Rate "Night Terrors"

Are we really at episode 9? Well, we have a Mark Gatiss script on offer, and personally, I'm confident it can't be any worse than Victory of the Daleks. You'd have to work hard for that outcome.

But, I'm going to close my eyes and wish really hard that we get something "Unquiet Dead" or better. Fingers crossed.

Tell us what you thought of this episode.

As is normal operating procedure, this thread will remain locked until after UK transmission of "Night Terrors". That means viewers on the other side of the pond, like Zoltar and myself, should studiously avoid this thread until it airs on BBC-America later in the day, to avoid potential spoilers. Cripes, that means I have to unlock it and risk being spoiled. Still, needs must.

Let's be hearing from you!

Patrick wrote: I'm confident it can't be any worse than Victory of the Daleks

Damned by faint praise indeed...........

Thought the tension built up very nicely but the ending was far, far too hurried. In many ways a classic Gatiss episode.

Gotta love Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday!

i found it quite scary...but a hurried and pat ending.

definitely preferred it to mark's other episodes though...

Gattis' best episode so far.

barnaby morbius wrote: a hurried and pat ending.

Did he make a cameo? Bugger, I missed it.

What Rich said. And maybe it's because I'm a new father, but it worked on an emotional level in a way that Gattis' last two stories failed to. As did the ending.

4/5

This episode was filmed a whole year ago as part of Block One, and was meant to be broadcast as episode 3. So this would have been ganger Amy.

Wish we were told how and why the dolls transformed newly miniaturised folk into other dolls.

I liked that one, nice and spooky. I wonder if the landlord's going to be a bit less of a bully now that he's had the wits scared out of him. I gave it a 4/5.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:Wish we were told how and why the dolls transformed newly miniaturised folk into other dolls.

Well, the "how" seems to be that little George has reality alteration powers. So he was doing it all, the dolls were just a manifestation of that. As for why, cos it's creepy, I suspect.

Full marks to Gatiss, that was properly scary. Those animated wooden dolls are the sort of thing that probably have children all over the world terrified to go to sleep tonight.

I am intrigued, though, but I'm what I'm sensing as a running current of the problems of parenthood as a theme in this series. We've had Captain Avery having to assume the roll of reluctant father to his son in Curse of the Black Spot. We've had the gangers as the figurative children of humanity. We had the 'big reveal' that River Song is Amy and Rory's daughter, Melody, and we've now seen what a problem child she became. And now we have George, the son/not son of Alex, whose nightmares got locked up in a closet until he could confront them.

On it's own merits, thought, Night Terrors was a terrific story. I loved the Poltergeist homage as the Doctor and Alex got pulled into the closet.

4/5 from me.

Overall it was good but not 5/5 cause that kid was SO annoying saying "Please save me from the monsters" the whole time.

I found it a bit dull, to be honest - not a bad episode, which was a relief after Gatiss' previous trainwreck, but just nothing that special. It was trying to be scary, but it felt very much by-the-numbers to me, as if it was running through a big list of 'things that are scary' in an effort to find something that would cause a reaction. I'm surprised Matthew Graham didn't get a credit, seeing as the story was borrowing a hell of a lot from Fear Her.

Well, this week's was a great improvement. Nice to be able to say that about a Gatiss episode. I thought the ending was great.

I very much preferred this episode to last week's Let's Kill Hitler which left me feeling very despondent. I'll give Night Terrors a 4.

This has gone down far better than I expected. Fair play to Gatiss.

Compliments in fact. I rather enjoyed many things about his first, Unquiet Dead, including the writing.

In this case the writing was better than some of the direction/acting/characters performing it, which had, to my opinion, none too much charm (in the sense of being involving) and overplayed a bit. Also some of the ending was a bit rushed and jumbled (which may be in the adaptation/rewriting to fit the series and not what Gatiss would have intended). Good creepy creative ideas and work on that end. More straight ahead on story aims than many of late and successful at it. I concur with the folks rating 4/5.

Night Terrors – perhaps a far more realistically pragmatic title would have been “Mark Gatiss Delivers Up Yet Another Generic Offering Which Features Characters Claiming To Be The Doctor, Amy and Rory, but Who Could Just As Easily Have Been Any Doctor And Any Combination Of Companions Being Threatened By An Instantly Forgettable Alien Engendered Menace While Cardboard Cut-Out Secondary Characters Fail To Engage On Any Emotional Level Whatsoever As They Lurch As Unsteadily As The Saving-Grace Creepily Designed Dolls From One Predictable Set-Piece To Another Before We Finally Arrive At The Tacked-On End Coda Which Clumsily Reminds Us That What We Have Just Spent The Past Forty-Five Minutes Watching Was The Instantly Disposable, 99 Pence Shop, Filler Plonked Between The Two Rounds Of Bread Which Contain The Real Over-Arcing, On-Going Season Plotline. Gatiss’ Annual Offering Is Swiftly Becoming The Series’ Most Predictable, Enduring And Sadly Less Than Amusing Punchline.”

3/5 And that’s purely for the direction, production design and the fact that Matt Smith and Co treat the material as something far more deserving than it is.