Rate & Discuss 4.10: Midnight

[Pip Madeley]

The Doctor is trapped, powerless and terrified, on the planet Midnight, as the knocking on the wall begins...

No spoilers/voting before 8pm!

Also, no discussion about next week's episode please - there's a thread for that HERE. Thanks!

[Dirk Gently]

I'm not sure about calling 10/10 Police Academy 7? Event Horizon would be better.

[Pip Madeley]

Police Academy 7 is terrifying in its own strange way.

[Dirk Gently]

Scary? No. Bloody awful, yes.

[Alex]

Hmmm, can't say I enjoyed that really. Nearly all the characters (bar perhaps the professor and Dee) were caricatures, there was no real tension for me as the Doctor was always going to survive, and it just dragged and dragged and dragged. I've given it 5/10, because it wasn't terrible in any way, just horribly average.

Ah well, next week's looks good at least!

[Rob McCow]

Here we go...

That was bloody fantastic! Outstripped last week to be my favourite episode of the season so far. Tense and brilliant and I loved the creepy copying of everything they said. The direction was great, bringing out the claustrophobia of the set and keeping moving, giving it pace.



I don't know what I'll think about it in a month's time, but for now that was an astounding piece of entertainment. Yay!

[Stephen Morgan]

Well, I MIGHT want to look at that one again, but first impressions.. what a load of nonsense.

[Pip Madeley]

That deserves a 9 - wordy, chilling, tense and creepy!

I bet kids were totally freaked out. You don't need big special effects to deliver the goods, and that episode proved it. The bit where they all turned on the Doctor and wanted to throw him out as well as Sky was gripping stuff, the Doctor lost control of the situation & his helplessness was the scariest part. My sister loved it too, she felt like it had only been on for ten minutes and wanted more. And Tennant was superb! Well done RTD OBE.

[Matthew T]

A very cheap episode obviously.

Can't say I didn't enjoy it (even if it had been utter shit, Jethro as eye candy woud've made it worth watching) but it's not an episode I'll rush to watch again.

I can imagine the kids (and I'm including myself in that) will have been very disappointed that there was no actual "monster" as such.

Next weeks trailer made me piss my pants in excitement.

[Dirk Gently]

Nice light hearted start, even if the xylophone music at the start was a bit much. Violins would have been better.

The humour at the beginning was very good & not over done.
Good build up of tension & very atmospheric. A very dark episode, lots of cabin fever, gang mentality, people turning on each other & an alien entity taking over a person completely. And a human redeeming herself by sacrificing herself to save the day. Clichéd maybe, but good entertainment. And the obligatory Rose image.

Not a bad episode all told. I liked it & I would give it 7/10.

[Philipnet]

I hope everyone spotted Rose on the TV screens

I was very clued into the vocal changes for 'Sky'.
I wonder what the kids will be doing, Monday at School !


Allons-y!

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I can't believe how bad that was. I know I gave the first Sontaran episode a 1 earlier on, now I wish I hadn't because there's nowhere to go with this. My heart sank as soon as I saw RTD's name on the credits and it just kept sinking further the more the episode went on.

I've never seen so much padding in my life, there was literally about 10 minutes of story there. And of all the things to pad it with, some sort of sub-Brechtian 1950s theatre of the absurd rubbish was possibly the worst choice. It was just people shouting. The same things over and over. For half an hour. Sitting through that was painful, like some long coach journey with a kid kicking the back of your chair constantly. RTD trying to make it seem 'relevant' by throwing in the totally superfluous "what, like an immigrant?" line. I assume all the stuff with the people ganging up on each other and imagining they saw things they didn't and then other agreeing they saw it too etc was supposed to be clever and psychologically insightful, but even that has been done countless times before and usually with some degree of subtlety that was totally absent here. And then after sitting through all that hoping against hope something was actually going to come of it - "so what happened Doctor?", "I don't know", end credits. Jesus. I think I would have enjoyed it more with the sound off.

Oh and as an aside. Seeing as it seems to be the policy now that every episode has to contain actors from some sort of ethnic minority in order to appear modern, prettymuch to the point where it's so obvious it's almost more offensive than if they hadn't bothered, it seems odd that they choose to cast the three black actors in the roles of the mechanic, the "airhostess" and someone else's personal dogsbody, i.e. all the ones there to serve the white people.

10/10 for style, minus several million for good thinking.

[Pip Madeley]

I can't believe how bad that was.

You forgot to add in there.

[Dirk Gently]

Oh and as an aside. Seeing as it seems to be the policy now that every episode has to contain actors from some sort of ethnic minority in order to appear modern, prettymuch to the point where it's so obvious it's almost more offensive than if they hadn't bothered, it seems odd that they choose to cast the three black actors in the roles of the mechanic, the "airhostess" and someone else's personal dogsbody, i.e. all the ones there to serve the white people.

