Midnight: Doctor Who Series Four Episode 10

How odd can an episode of Doctor Who get? Don't answer that! This most peculiar episode, Midnight, has to get my vote for the oddest, most bewildering, confusing and possibly - but hopefully not - pointless episode of the new series. The episode was as tightly written as one would hope from Russell T Davis and the suspense was almost painful but will there be, in future episodes, some explanation for the otherwise inexplicable story? The answer should be yes, but this has yet to be seen.

The setting, Midnight, is a planet of diamonds, where the Doctor and Donna are taking a well deserved holiday (wonderful CGI as usual). Leaving Donna to sunbathe the Doctor opts to visit a nearby waterfall in a tourist shuttle. The starting point immediately had this viewer scratching his head. Why didn't he just take the Tardis? Donna had already refused to go with him, citing the fact that the journey would be four hours long both ways. The Doctor is long lived, so eight hours would mean nothing to him really. However, despite his gregarious and friendly nature, could even the Doctor stomach a journey of this length with absolutely nothing happening. Surely the Tardis would be able to provide some sort of shield to protect him from the deadly rays of Midnight's sun? Someone please explain his motives!

This rather poor and lame premise for the action aside, action there certainly was. A diamond fall means that the shuttle computer creates a new route. The Doctor manages to disable the on board entertainment system - a combination of sound and images that would surely rattle the nerves of any sane passenger. This raises another point - this episode was fairly insistent in its portrayal of humans as very little different to how we are now. Would in-flight entertainment, therefore, have devolved to such a degree? I think and hope not!

It isn't long before the shuttle simply stop and the tension and terror can be ratcheted up by a series of knocks on the side of the people carrier of the future. This was very well done and I felt myself on the edge of my seat as the panic among the passengers quickly rose (geddit?). Yes, indeed, the highlight of the episode! Mention must be made here of the fantastic camera work and lighting throughout the story. The quick switching between characters upped the fear factor and the lighting (or shadowing perhaps?) was wonderfully spooky.

The clothing of the human characters was very contemporary but I do not mean to the era in which the episode was set. Although there is no reason why people in the future should not dress similarly to us this did seem like the Head of Wardrobe was off with a migraine and the actors were forced to wear their own clothes. I felt myself longing for the days of silver spandex jump suits hastily adapted to look futuristic! This was a real let down for me.

In addition to this there were no aliens on the shuttle (bar the Doctor) which seemed weird for a holiday resort of such magnificent beauty in the far flung future. Again, was cash running out or is the audience deemed too stupid to relate to alien characters. The episode would have been more entertaining if we had had the sight of some famous Who creatures being tourists instead of villains! The Nestene consciousness could have been taking a break from galactic domination, after all. Perhaps an Ogron and his Ogrette could have been trying to save their marriage. The possibilities were endless, but we were stuck with a group of boring humans.

However, what a fine set of humans they were - not. Whatever the entity was that took over Sky, it must have been terribly impressed by the all too human traits that the characters showed. Oh dear, it must have thought, a race of abysmal televisual stereotypes, where's the airlock?! A lot of my reviews for this series have lamented the waste of actors in roles that have been sadly undeveloped because of lack of time. Here we had all the time in the world for a good set of lines and background for each of the characters and we were given very little in terms of character development or, to put it bluntly, characters at all. Having said that the actors did very well with what little they were given, especially Lesley Sharp as Sky Sylvestry, who can do hysterical very well indeed. Another actor who wonders when she will get a role that doesn't involve screaming a great deal! She is a favourite of the writer of this episode, Russell T Davis and perhaps next time he employs her he could write a character rooted in sanity and happiness!

David Troughton , no stranger to Doctor Who as an actor or family member was game as Professor Hobbes, but did not come over in a very professorial way. The Director of the episode was Alice Troughton. Any relation do you think? Lindsey Coulson as Val Cane is at least used to playing a two dimensional cardboard character from her stint as Carol Jackson in the long running BBC soap Eastenders, so she was on home territory here. In fact, I think she was still playing Carol Jackson, just with a new husband. Perhaps recessive genes are hardier than we have been led to believe and Carol's DNA has survived in to the centuries beyond this one. I wouldn't have been surprised if the entity had broken in with the plaintive cry of “Rickeeeeee!” as her "Stenders daughter, Bianca (in a silver spandex jump suit, please!) burst through in a futuristic fury.

Of all the actors the most entertaining and interesting were Driver Joe and Mechanic Claude (Tony Bluto and Duane Henry) but their screen presence was destined to be for a short time only as their characters bit the dirt (or should that be sunshine?) fairly early on. Mention too must be made of Rakie Ayoola who was impressive as the Hostess with the death wish. The fact that her character oscillated wildly aside, she did a fine job as the feisty (unnamed) Hostess.

I really must reserve judgement on this episode until the next few have been aired. If there is no explanation forthcoming then, I am afraid that this will go down as possibly the poorest episode of the four new series shown so far. Even if there is, I cannot see casual viewers tuning in again as this was such a disappointing storyline. I was expecting some sort of coda at the end (as in The Girl in the Fireplace) but it didn"t happen. In fact, in this episode, nothing really happened at all. Nada. Except the appearance of a not so rare flower, of course! However, the diamond planet was very reminiscent of Metebilis 3 and we know that a certain species of giant spiders lived and evolved in to super intelligent telepathic beings there….. We shall see!