Sleep No More Review | Doctor Who S9 E9

[@HarrysMovingMedia]

Cracking opening, love the neat little effects you put there as always ;D

[@skx9159]

Thought the comment in interviews about Clara's increasing over confidence was interesting and the trails for the next episodes look facinating from a Clara point of view. A year ago I moved to live at the place they filmed The League of Gentleman in Derbyshire. There are honestly times when it feels like that was actually a documentary. Thankfully Papa Lazaru hasn't turned up yet but I'm sure it's only a matter of time!

[@LordTelperion]

I can't get enough of your reviews, Micheleh. :) Educational and witty...nay, hilarious!

[@mickeleh]

+LordTelperion I'm feeling the same about your comments. Keep 'em coming.

[@LordTelperion]

;)

[@dylanshadowstar9779]

it's a miracle! a positive review of this episode! yay! I loved this one as there's no true conclusion due to how it is set, it's meant to be a vlog so it's messy and not plot focused, it also makes it feel as if we are in the whoniverse receiving his video I loved the ending!

[@ewan.cartwright]

The Doctor was fine with using 'space' as a prefix in 1965. "Yes, exhibits in a Space Museum." "These people saw us and thought we were worthy people to be put in their Space Museum." "Well that I got from the Space Museum."

[@NickSheridanVids]

You pretty much always get my like, but this week it's for sharing League of Gentlemen to people who may not know of it.

[@PogieJoe]

I once interviewed Lynn Evans of the original Chordettes for my KZbin channel. She's a lovely woman. Sandman is still her favorite song that they did. :)

[@mickeleh]

+PogieJoe How cool. You are amazing at getting interviews.

[@gorvan41]

Nice to see a positive review, always enjoy your musings on the Doc. I was wondering if you were going to review other TV shows? Are you watching Fargo? Have to say its probably the best show currently airing at the moment, would love to hear your views on it. Also if as you say your a Sherlock fan please check out Elementary, tends to get slagged off by Sherlock fans but the performances of the two leads Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu are outstanding, backed up with good intelligent writing its well worth your time.

[@dylanshadowstar9779]

also I haven't gotten that song out of my head since Sunday dam it, thanks a lot sleep no more

[@mickeleh]

+Dylan Shadowstar I could fix that for you if you want. But the cure is worse than the disease.

[@epschwartzmusic]

I think the most interesting thing about this episode for me was that I didn't like it. It was... pretty bad. I always go into Gatiss episodes with some trepidation. Unquiet Dead, Cold War, Crimson Horror... classics. Robot of Sherwood, Victory of the Daleks... YUCK! Anyway, I was disliking the episode and... suddenly... all my complaints were pulled into the screen and became the twist in the final moments. The stupid fake flicker on the screen. The bad plotting... it was all the plan. In the last moments when Rassmussen is giving his eye wiping speech... I was hooked. What did I just watch?! So, like you, I was up in the air. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. GREAT review. Legit complaint: I do think that subtlety is lost on Gatiss from time to time. He can pound the "something in the corner of your eye" thing with a club sometimes. This time he was like the Hulk slapping you with a car. Eye sand. Still gross.

[@mickeleh]

+Eric Peter Schwartz Thabnks. You just reminded me how little I liked Robot of Sherwood and Victory of the Daleks.

[@KyleAButler]

I like the idea of doing a found footage POV episode of doctor who but I can't say I liked this one very much. I found the monster to be a little weak and the story seemed to be a bit muddled to me. I liked the idea of the sleep machine and that we see the doctor and Clara from an outsiders perspective. The sad thing is that we probably won't ever get another found footage episode again and I don't think it was really utilized to its full potential.

[@only1tacynne]

You and I are in the same club. I fell asleep during a concert also. I went to see the Misfits. On a Friday night when I worked 3rd shift, I was able to stay awake for all the opening bands but fell asleep for Misfits. I wish I would have slept through Gwar (the last opening band) instead! :p

[@skx9159]

I need to watch this episode again think, I struggled to focus on it and probably missed half the points

[@Nhoj31neirbo47]

I don't watch Dr. Who but a couple of reviews ago it dawned on me I should check out your usually interesting DVD Extras that come after the review. I learned that I can still enjoy a (brief) Mickeleh video even when the main topic is the Dr., and follow the welcome links to places far and wide.

