The stunning reveal of a returning villain is a trick that Physician Who loves to tug – although if we’re being trustworthy, it’s not often a lot of a shock. Within the previous days, such episodes would greater than doubtless be known as one thing like ‘Umbrage of the Daleks’, which barely undercut the dramatic entrance of a Dalek on the finish of half one. Within the new sequence, these returns usually tend to be spoiled by leaked set pictures or different metatextual data that comes from having an engaged and really on-line fandom – or just from the creators constructing hype.
So contemplating what a hoary previous gadget it’s, it’s enjoyable to truly be stunned by it for a change. Granted, it could merely be that I’m not on-line sufficient to have seen the related tease or fan principle, however from that place of blissful ignorance, the reveal that we had been coping with the mysterious entity from “Midnight” was very efficient.
It’s a reasonably daring selection, as “Midnight” – whereas it has its detractors – is extensively recognised as a top-tier episode from Russell T Davies’ earlier tenure. A final-minute addition to David Tennant’s closing season, written in an intense rush of inspiration when a earlier script didn’t cohere, it noticed the Tenth Physician visiting the titular Midnight, an inhospitable however stunningly lovely planet lined in diamonds. Whereas traversing the planet’s deadly terrain in a shuttle bus, the Physician and a bunch of human vacationers encountered a vicious alien presence that remained unseen – we merely heard it scraping on the skin of the shuttle, then witnessed it possess one other passenger by a creepily efficient tic of repeated language.
It was an intense episode, a single location stress cooker with one of many bleakest endings within the present’s historical past, which wasn’t uncontroversial. Those that like Physician Who to be a hopeful, humanistic present would discover little consolation in “Midnight”, an episode the place Davies consciously determined to discover the worst of humanity: a bunch of people that refused to co-operate with the Physician and would willingly activate any of their quantity to avoid wasting their very own pores and skin.
Making a sequel to such a singular episode is a dangerous choice, in additional methods than one. For starters, it’s a stone-cold traditional, so any comply with up has a excessive bar to clear. However a part of the chilling energy of “Midnight” is that it’s not likely an episode you may repeat – clearly you are able to do variations on the essential setup of ‘Physician and a bunch of rando people encounter a scary monster’, however the specificity of the character dynamics, the grim tone and the general message that typically individuals are simply horrible… that’s not essentially one thing you are able to do successfully once more, at the very least not whereas remaining Physician Who.
To Davies’ credit score – and that of co-writer Sharma Angel Walfall – that’s not what “The Nicely” is doing. It’s definitely darkish, creepy and brutal. The entity stays largely unseen, as earlier than, other than some unsettling ideas of one thing, however we don’t study rather more about it – there are simply sufficient new particulars to make the episode really feel worthwhile, however the creature’s specific mystique isn’t spoiled. We’re no clearer about its origins, its motivations and even what sort of lifeform it’s, with any new data elevating as many questions as solutions. All the precise decisions, in horror phrases, however nonetheless comparatively acquainted.
