Night Terrors

Dear Gary—

“Well, I suppose it can’t be all planets and history and stuff.”

Not much of it is these days. Rory has about a 90% chance that the planet will be Earth when he opens the TARDIS door. As for history, yes they have materialized in different times, but they rarely take the opportunity to soak any of it up. They have a grand time mocking and mangling history, but rarely do they witness it.

They have run across lots of stuff though. Night Terrors falls under the category of stuff. It is a quiet little tale; a standalone episode in an arc heavy season. That is a detriment and a plus. A detriment because it points out how shallow the arc really is. There is no true emotional attachment; we go from Let’s Kill Hitler, let’s find Melody, let’s uncover River, to let’s go off on a random house call with no thought whatsoever to the deep, dark tragedies of our lives.

But the plus outweighs it. As onerous as the arc is, the buoyancy of a clever little standalone tips the scale in its favor.

It over tips it, actually. Night Terrors is that much more effective simply because it distances itself from its surroundings. It is a fine piece of storytelling told by a decent cast, but there is nothing particularly outstanding about it other than its uniqueness from the season in which it resides.

It is quite claustrophobic actually, somewhat like the cupboard in which George’s fears are locked away, and that suits the plot. We are delving into the realm of childhood nightmares, something New Who is familiar with and has dealt with successfully. Monsters under the bed; images out of the corner of one’s eye; dangers lurking in the shadows; add to this list creepy dolls come to life. Although I do have to confess that the dolls are the least scary aspect of the episode for me and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe because I never had a horror of dolls. (Carrie would be the perfect audience for this; she was visiting this past month, Gary, and she banished Baby Secret—who normally resides in the Doctor Who room where Carrie’s children were camping out—to my bedroom. But I could never relate to her primal fear of dolls and clowns.)

To me, the scariest aspect is the sight of a kid all alone in the dark and petrified of the unknown terrors lurking in his closet (where his mother made him stow them away). The twist of the little boy being the alien is intriguing but not properly explored. It becomes simply a convenience to put people in peril and to have a warm and fuzzy outcome. I’m not sure why he thinks the sound of the lift is so frightening, and I’m unclear as to how or why random people in the complex get pulled into the dangers of his creation. Is this the first that people have gone missing around there, and if so, why now? Because the Doctor is there? Does George have a grudge against the landlord or the old lady? Does he even know Amy and Rory? There isn’t any logical explanation for any of them being menaced by George’s funhouse of jeopardy.

As for the lonely orphan seeking acceptance and the childless couple desperate to bestow love, it feels like a rushed solution. However it is satisfying in its happily-ever-afterness. I am reminded of the Isolus from Fear Her and the devil dad in the closet. And even though the mother/daughter dynamic was more fully explored in that earlier episode, I relate better to our present characters. The wide-eyed George and his befuddled father, together with Matt Smith’s Doctor, make for a more appealing way to spend some forty odd minutes.

That is the key to this story; the actors. They make us laugh; they make us care. Therefore, while I never really feel that Amy and Rory are in danger, I laugh when Rory says, “We’re dead . . . again.” And I’m interested as they piece together the odd nature of their trap. And I wonder how Amy Doll will turn back into real Amy (confident that she will).  And when the Doctor and Alex are pulled into the same dollhouse I figure help is on the way. I am a bit disappointed that the Father and Son Reunion conclusion is so hastily dashed off. The ‘all is right with the world’ hug takes me back to the ‘love is all you need/home is where the heart is’ wrap-up to The Lodger. It’s so handy how these things work out.

Just like that (“What, just like that?”) we come to an end and the TARDIS crew are off with the chilling nursery rhyme ringing in our ears. George is forgotten. Melody is forgotten. Amy, Rory, and the Doctor fly off.

“Now, did someone mention something about planets and history and stuff?”

I don’t mind so much if it is just stuff, Gary, if it is enjoyable to watch. Night Terrors is a little lightweight entertainment that will keep me going on this slow path of mine.