[@mickeleh]

+John OBrien Maybe I should just do the Extras, then.

[@Nhoj31neirbo47]

You could try editing a bunch together and upload a couple of Extras vids. I don't know if it would be practical. Meanwhile I'm going to go back through the reviews and explore the DVD Extras! Thanks for the edutainment.

[@pissonatreelike]

So the second I saw it was found footage I was looking out for mistakes in editing (impossible cameras, etc.) because doctor who this season has seemed a little sloppy at times, and there is a scene as the pods are introduced where you see from clara and rasmus' view and at the time I was screaming internally, but it act as a nice set up for the twist, even if that was just eye sand, unfortunately one mistake is that the Osamu Alml-Chopra character's viewpoint is shown when he was on his own even though they made it clear we couldn't see the doctors or his viewpoint . The eye sand I thought was a bit silly with the relatively serious tone of the episode but the thing I didn't get is that when clara and others where getting out of the pods none of them had gunk/sleep/sand in their eyes, so how are these creatures alive.

[@mickeleh]

+Louis Pinto Which brings up another flaw: how much eye sand can a person generate in a five-minute Morpheus session once a month?

[@pissonatreelike]

Also can the eye sand reproduce or do they rely on their food source to exist?

[@dangerouslytalented]

Murray Gold did work on it, he played John Cage's 4'33''

[@mickeleh]

+dangerouslytalented And rather well, i thought.

[@WolvenSpectre]

+mickeleh I am sorry to hear you are a fellow member of the Sleep Deprivation Society. I come from a line of Periinsomniacs and Night Owls, and lucky me I have both, and luckier me I am also on medication that makes both worse and more frequent. Furthermore having a genius IQ means that there are some times where my own brain will not shut up and keeps going as I am trying to sleep. In short I feel your pain. And as I heard you describe The Sleep Bank a tear came to my eye and in the back of my head a smoky deep male voice is singing " and I think to myself... what a wonderful world".

[@mickeleh]

+WolvenSpectre If only we knew how to build it.

[@WolvenSpectre]

My luck they would build it and my medical condition would keep me from using it. But hey/... they can make Providgil and are working with "digital drugs" using electric fields like the ones they pioneered at Laurentian University. If they can crack sleep induction patterns in the individual brain, and then store recordings of excess sleep to be played back in the brain on nights of induced sleep for more natural brain patterns once induced sleep is not as stable as normal sleep. As for banking it for others that would not work as each brain's wiring is different and evolving over time so even though the archstructures of the brain are the same, no two people have the same wiring. This is one of the huge obstacles to doing machine to brain and brain to brain connections. Then again, eventually a translation module that can go "pattern 1 in subject A is pattern 2 in subject B" for both peoples brain maps, but I think the Singularity will happen before that does. Sweet Dreams, my prince, and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Wait that was a death scene... how about sweet dreams and we'll leave it at that?

[@vampirica89]

I fell repeatedly asleep in cinema while watching Chronicle in 2012, the whole second half is just blank in my mind, despite I vaguely remember explosions and really loud noises each time I'd briefly dose in. Felt like a huge waste of money. If there was such a machine as your imaginary patent, I'd love to have it, but I'd only use it for storing my own dreams for later, as buying any stranger's ones seems both terrifying and unethical.

[@pettytyrant2720]

An odd one to rate this episode. Its got some very good ideas, as you noted some superb editing and directing if only for the work load it must have produced (and no doubt somewhat ironically the sleepless nights it probably gave the production team). On first watch I really did not know what to make of it, or indeed if I was even sure what had just happened or if I even understood the plot (that's not happened to me with Who since my late teens and Ghost Light). However on a second viewing I found it oddly like Who's Fight Club, in that first time through you think you are watching one sort of film until the rug is pulled out, and second time you watch it you are watching a different story because of that knowledge. This episode is not quite so successful at it I don't think, but nor does it fail within its own premise. But after 52 years I do appreciate that they are still willing to take risks with the formula and see what is possible. Its also interesting to me that episodes which do take risks have a tendency to not go down well with the fan base - Love and Monsters being a good example of another drastic shift in story telling. Though its issues I feel are less to do with how it was presented so much as the story being presented- and oddly the measure by which the BBC evaluate how much viewers enjoy an episode in the UK, the Appreciation Index, or AI's, were 78 for this episode- the first episode to fall below 80 in Moffat's tenure- and the first since Love and Monsters got a 76 in RTD era). But their are others- Rings of Akenaten, which I loved, is another. And Blink it could be argued is a successful episode which shakes up the usual Who narrative structuring. Its good the show is prepared to to these sort of episodes- but they clearly come with a risk. One perhaps a commercial broadcaster could not so easily take as the BBC.

