Rate and Discuss: Sleep No More

[Andrew Curnow]

So the latest episode from the lovely Mark Gatiss (shown above in Jackanory Bedtime Story mode I think, either that or pretending he's the Keeper of Traken)...

...What do we all think?

[egdcltd]

That was good. Although one of my eyes was watering all the way through it...

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm oddly undecided - might need to watch it again to really decide.

[Dino]

Really enjoyed it! I've always wanted Doctor Who to do a Halloween special as opposed to the Christmas specials. And it seemed this was the closest we've come to it.

[Alex]

I thought it was pretty appalling, unfortunately. I was just bored throughout the whole thing, the supporting characters were bland and hard to care for, and the dialogue so pedestrian that not even Capaldi could make it interesting. And to make matters worse, the OTT villainous laughing right at the end made the whole thing feel like a dumb pantomime. My lowest rating in years - 2/10 - and after this and Robot Of Sherwood I hope Gatiss doesn't work for the show ever again.

[egdcltd]

It reminded me of the first Weeping Angels episode - Blink? (and things like Aliens)

[Andrew Curnow]

I liked the dialogue about 'space restaurants, etc' (a nod towards Terry Nation I presume) and also "Consider yourself..." "...Part of the furniture" got a good laugh here.

[Jon Masters]

Quite enjoyed that, but should have been a lot scarier ( a lot of nothing happening at the start ) and things were found out too easily. Needs another watch.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

As a complete anorak who lets silly things annoy him that really shouldn't.......

I feel I can't relax until someone inserts some opening titles into that episode!!!
Either my Sky box missed a bit or there were no opening titles.....

It's doing my head in!!!!!

Other than that I thought it was an ok episode. It was interesting, but I'm afraid that I didn't find it scary at all.

[SiHart]

That was different and just about worked I think.

[Rob McCow]

I feel I can't relax until someone inserts some opening titles into that episode!!!
Either my Sky box missed a bit or there were no opening titles.....

After about 45 minutes I started to realise that this wasn't going to be the longest pre-credits teaser ever. But there were about seven different places they could have squeezed the theme in during the first five minutes. Gah!

I enjoyed this episode, but I thought the explanation for the Sand People was the most stupid thing I've heard on Doctor Who, beating even Vinesium and every line of The Tenth Planet.

Big questions though -
We didn't see Clara get pulled into the machine, there's no evidence the machines were pulling people in, so what really happened?
If the message has really been broadcast, then isn't that the end for humanity in the 38th Century?
How will this relate to next week's episode?

N'stuff.

[Perry Vale]

I thought it was pretty appalling, unfortunately. I was just bored throughout the whole thing, the supporting characters were bland and hard to care for, and the dialogue so pedestrian that not even Capaldi could make it interesting.

I was so bored by it I turned it off after 20 minutes and went and did something else instead.

I think I'll only go back to it if a) it was the season/mid-season finale or, b) I missed the return of [insert spoiler here]....

I feel I can't relax until someone inserts some opening titles into that episode!!!
Either my Sky box missed a bit or there were no opening titles.....

Ah, I thought I was imagining there were no credits, or I'd been too bored to notice!

I shall not be voting.

[Nyder]

I like monsters that roar. And they were good roary monsters. I'm even starting to like the sonic glasses now. Dear God what's wrong with me? I'll never like the guitar though so don't worry.

Twas an odd episode. Like Mr Hart said, it just about worked. I do echo a lot of the comments about the non-main characters. A lot of them are either truly bland or too broad-brush. There's no subtlety Pet

So was this a two-parter then? I don't understand. My head hurts.

They were good monsters though - ROOARRRRR!


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[duncan]

There were credits, just not what we are used to. A couple of minutes in, a load of code filled the screen and the words "Doctor Who" were highlighted. However , it was a blink and you'd miss it moment.



As for the episode itself. The jury's out and I will need a re-watch before voting.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I thought it was pretty appalling, unfortunately. I was just bored throughout the whole thing, the supporting characters were bland and hard to care for, and the dialogue so pedestrian that not even Capaldi could make it interesting.

3/10

A wasted opportunity. It built up an interesting world/universe. But really the story itself just felt really boring. There didn't seem to be any interest, and my reaction at the end was all "whatever". Ironically though - I liked Robot Of Sherwood Alex!

[Stuart Wallis]

I can't add much more to that - a very "ho-hum" episode with cheap-looking monsters, and that could've had more going for it if they'd fleshed out the better ideas (ie. the India-Japan disaster) and made the characters more interesting.

3/10

[Jon Masters]

One thing I didn't think was so good was how many parallels there were with Under The Lake - Before the Flood e.g small international crew with broad brush characters , one person being unaffected because they stayed away from the cause of the problem, cause of monsters being worked out very quickly etc.

[Rob McCow]

On reflection, I'm liking this story less and less.

I quite enjoyed it, the found-footage approach was a good new thing for Doctor Who and well used. But the story just wasn't anything special and there were a couple of things that really annoyed me. Hmm.

[Nyder]

Colonel Masters makes a good point about the similarities between this story and Lake/Flood. I still think Capaldi is eminently watchable in most scenes (when he's not playing his geetauuuw). I did wince a lot when Clara motioned "not just a pretty face". That was just yucky.


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[Stuart Wallis]

One thing I didn't think was so good was how many parallels there were with Under The Lake - Before the Flood e.g small international crew with broad brush characters , one person being unaffected because they stayed away from the cause of the problem, cause of monsters being worked out very quickly etc.

Remembrance/Nemesis Syndrome striking again - same basic plot in the same season. Occurred to me as well.

[Perry Vale]

It's all starting to look the same too, if you ask me. Did I spot a corridor from S5's Weeping Angels story?

[Darren]

1 out of 10

I went into this with as open a mind as possible considering I think Gatiss is an awful writer and I don't like "found footage" films or tv.

It didn't work though. Incomprehensible nonsense from start to finish.

[Stuart Wallis]

I use the phrase "When he's good, hee's very, very good, but when he's bad he's rotten" to describe his writing - there's nothing that is inbetween to further quote, but from Jeff Lynne.

[Darren]

The Unquiet Dead was his only good story, imo.
I read on Digital Spy that Moffat has asked him to write a sequel to Sleep No More.

[Si Hunt]

This left me cold I'm afraid. I thought it was

1. Derivative. Another space base. Another ramshackle crew who we can't remember the names of.
2. Uninvolving. The Doctor Who Official twitter account desperately kept telling us this was creepy and chilling, but it didn't even make me jump. There was an odd lack of music which left zero tension.
3. Confusing. I had no idea what happened to be honest. Some weird shit about peoples eye bogeys turning into monsters. Maybe it was me.

This week at work housewife Selina stopped me and said "We've always watched Doctor Who but to be honest with you we watched Saturday and thought it was absolute pants!"

Si.