Midnight by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Alice Troughton

 

“Midnight” stars David Tennant as the Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble with Lesley Sharp as Sky Silvestry, Rakie Ayola as the Hostess, David Troughton as Professor Hobbes, Ayesha Antoine as Dee Dee Blasco, Lindsey Coulson as Val Cane, Daniel Ryan as Biff Cane, and Colin Morgan as Jeethro Cane.  It was written by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Alice Troughton with Helen Raynor as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 14 June 2008 on BBC One.

 

The second and third series of the revived Doctor Who did an excellent job on using the fourteenth slot to write Doctor light episodes, even if only one of those episodes were good.  It was a great way to produce an extra episode without extending production time and saving on costs, so much so that Russell T. Davies devised a plan for the fourth series to include the Doctor light episode “Turn Left” as the penultimate episode towards the finale, but earlier in the series the potential for a companion light story.  This was initially penciled in as “Century House” by Tom MacRae, to be directed by Alice Troughton in the seventh production block.  MacRae completed several drafts of the script and it was intended to air as the eighth episode of the series after “The Unicorn and the Wasp”, both having settings of old country houses and MacRae’s script would have been another comedic episode.  This would involve completely changing “Century House” and as MacRae had already written several drafts of the script, the decision was made amicably with MacRae to drop the episode all together, with Davies wishing to write the replacement around the idea of survivors of some sort of accident.  This would evolve into “Crossing Midnight” later amended to “Midnight”, a script written deliberately to be isolated to three sets, the majority of the episode being filmed on one.  It was the first episode since Genesis of the Daleks to not feature the TARDIS in any capacity, a leisure resort being used to bookend the episode with Donna relaxing as she would be absent from the majority of the episode.  The other two sets were the passenger cabin and driver’s cabin of the Crusader 50, a pleasure excursion to the sapphire waterfalls on the planet of Midnight.  Now “Midnight” was not an episode without its own production issues despite the lack of location footage, everything was completed in studio for the episode: before filming Sam Kelly, originally cast to play Professor Hobbes, broke his leg and could not appear, so only days before production was to begin the role was recast as David Troughton.

 

“Midnight” is Russell T. Davies’ best episode, not only of his own ability, but of his entire era.  This is because it is one of those episodes which does something entirely different, potentially due to the shorter notice of writing the script when “Century House” was dropped meant that Davies wasn’t entirely thinking about the family audience for the script.  It’s explicitly a horror story, the Doctor books himself a last minute trip on the Crusader 50 because he wants to see the Sapphire Waterfalls on the planet Midnight, a planet whose surface and system are uninhabitable to all forms of light.  Nothing can live on the surface of Midnight, but due to natural erosion the original route is blocked and the brief detour the Crusader 50 makes stops the vessel and briefly opening the shields to see outside reveals that something, only for the briefest of moments moves on the surface.  There is something alive on Midnight, and it wants inside.  It physically rips the crew cabin from the rest of the vessel, and in the brief moments where our characters discover this, it gets inside, possessing one of the passengers, Sky Silvestry played by Lesley Sharp.  “Midnight” at its core works because the audience and characters have no frame of reference for what this entity could be.  It’s only heard banging on the outside of the ship and once it takes over Sky, it begins repeating what the other passengers say.  It doesn’t have a motive, it doesn’t even truly have a form.  Alice Troughton’s direction, although having moments where some physical aspect could be shown, goes for showing the characters who explicitly see something only mention that they see something, mainly a formless moving shadow.  This is also a piece of Doctor Who lore that luckily hasn’t been expanded in any general form in the expanded universe, something integral for keeping this episode working in the way that it does.  The lack of knowledge is key, it keeps the Doctor as scared as the humans he is trapped with.

 

The episode follows the three-act structure perfectly: the first 15 minutes introduce our characters as Davies includes this light montage to give backstories for each and every character, even if these are drawing from general stock characters.  There’s a family of three, the professor and his assistant, a woman running away from her lover, and the faithful stewardess.  Normal people, reacting normally under pressure.  The second 15 minutes are the actual breakdown itself, exploring the knocking of the creature outside, the characters denying the situation even when it becomes impossible to deny that here is something out there trying to get in.  The final 15 minutes is the creature inhabiting Sky, the tension growing to the rest of the humans turning on the Doctor, the creature finding a way to immobilize him and adapt enough to convince most of them except the stewardess, played by Rakie Ayola, and student assistant Dee Dee Blasco, played by Ayesha Antoine.  The denouement of the episode is the hostess throwing herself and Sky out of the airlock, ending the episode on the harrowing note that nobody even knew her name.  “Midnight” works so well because David Tennant’s performance as the Doctor are desperate attempts to get these people to go against their scared nature and just stay calm and not allow the creature to learn from them until other people can isolate her with resources to study it.  This is a doomed endeavor, as the creature is intelligent enough to isolate the Doctor, the repeating sequence being perfectly played by Lesley Sharp, keying into each beat while Murray Gold provides this subtle, almost ambient score in places to keep the tension up.  Even the resolution doesn’t really relieve the tension so you end the episode with all the right questions in your mind.  Davies is playing on humanity at its worst, the seemingly nice family is ready to throw the creature out before it even does anything, when the passengers are posed the question of if they could kill another sentient being there isn’t any hesitation.

People used to use “Blink” as the episode to get people into Doctor Who, but “Midnight” is an example of what Doctor Who is at its absolute best.  It’s one of the few times the revival was able to go to incredibly dark places, though all without making the episode an ‘adult’ episode, it’s one that the adults watching and rewatching will become more and more disturbed by as they grow, while children will be scared in general by the atmosphere and performances.  It’s sadly all too human and that’s part of why it’s so scary.  10/10.