[@CheersKevin]

I assumed I would grow out of all-nighters, but they're at least a monthly occurrence still. Maybe one day :-/

[@K0inable]

I have so many issues with this episode. I think it was an interesting premise. Thumbs up to the helmet cam/vlog style shooting. Thumbs down to everything else. The Doctor (Capaldi) asking to hold Clara's hand? A 1950's tune still around in the 38th century? Eye-sand as a villain? At the end of the episode, The Doctor makes the statement "This doesn't make any sense!" Maybe it was all a dream, but wait, we already had one of those this season.

[@KOakaKO]

Yes, they called that the "Space Needle" back in the early sixties. A few years before I was born. But I believe the Doctor's point was valid, in that we rarely say such things in today's world. Although... since he travels in time he probably ought not to agree with the viewpoint of the world of 2015. Argue *that* fine point at your leisure. :P

[@DamianShaw86]

This weeks technical hitch which bothered me a little was when the anti-gravity shields failed and the monsters all started turning in to sand. If they suddenly went from not falling to Triton to falling to Triton they should feel less gravity not more (in fact it should approach 0g). I thought this was part of the not making sense narrative until even the vlogger turned to sand, I don't get it.

[@mickeleh]

+Damian Shaw You raise a fundamental flaw that I thought about but didn't get into: Satellites don't maintain orbit by repelling the gravity of the body they are orbiting. That's just nonsense. Does the earth use anti-gravity shields to keep from falling into the sun? Does the moon use anti-gravity shields to keep from falling to earth. We actually have a space station (there's that word “space“) that has been orbiting earth since 1998. There are no anti-gravity shields involved.

[@DamianShaw86]

***** I guess my implicit interpretation of the ant-gravity shields is they were using anti-gravity to create a force that inside the spaceship felt like actual gravity. But I'm pretty sure you could think about that long enough to realise that means the views they have of Triton didn't make any sense.

[@mickeleh]

+Damian Shaw The dialogue clearly states that this close to the planet they need grav shields to hold orbit. There's no explanation for why the station has artificial gravity-other than the obvious one: they filmed it on earth on a soundstage.

[@NickyTannock]

From what I can gather from the ending, the monster was only a dream, or more specifically an unconscious meme. The Rassmussen character even admitted that he made all the events up to keep people watching. Now, while I like that idea, I think it could have been executed in a clearer way. And I also didn't like the story we saw that the character came up with in the story, because I can't buy that lack of sleep will lead to man sized killer eye sleeps.

[@mickeleh]

+Michael Tannock The pile of dust formerly known as Rasmussen admits to lying and fabricating. But it’s not clear how deep the lie is. Is it total invention? Was the Doctor never there? Or was it manipulation of the footage to make it into a story that we would watch? Was there never a rescue party? Did nobody die? Curious.

[@NickyTannock]

***** My guesses: once sleep has been totally eliminated, as with the new machine, then so have dreams. And when that happens, the mind tries to fight this change with nightmares, hallucinations. Since the Sandman song is the last thing you hear before the procedure, it became the threat, like the Sandman of folklore. And from this, I think everything happened, but not how you saw it happen. I think the Doctor and Clara were there, I think the footage came from Morpheus because there are no cameras, I think the rescue party did come, and I think they were killed by the people they came to rescue. And I think Clara's brain has been altered.

[@ArgoIo]

While the cinematography was an homage to the lost footage genre, the plot seemed almost to be a reference to the short story subgenre creepypasta.

[@mickeleh]

+Lorenz Zahn It's a possibility.

