration, “Sleep No More” could have focused more on the sense of muted panic that defines insomnia, or on the interesting social implications of its premise, rather than a substandard monster-of-the-week. Unfortunately, with Gatiss asleep at the wheel, the episode ends up being less “dreamy” and more of a snoozefest.
