Advanced Review Round-Up: Sleep No More

Andrew Reynolds is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Genuinely innovative or surprisingly similar; there’s only a short while to wait before we discover whether or not Sleep No More is as ground breaking as its inception proved to be.

Borrowing the ‘found footage’ template which found success with horror movies like Cloverfield, The Blair Witch Project and Chronicle before burning out relatively quickly by both a succession of poorly realised copycats and the very limitations of the format – we’re looking at you, the Paranormal Activity franchise; it seems a bit late for Doctor Who to adopt this style but does it work?

Den of Geek enjoyed the ‘horror undertones’ of the episode but found that the meld of traditional Doctor Who storytelling and ‘found footage’ aesthetics didn’t quite gel.

“I very much warmed to the boldness, and the commitment to what Gatiss and [director Justin ] Molotnikov have tried to do here, and Reece Shearsmith is a very welcome guest star. Furthermore, Gatiss’ wit shines through to punctuate the horror. But come the end credits, the final result didn’t feel that satisfying to me I’m afraid. There are positives, certainly, and much to talk about when we get to the spoiler-review.

“Sleep No More, though, takes an ambitious shot, but doesn’t quite hit the target. That’s a far better state of affairs than taking the safe route, mind.”

Indeed, it’s a familiar story with Doctor Who TV who, finding much to like in the innovative new monsters The Sandmen, there wasn’t quite the sense that Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman were given anything revelatory to do.

“After Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman’s outstanding performances over the last couple of weeks, things inevitably fall under the shadow here. This is a fairly standard affair in terms of the TARDIS duo’s characterisation, with a couple of nice moments. There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a bog-standard Doctor/companion episode where they are chased by monsters, but the pair could act out what’s required here in their sleep (ahem).”

Calling Sleep No More ‘the most divisive episode of the run yet’ Cultbox couldn’t see past Mark Gatiss – perhaps more at home with historical, lighter episodes – attempting to out Moffat, Moffat.

“Gatiss’s voice – decent, companionable, urbane – is usually a welcome fireside companion; but here, as his predilection for darkness plays out in a sci-fi setting, the act of ventriloquism falters.

“In fairness to Gatiss, there are no story twists here that are any less ridiculous than the Moon being an egg or a parasite god being placated by a lullaby. Even so, while we obviously can’t say much about the direction the story takes, there is, in the USP and modus operandi of the monster, the kind of meta-fiction at work that has become increasingly stale in Doctor Who, through overuse.”

‘Divisive’ seems to be the watch word of these early reviews with Impact Online reiterating the weariness with meta-fiction while adding a growing frustration with the lighting of the episode.

“Beauty and ugliness are in the eye of the beholder and it’s definitely going to be a divisive episode both in its presentational style and actual narrative. I know some fellow reviewers who’ve quite liked it, seeing it as an offbeat story with some of the tropes being given a twist. Certainly you can see what Mark Gatiss, a usually creative writer, was aiming for, but he landed wide of that mark.  Having now watched it twice, just to make sure I wasn’t missing something obvious – the second time with my wife, another big Who fan who cited exactly the same problems with it – it remains an outing that mistakes vastly under-lit corridors for ‘tension’ and shows all the reasons that Under the Lake / Before the Flood benefited from being given extra time and allowing to make us care about the supporting cast.

Anyone expecting something radical may well be disappointed in an episode that really doesn’t play to its potential.”

Make up your own mind when Sleep No More airs today at 20:15 on BBC 1.

 

 

 

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