You would rather they cast ethnic minorities in the roll of murderous couple? Or the Professor who's a liar & seems to know nothing?

[Dino]

Sorry to be a contrary arse, but this week was the highlight of the series, and even if we get the moon on a stick over the next few weeks, nothing is going to be this well written, repetition included!
This is why he's got an OBE eh?

[Zbigniev Hamson]

You forgot to add in there.

No I didn't, I was just waiting for you to say something like that so I could say

Seriously though, go and look at most of the other ratings I've given this year, apart from the Adipose thing and the the first part of the Sontaran story. I don't think there's been one below 5 and most of them have been 7s, 8s or 9s. Whereas every week other people are awarding 1s and 2s without much comment. And this isn't even the first time I've pointed that out. It's almost enough to make one feel picked on

[Carol Baynes]

Oh and as an aside. Seeing as it seems to be the policy now that every episode has to contain actors from some sort of ethnic minority in order to appear modern, prettymuch to the point where it's so obvious it's almost more offensive than if they hadn't bothered, it seems odd that they choose to cast the three black actors in the roles of the mechanic, the "airhostess" and someone else's personal dogsbody, i.e. all the ones there to serve the white people.

10/10 for style, minus several million for good thinking.

I hadn't thought anything of anybody's colour in that story to be frank. You might be right of course, but you equally might be talking nonsense.

As for the story I though tit was a simple premise well executed. Very engaging and creepy in places, especially for the kids I would have thought. Some nice performances in there too. I was so engrossed actually, that the story was about to end and 45 minutes had gone by all too quickly- I felt dissapointed it wasn't a two parter.

Really liked it, and I'm going to give it an 8!

[Zbigniev Hamson]

You would rather they cast ethnic minorities in the roll of murderous couple? Or the Professor who's a liar & seems to know nothing?

Frankly I think if I had any sort of preference at all as to what parts go to "the ethnics" then I should be ashamed of myself. I think every part should be cast according to what's required of it given to the actor who best suits it. As far as I know there's no reason why black people can't be idiots and/or murderers. Or even the servants really. All I meant was that for a series that seems to be trying so hard to be politically correct by ensuring the right quotas of colours are appearing on screen, it seems an odd choice to cast the three "servant" parts with black actors.

[Carol Baynes]

It's almost enough to make one feel picked on

Then stop being an argumentative moaner then!

[Dirk Gently]

Frankly I think if I had any sort of preference at all as to what parts go to "the ethnics" then I should be ashamed of myself. I think every part should be cast according to what's required of it given to the actor who best suits it.

And what makes you think that that's not exactly what happened?

[Zbigniev Hamson]

What am I arguing about? I just thought the episode was rubbish and featured some questionable choices and then explaining why I think that. In the thread that is designed for opinions about the episode. I'm not sure why it seems to wind everyone up so much it's just my opinion on a piece of televisual drama. Rather like the opinions I had for the last few weeks that were more or less full of praise. Some things you like, some you don't.

[Alex]

And what makes you think that that's not exactly what happened?

Because Lesley Sharpe was in it?

Bar the race stuff, I have to agree with ZH, I thought that was really poor stuff unfortunately. But well, I don't want to dwell on it, these things happen, etc (and with RTD off soon, hopefully they'll happen a lot less too).

[Zbigniev Hamson]

And what makes you think that that's not exactly what happened?

Well they were all fine in the parts and normally I wouldn't have even thought of it. It's just that in the context of a series being made where they ensure at least one non-white person is appearing on every episode, and where the head supremo has gone on record saying this doesn't happen enough with a lot of TV, it seems an odd casting choice.

But as I said, that was just an aside and not really anything to do with why I didn't like it.

[Paul Clement]

That was a dire load of old tosh. I don't think I've come as close to getting up and doing something else since the new series started, it was that bad. The plot was so think, you could have used it as a rizzla and it didn't excite, entertain and wasn't chilling in the slightest. Dull, dull, dull.

[Carol Baynes]

What am I arguing about? I just thought the episode was rubbish and featured some questionable choices and then explaining why I think that. In the thread that is designed for opinions about the episode. I'm not sure why it seems to wind everyone up so much it's just my opinion on a piece of televisual drama. Rather like the opinions I had for the last few weeks that were more or less full of praise. Some things you like, some you don't.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, it just seems which ever thread I peek into you're having a barny with someone with an opposing point of view. It's quite funny.


Seriously though, I respect your opinions, but they do seem quite dour sometimes. There are people who don't like Dr. Who that would probbaly rate some of the episodes higher!