Mark Gatiss returns to Doctor Who. The former League of Gentleman’s writing track record has been very good. His first story ‘The Unquiet Dead’ was in my opinion one of Christopher Eccleston’s best stories (I may be alone on that one) and then he wrote the David Tennant story ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’ and his most recent ‘Victory of the Daleks’ was a nice story but wasn’t on par with his first. So the story is basically a cheap episode. The thing that I love about this episode is that its very light on visual effects. The story instead relies on the plot itself. The point is that a little boy is scared and everything that he is scared of is put inside a wardrobe. Now the first thing that came to mind was why don’t they just move. The Doctor pretends to be a social worker to get close to the family with Dad (played by Daniel Mays). Whilst the Doctor is being a social worker, Rory and Amy are separated from the Doctor and are pulled into a weird world which as it turns out is a dolls house.
The performances were all very good in this with the little boy (Jamie Oram) who doesn’t say much but is so good that he doesn’t have to. The story is centred around him and whilst his loud breathing did get on my nerves towards the end. I was also impressed with Daniel Mays. I think that he’s a very good actor and I still think of him in Ashes to Ashes but he has been in other things obviously. He is believeable as a worried dad but it turns out that he is the one that can save the day by just making George feel loved and wanted. Matt Smith was on good form as he switched between serious and comedy several time during this episode. I did like the Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday joke which me and my friends did chuckle at when we heard it. I also thought that Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan put in fine performances. Though I do think the moment when Rory and Amy are suppose to run past the peg dolls and Amy gets caught was a little feeble. Apart from that the regular performances were very good.
The story boasts very few characters but what they lack in numbers they make up for in performances.. Apart from the regulars there are just five other characters and one of those only appears briefly at the beginning and at the end). The landlord (Andrew Tiernan) was very unlikeable and was pretty much your standard horrible landlord and when he was sucked through the floor I was glad and then when he was turned into a doll it was even better. I was disappointed when he was back to normal though did like the bit where he hugs his dog, thus showing his nice side. The other guest character is the old lady (Mrs Rossiter) gets pulled through some bin bags. She seemed a nice lady and did her part in the dolls house very well.
The dolls were very creepy as was the transformation of humans to dolls. The time that Amy was turned into a doll was a very good moment because it seemed natural and by that I mean there wasn’t any computer imagery like there would be with a regeneration. The effect was helped out by the fact that it was constantly dark. Remember when listening to the commentaries of classic Doctor Who stories (especially the Peter Davison ones) and they go on about how bright it was. Well you cant argue that with this story. It’s quite dark for most of the episode. Despite having seen the dolls in the trailers and pictures of various websites, they still look scary. I think that Doctor Who works best when its simple. There is no sense of any effects which is why it works better than if there was CGI.
It’s a fantastic episode and one of my favourites of this series so far. According to some websites this was suppose to be episode four and it was moved to the second half of the series. I don’t know whether this is true or not but I’m glad they left it until now. Mark Gatiss seems to have a knack for writing solid Doctor Who stories and hopefully he will take time from Sherlock and write another adventure. As it stands this second half of the series looks like it will be better than the first half.
The performances were all very good in this with the little boy (Jamie Oram) who doesn’t say much but is so good that he doesn’t have to. The story is centred around him and whilst his loud breathing did get on my nerves towards the end. I was also impressed with Daniel Mays. I think that he’s a very good actor and I still think of him in Ashes to Ashes but he has been in other things obviously. He is believeable as a worried dad but it turns out that he is the one that can save the day by just making George feel loved and wanted. Matt Smith was on good form as he switched between serious and comedy several time during this episode. I did like the Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday joke which me and my friends did chuckle at when we heard it. I also thought that Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan put in fine performances. Though I do think the moment when Rory and Amy are suppose to run past the peg dolls and Amy gets caught was a little feeble. Apart from that the regular performances were very good.
The story boasts very few characters but what they lack in numbers they make up for in performances.. Apart from the regulars there are just five other characters and one of those only appears briefly at the beginning and at the end). The landlord (Andrew Tiernan) was very unlikeable and was pretty much your standard horrible landlord and when he was sucked through the floor I was glad and then when he was turned into a doll it was even better. I was disappointed when he was back to normal though did like the bit where he hugs his dog, thus showing his nice side. The other guest character is the old lady (Mrs Rossiter) gets pulled through some bin bags. She seemed a nice lady and did her part in the dolls house very well.
The dolls were very creepy as was the transformation of humans to dolls. The time that Amy was turned into a doll was a very good moment because it seemed natural and by that I mean there wasn’t any computer imagery like there would be with a regeneration. The effect was helped out by the fact that it was constantly dark. Remember when listening to the commentaries of classic Doctor Who stories (especially the Peter Davison ones) and they go on about how bright it was. Well you cant argue that with this story. It’s quite dark for most of the episode. Despite having seen the dolls in the trailers and pictures of various websites, they still look scary. I think that Doctor Who works best when its simple. There is no sense of any effects which is why it works better than if there was CGI.
It’s a fantastic episode and one of my favourites of this series so far. According to some websites this was suppose to be episode four and it was moved to the second half of the series. I don’t know whether this is true or not but I’m glad they left it until now. Mark Gatiss seems to have a knack for writing solid Doctor Who stories and hopefully he will take time from Sherlock and write another adventure. As it stands this second half of the series looks like it will be better than the first half.
No comments:
Post a Comment