Doctor Who: “Sleep No More” Review

By Scott Collura

Warning: Full spoilers below.

Doctor Who takes a turn towards the familiar with “Sleep No More,” diving into the found-footage genre with this horror tale while also managing to bring a unique spin to the old shaky-cam trend along the way. The episode also culminates in a freaky moment that will leave fans talking — and quite possibly confused.

At first glance, the found-footage trope seems a disappointing way to go. Obviously a show like Who has to find new and different ways to tell its stories, having been on the air for so long, but still. And yet, frequent DW writer Mark Gatiss turns the concept on its ever-watchful head, essentially making the very notion of found footage into the bad guys of the story.

We kick off with a video message from Professor Rassmussen (Reece Shearsmith) talking directly to the camera as he warns us that we “must not watch this. I’m warning you. You can never un-see it.” So of course we watch it! But as it turns out, those words will have ramifications later…

A motley cast of characters are introduced as they enter the Le Verrier Space Station in orbit around Neptune. Something is up at this floating lab, as it has suddenly gone silent, and this group — the untried leader, the joker, the grunt, and so on — have been instructed to investigate in true Aliens rip-off fashion. But as Rassmussen says, don’t get too attached to them!

The astute viewer would notice early on that the found-footage aspect of this episode didn’t really make sense. Why were we seeing things from Clara’s point of view? Or from the ceiling? Or from the helmet cams that the characters don’t have? Of course, that’s the mystery at the center of the story, as Gatiss and director Justin Molotnikov are simultaneously poking holes in the shakier (get it?!) found-footage films that have stretched credulity with their premise while also setting up the monsters of “Sleep No More” — the Sandmen!

It was fun watching the Doctor start to piece together that something was off here, as he gives Clara a double-take (which means he gives us a double-take, since we’re seeing things from Clara’s POV at that moment). Finally, he figures out that it’s the dust that is watching them… or is it? (There’s even a picture of an artist painting a picture of an artist painting a picture of an artist painting a picture moment which predicts the truth here — that the Doctor and Clara are simply living out Rassmussen’s story.)

I enjoyed/was simultaneously dismayed by the concept of Morpheus, the pod-thingees that enable the mankind of this century to get a month’s worth of sleep done in five minutes so that everyone can keep on working, get that edge over the competition, and make more money. It reminds me of where we all seem to be heading, as so many of us are constantly “on” these days, always checking our e-mail on our phones no matter the time of day, working nights and weekends, increasingly reliant on double-incomes to pay the mortgage, and so on. If Rassmussen says Morpheus has created a new generation of wide-awakes, we might just be the first generation. But hey, at least we all get to watch a Mr. Sandman hologram song! (The characters’ all-present reliance on “the gods” could also be interpreted here vis-à-vis their workaday lives, but I’m not gonna get into that.)

Speaking of which, the Sandmen are creepy enough, although I think this season’s ghosts from “Under the Lake”/“Before the Flood” were more effective. But the moment that is sure to give nightmares is in that last shot, as Rassmussen reveals the true nature of his, or rather the Sandmen’s, plan. As he cleans the sand out of his eye and half his face collapses, the Doctor’s suspicion that none of this has made any sense is confirmed. And frankly, I’m still trying to unpack what it all means. On the face of it, it seems that the Sandmen’s plot for domination will be achieved, and the Doctor has simply lost this fight — Rassmussen’s “abomination” will spread. (The Doctor has a plan when we last see him, to go off and destroy the other Morpheus machines on Triton, but he is operating under a misconception.) This was the first single-episode story of this season, but boy did it end on a cliffhanger as far as I’m concerned.

Some notes:

• Did you notice the lack of the traditional title sequence and score this episode? I guess this is the first time this has been done in the history of the show, with the found footage approach being the reasoning (dust monsters don’t have opening titles!).
• “People never do that, you know. They never put the word space in front of something.” (Cue space pirates talk.)
• The Doctor licking his finger to figure out the time period makes sense! Kind of!
• What’s the Great Catastrophe that the Doctor refers to here?
• Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but a time-travelling Professor Rasmussen (played by Matt Frewer) appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation at one point.
• Once again the Doctor pulls Clara back from acting Doctor-ish herself. “You don’t get to name things!” he scolds, before giving the creatures the exact same name she did. But is this a bigger theme, the Doctor-ification of Clara, that will figure into her departure somehow?
• I love when this Doctor waxes poetic. “Macbeth shall sleep no more” and all the rest of it.