Perchance a Dream

November 18, 2015

Review of Sleep No More
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Mark Gatiss scripts are always hit or miss for me. I have really enjoyed a couple of them, especially The Unquiet Dead, but others have fallen flat for me. This entire season has been really strong (in my opinion), though, so knowing Gatiss was the writer on this episode, I went in feeling cautiously optimistic.

I came out the other end of the story rather confused—not by the plot itself so much as by how I felt about it all. After my second viewing, though, I think I finally figured out where I stand: with opposing opinions depending on how I look at it. As a writer, I found the episode to be a fascinating experiment using a worthy storytelling conceit; as a fan, I didn’t particularly like it.

Much of the online reaction I’ve seen centers on the “found footage” style. Some folks are touting it as a bold, new direction, while others feel it was a mistake of epic proportions. As usual, the truth probably lies somewhere between the extremes. Given the nature of the story, the found footage format (say that twelve times fast) strikes me as a perfect fit. It adds to the creepiness and makes the camera POVs part of the narrative itself. However, I found it incredibly off-putting. I’ve simply never been a fan of that style of film, and found it difficult to look past.

The whole “sleep dust is going to consume you and turn you into a monster” thing is just another twist on Moffat’s tried-and-true plan to find something ordinary and make it scary, done Gatiss style. That’s brilliant. But it didn’t work for me. I mean, I’m sure some viewers found it terrifying (there are undoubtedly plenty of newly traumatized children out there this week). As a concept it’s great. I simply couldn’t buy into it.

In fact, I found it so pedestrian, I barely have any notes on the story, and much of those are quotes I liked. For example, I loved when they first heard the howls of the Sandmen and the Doctor says to Clara, “Hold my hand.”

“I’m okay,” she replies dismissively.

“I’m not.”

That exchange, along with the part where the Doctor exhorts Chief Nagata not to leave the cold room to go after the others and presumably die almost instantly—”They wouldn’t thank you for that. Nor you, Clara.”—makes me think he’s still brooding on what he knows of Clara’s impending fate. Perhaps it’s been too strongly telegraphed as such for it actually to be her death (Moffat does like a good, old-fashioned bait and switch), but regardless, we’ve been given further clues in this episode that he knows it’s coming, whatever “it” is.

I also liked the lampshade about the more mundane moments of the Doctor’s existence. “Even I sleep,” he says.

“When?” Clara asks in an incredulous tone.

“Well, when you’re not looking.”

There were some nice callbacks to earlier eras, too (as there usually are with Gatiss). One exchange that brought up a non-UNIT dating controversy:

“No, you don’t get to name things. I’m the Doctor. I do the naming!”

“All right. Sorry.”

“It’s like the Silurians all over again.”

Then there was the moment the Doctor channelled his Second incarnation: “When I say ‘run,’ run!”

From a writing standpoint, I can appreciate a lot of what Gatiss did with this script. He offered little insights into the Indo-Japanese culture of the 38th century (e.g., characters’ frequent use of the phrase “may the gods look favorably upon you”), he gave even poor 474 her own minor character arc, and he hit all the usual beats for dramatic tension—while drawing attention to the fact that he’d done so.

Was Clara’s exclamation that “This day couldn’t get any worse!” supposed to be real coincidence, some influence of the Morpheus machine, or dubbed into the film later by the Rassmussen Sandman (because it was exactly the kind of storytelling cliché that Rassmussen’s film needed)? That’s the kind of ambiguity that will keep fans arguing about whether this episode was brilliant or pants for years.

Of course, if Gatiss ever writes the next part of the story (originally it was a two-parter, and there’s been reference to him possibly writing a sequel at some point), maybe we’ll learn more. The Doctor’s clearly aware that something’s off here, and the fact that even their escape was orchestrated will eventually become clear to him as he ruminates on the way everything unfolded “like a story,” so perhaps he’ll have a plan by the time he encounters the Sandmen again.

Until then, I prefer to pretend this whole episode was just a dream. Maybe then I can forget it.