Sleep No More
Story 259, Episodes 822, Series 9 Episode 9
Doctor: The Twelfth Doctor
Companion: Clara Oswald
It’s the 38th Century, and we’ve finally found a way to conquer sleep. But what if sleep is saving us from something far more dangerous?
The Review
This episode uses entirely perspective-based camera work, either from the point of view of some characters or from security cameras. It creates a very unique effect as the Doctor and Clara stumble upon a rescue team, and a base that is being overrun by sleep dust monsters. You know, the stuff that gets in your eye? Semblances to the Flood aside, and weirdness of the idea aside, it somehow worked.
People fall one by one, gravity shields fails, the Morpheus inventor is found, killed, then survives again. The cameras are tiny pieces of the sleep dust monsters. At the end, the inventor is revealed to have been in cahoots with the monsters, and is killed by Ngata, the only rescue team member who lives.
But the twist is that the inventor was making a great story for people to watch this ‘found footage’, and it contains a digital bug that will make more sleepy creatures. And the Doctor doesn’t know. And that’s it! Really, the episode kept me guessing the entire way through, and had an ending that left it completely wide open. The Doctor loses! The end! I thought the cinematography was fun, the fact that the monsters win was fun. Overall, I was quite entertained.
Although moving a bit fast, and with some bizarre villains (although the ‘Mr. Sandman’ song for the sleep-destroying Morpheus chamber was cool), Sleep No More proves to be another great episode. And in the end, the bad guy wins! The Doctor so often has his pawns, but in this episode he was thoroughly made one.
9/10. ‘Found footage’ makes for a fun departure for normal Doctor Who, and the Flood actually wins this round.
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