Doctor Who: Sleep No More

Sleep No More isn't trying to say or do anything in particular, it's just an experiment into uncharted territory for Doctor Who - but it doesn't work, writes Tom Newsom.

I’m sure some people must love it, but I never hear anyone admit that in public. The ‘found footage’ genre, normally for low-budget horror, has been ubiquitous in the last five (ten? fifteen?) years. I’m not an expert in it by any means, but it offers a very different form of drama to the one we’re used to in Doctor Who - something more distant. However given its widespread use, doesn’t it feel like a great fit for a scary episode? In theory, perhaps - but here it just left me cold.

You can’t call this episode conventional, in any sense. But I’ve surprised myself, thinking back, how many things it gets spot on: the monsters especially. Sleep, the sandman, it’s an irresistible connection, played to its full here. But the camera moving means that we barely glimpse them at first - a plus for anything trying to scare us. And then when we see more, it’s just a deformed blob with legs and a gaping mouth - eurgh. They’ve got one of the sketchiest backstories and behaviour - “sleep dust” is all there is to them - but they don’t half scare.

It’s a great production, especially when you consider it was filmed with the normal HD cameras, as opposed to smaller models attached to the actors. The camerawork can really make you feel the action even when people are standing still, and the editing is faster. Parts of this episode are INTENSE, the scary parts, which you don’t normally get with Doctor Who.

It’s definitely an episode that will be rated a ‘12’, in a series that’s had at least four of them so far - so god knows what young children thought of it. I remember being scared watching Jeopardy, a CBBC Blair Witch Project-style series, when I was younger - and that was just kids in a field with cameras, rather than full-blown Aliens.

But there’s only that intensity to parts of it. For the rest of it, normally the talky scenes such as at the start or with the supporting characters, it starts to grate. Yes, really - Doctor Who is a programme that actively tries to not be boring, always. But when it’s a group of guest characters who you barely even recognise (let alone care for), who are muttering in wide-shots with shaking cameras - well, you pray for a good closeup. Thankfully we get a few, of the Doctor especially (him and Clara are a welcome presence this week), because otherwise you’d struggle to feel a part of the action, even with the point-of-view business. At some moments it didn’t feel like television to me at all, more like a first-person shooter - really, for Doctor Who?

The helmet cameras, or lack of, was a good twist though, in an episode that had more standout moments than it deserved. The plot is involved just enough, building up and teasing out a few mysteries. Okay, I felt good about wondering to myself why we were seeing things from Clara’s point of view (or whether there was another soldier character I’d missed). The story about the Morpheus process was well told too, with its slightly creepy set-up involving “that song”. Less so about the hunt for the villain behind the piece - by then I was confused what the overall monster plan was, though so was the Doctor.

It would be cruel to sign off a review with the Doctor’s closing comment - “none of this makes any sense!” - so I won’t. Instead, I’ll highlight the cool and utterly terrifying closing shot of Reece Shearsmith. Good to have him in Doctor Who, and a perfect fit for this particular part. This episode feels like an Inside No 9 on BBC Two, if its budget was tripled overnight.

Really though, this is Doctor Who (and writer/horror fan Mark Gatiss) having fun with a particular genre. You can tell that through the ways they’ve tied it into the story - the ‘found footage’ of the “cameras”, and the message that frames the story. It’s not like a film, in that the director is using it to make a statement or a higher art-form. This is purely them trying new things, an experiment of an episode for this week’s audience.

I’m just not quite sure it works.

TV: Banana iv

It feels staggering that this story hasn't been done before. Transexual Helen is plagued by obsessive ex-boyfriend Eddie as she tries to move on with her life. He clearly feels some kind of entitlement and ownership over Helen. He might feel because she isn't 'ordinary' he feels that he is owed for treating her like she was. The dismissal of this idea is the concept at the heart of this episode of Banana, and I'm very pleased by this.

The first act concerns Eddie, Helen and potential new flame Ross. On Helen's birthday, Eddie shows up at her flat bearing a second-hand DVD and a whole heap of trouble. Later, he shows up at the restaurant where she works before gatecrashing her date with Ross, whose defiance is really heartwarming. Following a fight, Eddie posts a sex tape of him and Helen online. 

The second act is an entirely different beast and features only Helen and her parents and brother. It's no wornder newcomer Charlie Covell was commissioned for two episodes of this series. In half an hour, she encapsulates twenty-first century values as they should be. Helen's parents are without judgement and there are some particularly touching conversations between our lead and various family members. The chaos as the tape spreads is tense and palpable thanks to Lewis Arnold's strong direction, in what I believe is his last episode of the series. He's helmed the first half of Banana, and given it its own identity, whilst linking closely to the parent series.

Bethany Black is superb in the role of Helen, and it's shocking that this is the first time a transexual person has played a transexual character on British television. It's right that Russell T Davies be there at this landmark though. Hopefully more light will be shone on such characters in future, without giving it such prominence that it smacks of trying to be 'different'. I can't begin to understand the trauma people must go through in this situation, but Covell's writing and Black's performance successfully convey its enormity.

When it comes down to it, the plot at the heart of the episode has nothing to do with Helen (formerly Ken)'s gender though. It's just a heartwarming tale of a family pulling together. I look forward to Covell's next episode greatly. There's some neat little tricks in this script, such as the ongoing passive-aggressive feud between Helen and slack waitress Grace, that complete the realism of the piece and give it immeasurable depth. There's some really strong performances too - Dean Andrews and Christine Mackie as Helen's parents spring to mind. Another incredibly strong episode, and it seems that Cucumber and Banana really can do no wrong by me.