A decent story from Mark Gatiss that for a change didn’t involve saving civilisation / earth / the galaxy. It also appears to be entirely stand-alone and not impacting the Silence story arc so I review it as such. Readers of a sensitive disposition who are particularly afraid of children’s toys may wish to find something else to read now. You’ve been warned…
General
This tale of a small boy scared of the dark is a nice, well contained story and provides a welcome contrast to the normal ‘save reality’ fare that we have been served. It (in my view) works as a solo Doctor story with Amy / Rory quickly relegated to back-drop characters who do nothing the move the plot along. The plot resolution is about love and family which are staple themes and none the worse for that.
Good and Bad
Good:
- You don’t need huge amounts of aliens to be effective - a torch and some shadows does nearly as well
- The performance of the eight year old boy was great
- Creepy dolls (though maybe could have been more creepy)
- I like seeing how when set in a real world the characters are less effective in dealing with conflict than when faced with aliens and monsters.
- Others have pointed out the similarities to the dreadful Fear Her. I take the point though suggest that this at least has some considered writing and (unlike Fear Her) should not have been taken out and shot at birth
- Landlord and old-lady were stereotypes - did that matter?
- It rushed to an ending - I was surprised to get to a conclusion and find 45 minutes had gone by. Would this have worked better in classic 25 minute chunks, e.g. 3×25?
- A really minor point I thought of later - the Doctor throws down a Rubik’s cube unsolved; I’m reasonably sure that the Fourth Doctor was once shown solving a cube in a few seconds.