[@jackoftrades80home]

Watching your review very late at night suffering from insomnia I'm find myself asking myself: "Myself, is it meta or ironic or non of it". Loved your short detour into the realms of falling asleep at shows. I always fall asleep during American horror films. I find most of them very boring. I really liked the episode this week. Funny enough I found to cinematography to be too stable. Considering some of the footage is supposed to be taken while people are running it should be more unstable. As a fan of Japanese horror films (the only horror films that keep me awake) I kinda knew the ending of the episode right out of the gate. SPOILER FOR ANYONE PLANNING ON WATCHING JAPANESE HORROR The idea of audience becoming infected by the movie they just saw was used in "Rasen" (the original Japanese sequel to the original Japanese version of "The Ring"). Ever since watching those films whenever I hear a show that starts with "don't watch this" I know it will lead to the same ending. In that movie the video is not a curse that would kill you in 7 days but a digitized virus that once exposed tricks your body to create the disease itself that kills you in that period of time. I think I would have liked that explanation better then sentient eye crud. END OF SPOILER As I said, liked the episode, loved your review. Now I am off to put an american horror film to the DVD and try to go to sleep.

[@NickSheridanVids]

And ahh yes, the Seattle Earth-Needle ;)

[@montyhedstrom1356]

I agree that the effects of sleep deprivation and the idea of Morpheus machine are interesting but the episode doesn't deal with these issues at all. Which is a shame because they could have had monster manifested out of nightmares, etc. which could have been interesting. Instead we got a retarded monster with a gimick ending.

[@fivebyfivewhat]

The League of Gentlemen is deliciously twisted, you must seek it out!

[@mickeleh]

+fivebyfivewhat It is. But the canned laughs mar it terribly.

[@fivebyfivewhat]

+mickeleh that is true.. And the same can be said of a lot of BBC shows of that period. Luckily they haven't made the same mistake with Inside No 9!

[@akashashen]

I'm watching /re4me this episode with my cousin, and I can hear your comment, in paraphrase, 'There goes $COMPANION, getting stuck in the uniquely here&now technology.

[@kiltedjohn1000]

great review very funny ,,the episode shouldve been one of the lost episodes

[@mickeleh]

+kiltedjohn1000 There's still time to lose it. But the BBC has caught onto the fact that there's money in not losing them.

[@dangerouslytalented]

... and all the Indians spoke like they were Sarf Londern.

[@jytcf]

I fell asleep during this episode. I so far haven't reattempted it. Not sure I'm going to.

[@ljmastertroll]

I will be subscribing to Sleep Bank Red.

[@mickeleh]

+ljmasternoob Ha!

[@TheScottTubes]

I couldn't help but feel that once Gatiss got the ideas of found footage and untrustworthy narrators in his head, he let the plot slide considerably. It felt like a jumble of good ideas, well presented but poorly constructed. The problem, of course, is that the construction is 9/10s of the show. The characters, their interactions, and the setting are the major components of any good show- but especially a Doctor Who because Doctor Who doesn't have much else going for it. You can focus on the science babble. but that's essentially empty. If the setting and characters aren't fully fleshed out, there isn't anything for the Doctor and Companion(s) to do. I think this came out like one of these. The whole world was too much to explore in this style and in that time-frame, the characters felt somewhat archetypal (despite us being literally in their heads) and their interactions felt very stilted for me. Not only that but I didn't feel the two gimmicks that took over these key features pay off in any great way. That's partly the problem of the vlog format- Rassmussen just tells us about the twist and then the episode ends and I couldn't help but feel astoundingly underwhelmed by it. I think it was far below what Gatiss has shown he can do on all accounts.

[@mickeleh]

+Scott M Good analysis. Seems like notes from some heavy brainstorming sessions that weren't quite worked out. The format may have made it too easy to just list the ideas without doing much with them. Working 24-hours a day, clone soldiers, political dissent, Indo-japanese fusion, etc.

[@TheScottTubes]

As always, you're precise, coherent, succinct and spot on.

[@garyc]

I didn't really like this episode. The ending was really abrupt! x

[@0rderofTheWhiteLotus]

It is almost painful waiting for your review of 'Face the Raven'. After I dont know how many months of watching your videos, I might as well make my first comment thus: 'Your review is eagerly anticipated, please dont be like me and give in to procrastination should it at all tempt you'.

[@mickeleh]

So sorry. I attended a wedding out of town. It was glorious. But, alas, it postponed the review. Working.

