Midnight: Doctor Who’s Most Terrifying Tale (Part 1)
If you could describe any Doctor Who episode, how would you? What’s the original format? The Doctor travels somewhere. There’s a monster, or a mystery needing to be solved, and in the end, he does it. Not everyone survives but he saves who he can. This is a fair description of most episodes of Doctor Who. Every episode perhaps. Every episode, but Midnight. Midnight was the tenth episode of Series 4, airing on the 14th of June 2008. It has been named one of Doctor Who’s most terrifying stories. Not simply due to a monster or a threat, but due to the atmosphere, the departure from practically every other episode in existence. You see, this time, it’s not as simple. Where are we? Well, not somewhere in time. We’re surrounded by strangers on a cruise. Not your usual outing. Who are we with? No one. Our companion has decided to sit this one out in favour of a spa day. Who’s the monster? We don’t know. A marked difference between this and every other outing is that we never solve the mystery. Why? Because our protagonist is too afraid to deal with it. Midnight starts comedic as usual, David Tennant’s era usually going for comedy to balance out the darkness of whatever we’re about to face. He’s on the phone with companion, Donna Noble, begging her to come along with him on his journey to this mysterious diamond planet with sapphire waterfalls, thinking she’ll love it. Donna refuses, telling her friend to be careful, but not before he sees Sky and the unnamed hostess, who will both be rather important characters later. This is a great starting off point because when they walk by, they’re framed in a way that makes them look like unimportant cameo figures. He has to hide from them because he hasn’t got a ticket, and in true Doctorish fashion, is sneaking his way into things. When he boards the train, he’s filled with optimism, somehow thinking this will be a normal trip, and for a while, it seems that it will be. The thing about The Doctor is that he’s been everywhere, seen everything and it’s never a bore. He always gets a thrill out of discovery and moreso, danger, a vital flaw in his character. He is never desensitised to the fear or excitement of going to dangerous or unknown places He gets to know the individual passengers, encouraging his acquaintances to talk to each other, becoming friendly with them and having a laugh, highlighting the human aspects of this incarnation. He smiles at Sky Silvestri, the oncoming target of The Midnight Entity, indicating such friendliness towards her, that will turn itself against him later on. It’s been 15 minutes at this point so it seems like this will be a filler episode. No companion, no monster, no time travel. No TARDIS. Already quite a strange circumstance. If not strange enough, the train stops as a professor is giving a lecture on the galaxy. Confusion and fear is felt. The hostess identifies such an event as a simple technical delay and advises everyone to remain seated. Something weird is clearly going on. As the viewer, you are confused, then remember, ah yes. This is still Doctor Who. This is where the episode begins to trick you and make you believe nevermind, this is a typical Doctor Who episode. When really, it could not be further from. The Doctor enters the control room of the train where he poses as a Company Insurance man in order to try and figure out what’s going on. He knows this is just a simple technical error, but he still wants to help. The threat at hand never has to be deadly or dangerous for The Doctor to want to intervene. A very important thing I would like to address here is something that is addressed consistently throughout the episode but still something I would like to address further. Throughout the episode, The Doctor uses this sentence consistently.
‘’I’m The Doctor and I’m clever.’’
What we can see here is a clear superiority complex going on inside The Doctor’s brain. A great character flaw is presented to us here, giving him room for development. He is very egotistical. He truly does believe he’s the cleverest person in the room, which while this may very well be true, results in him disregarding his peers and others around him. He sees those trying to do their jobs as inferior to him. This will come back to bite him later. What will also come back to bite him is his dangerous streak of curiosity that I mentioned earlier, as he encourages the mechanics to open the window of the vehicle, which could quite possibly kill them. This incarnation is reckless and quite insane. In this episode in particular, he appears to be so in love with himself and the idea of his superiority that he wants to be proven right and also feed into the curiosity he refuses to keep under control. He is still very much a pacifist but still has a proclivity to take risks and do dangerous things. While David Tennant’s incarnation of this character displays everything that The Doctor should be, the writing balances that out by making him incredibly flawed. Why does any of this matter? Because all of this will be the reason that things go wrong. While looking out at the glimmering view of the outside, the trainee mechanic spots a shadow that The Doctor can’t seem to see. Before he can get a close enough look, the alarms go off, prompting the mechanics to close the window before their oxygen runs out. The older mechanic orders the Doctor to go back to his seat and not to say a word to anyone; an impulse that he very much won’t be able to resist for long. Though he is able to lie through his teeth to his fellow passengers for a while, he can’t seem to let it go. One of them, who is a college student, about the engines to which every one starts to panic, despite The Doctor’s reassurance. This episode strives on the idea that when in fear, our true selves come out, which is absolutely true. Survival instinct, the people we become when we long to survive. How vicious we can become. The passengers worry for their own safety and turn to The Doctor for answers, only believing him to know things due to his known chat with the Captain. Voices holler and crowd around, everyone’s talking at once. No one can access the doors, no one can come in or out. A knock is heard on the front doors.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
