"Midnight"

There are many Doctor Who stories that have the Doctor turning up to find a crisis, winning over the dissenters, quelling the enemy and saving the day. This is not what happens in "Midnight". The Doctor is on the eponymous planet and decides to take a trip to see its famous Sapphire Waterfall. He makes friends with his co-travellers and everything seems peachy. Then, a threat emerges and the Doctor, to use a bit of an understatement, loses the room. Russell T Davies weaves one of the most frightening tales the programme has told. The threat is inexplicable at the start and equally inexplicable at the end and the way it manifests itself is simple, yet extremely creepy. Banging and knocking is heard outside the bus and the lights go out. When they go back on, the front seats have been ripped up and Sky Silvestry, one of the passengers, is behaving rather oddly. First she repeats what everyone is saying, then speaks simultaneously, first with all of them, then with the Doctor alone. And it has only just begun.

In such a claustrophobic setting (influenced by Hitchcock's Lifeboat) characters are important. What we have here are various types, ranging from a professor and his assistant to an ordinary family. The Doctor, as said before, establishes a rapport with them. But as the entity asserts itself, the Doctor finds out his charm does not work. Instead of being reassured by him, they are annoyed and finally enraged. Instead of them finding the best in themselves, they give way to their worst. The Doctor’s usual tricks do not work; when they are discussing whether or not to throw the possessed Sky out of the airlock, the Doctor’s ‘Could you really do it?’ is answered immediately in the affirmative. In the end, the creature speaks the Doctor’s words before he does and the rest of the passengers are all too keen to believe that the creature has possessed the Doctor- it is easier to deal with a practically catatonic man. It is only the doubts of the Hostess that enable the day to be saved, as she sacrifices herself to launch Sky out of the airlock. The survivors make the return journey in silence. Throughout all of this, one thing is clear- no-one but Sky and (at the end) the Doctor were affected by the creature- all that foulness came from their own frightened souls. These characters are played to perfection by a very talented cast. David Troughton is, of course, one of the finest actors in the country and he makes Professor Hobbes seem at first to be a likeable old academic who then gives way to his jealousy as he finds he is not the smartest man in the room. Lindsey Coulson and Daniel Ryan effectively play a couple who suggest that The Daily Mail is still in circulation in the far-future. Everyone’s favourite jug-eared young warlock, Colin Morgan, plays their son. In the key role of Sky Silvestry, Lesley Sharp is astonishing, even on the merely technical level of her repetition and simultaneous talking. She effortlessly changes her bearing and gait throughout the episode to awesome and chilling effect, making the unnamed creature a truly memorable foe.

Alice Troughton directs with great confidence, squeezing every drop of tension from the scenes. There is a wonderful sequence where the Doctor, Driver Joe and Claude the mechanic look onto the Midnight landscape- and Claude swears he sees a shadow moving quickly towards them. We see nothing, but this simple scene is so well done that we half-remember seeing the shadow. The sound design is exemplary, adding to the sense of claustrophobic terror- and it goes without saying that the matte paintings for the Midnight planetscapes are spectacular.

Donna once said that the Doctor needs someone to stop him. "Midnight" shows that sometimes he just needs someone to help him connect, in a masterful 45 minutes of humour, tension and real scares.

NEXT: "Turn Left"

"The Doctor's Daughter"

...And so, the TARDIS whisks off Martha, together with the Doctor and Donna to Messaline, a planet that is the location of a war between humans and Hath, a race of fish-like humanoids. The war has a horrendously high body count, which is why cloning machines replenish the fighting force daily. Sure enough, when the TARDIS crew arrives, the Doctor accidentally sticks his hand into one of these machines to produce... well, you know! The world of Messaline is certainly an intriguing one and Stephen Greenhorn comes up with some intriguing ideas. The trouble is, there is simply too much plot for any of these ideas to be properly explored. A common criticism of the new series is that single 45-minute episodes mean that stories are rushed. I do not agree with this, but it is certainly a valid criticism of this story. A two-part version would have let the story breathe and improved it no end. In addition, there are some plot problems. For example, Donna discovers that the war has only been going on for seven days (yes, yes, Genesis chapter 1) but General Cobb is clearly not a fresh clone. Does he know the truth, or is it just an oversight by the writers? The quest for the Source is the driving force for the two armies, yet there is no time for this to be explored properly, making the closing act a bit half-baked.

Alice Troughton makes it all look fantastic, and she is helped by the usual sterling work of the production team- Messaline is excellently realised, with some fantastically stark CG landscapes. The script doesn’t exactly have the most original characters, so it is a relief that the cast is so good. Nigel Terry gives Cobb a real sense of authority and Joe Dempsie is good as Cline. However, it is the title character, played by Georgia Moffett, who is the most memorable. Jenny might not be the best written character, but Georgia is incredibly charismatic and likeable. It is great to see Martha travelling in the TARDIS again and her isolation from the others means that she really shines in her scenes with the Hath (can she understand them, or is she a good guesser?) although the scene where she is rescued from the quicksand could have used a different take, as it doesn't show Frema at her best as an actor. David Tennant is great as usual- the scene with the toy mouse is priceless and his changing attitude to Jenny is excellently portrayed, particularly Jenny's apparent death.

This is good fun as a story, but it really isn’t anything to get too excited about. With a two-parter, Greenhorn could have written a very arresting sci-fi tale. He is by no means a bad writer, however- there is some excellent dialogue and it is worth checking out- though probably not as your first episode!

NEXT: "The Unicorn and the Wasp"