[@0rderofTheWhiteLotus]

Oh selfish people and their selfish weddings, wanting selfish happily ever afters, without sparing a thought for the nerdy masses haha. Looking forward

[@bambufan3636]

Are you local?

[@mickeleh]

+Bambu Fan To Triton? No. I live near Seattle.

[@mintpalmer]

I was really disappointed by Bethany Black's role. She's a fantastic actress, as evidenced by her role in Banana/Cucumber. I saw her live too - funny as hell, and really politically-minded. There were a few things that grated me about this performance. Firstly, as you implied, the role she was given was tiny. She has so much more to offer, and for such a momentous occasion, it should have been a little better. I mean, they had the really great Muslim character of Rita in 'The God Complex', who was still relatively minor. It's not that hard to create good representation without being extremely explicit about it. To have a character who was so two-dimensional was an injustice towards Black. Secondly, the way her character acted seemed to play into a lot of negative stereotypes. Dangerous, aggressive, prone to pursuing unrequited affection... All these things have been used in hate speech against trans people. Probably not intentional, but it should have been a little more thoughtful at least. It was just disappointing all round.

[@mickeleh]

+mxgabsy In a way she was the most noble member of the rescue team, The only one who is self-sacrificing. But it seemed an odd choice. I've noticed several reviews referring to 474 as “he.” But the script clearly says, “she,” and occasionally, it. Still, the sub-plot between 474 and Chopra was a highlight of the story. Too bad the chaotic story-telling left it very underplayed and almost unnoticed.

[@SharpblueCreative]

Well the overall responses I've read about this episode were not good. Personally I hated it and was glad when it finished. So far for me the worst episode since Capaldi took the reigns. Anyway I'm sure some people did like it, but not me. I thought it was terrible,

[@mickeleh]

+Mark Keen I haven't seen such a high percentage of dislikes on any recent episode.

[@SharpblueCreative]

+mickeleh I'm a member of the Sci Fi Fandom page on FB - very few positive comments on there. It just wasn't for me.

[@mickeleh]

+Mark Keen Reddit has also been brutal.

[@senkrad5]

hahah not going to lie 474 was weird and now that you said he was trans it totally makes sense

[@doctorwhofan1989]

Well, I guess you went and reviewed it anyway, I see. I couldn't get past twenty minutes of the episode, personally. I know that they tried something different, but in my opinion it didn't work...with me at least. I know that every series in Doctor Who has had its duds, but this one just seemed to really take the cake. I wish that this show could go back to actually being about Science Fiction and not Science Fantasy. Watching the show now and comparing with even five years ago it seemed to have lost some of its soul if you will. But maybe that's just me. Next week promises to be better, but I could do without Ms. Williams again. Oh, well. Can't be helped. Hope you're well.

[@senkrad5]

+William M. This episode is so bad. They're really dragging their fans in the dirt this season

[@doctorwhofan1989]

senkrad5 It has rather been hit and miss, I understand. So far I think that my favorites this season have been the Zygon two parter. Those were the only two episodes that I felt were like older Doctor Who.

[@mastterby]

Maybe I need to give this episode another chance, first time I watched it I was convinced it was the worst episode I'd ever seen :p

[@mickeleh]

+mastterby A lot of folks didn't like it. Don't feel obligated to watch it again. But if you do watch it, please come back and leave a note about your second viewing.

[@mastterby]

Will do :)

[@rifow1]

I really disliked this episode it just did not feel like a doctor who episode and the amateur filming was a good idea but it infuriated me it is by far the worst episode of the 12th Doctor

[@mickeleh]

+jonathan hart I think more people dislike this episode more vehemently than any in recent memory. Can you think of the last episode that was so divisive among the fans?

[@rifow1]

+mickeleh personally I think that the weakest episode of the revived series is the episode "The Power of Three" I found the solution to the episode absolutely horrific. The fact that the solution was for the doctor to point his sonic screwdriver at a computer and now suddenly everyone who had heart attacks come back to life completely ruined the whole episode. I am not the biggest fan of Matt Smiths doctor not due to the acting but due to the writing which I believe was very weak. I much preferred Russel T Davis as the lead writer than Stephen Moffat, however, the new series of doctor who and Peter Capaldi's doctor has been in my opinion much better.