This week’s episode—the season’s first standalone, written by Mark Gatiss—was all about the found footage! It’s time to take a five-minute nap and visit the Sandmen…
Summary
The episode is a repository of found footage pieced together by man named Gagan Rassmussen, who is head researcher on Le Verrier Space Station. The station is orbiting Neptune in the 38th century, and a rescue team has been dispatched to find out what happened to its crew after the station fell out of communication. They are comprised of four soldiers: Nagata, Deep-Ando, Chopra, and a grown clone “grunt” called 474. The group don’t find any of the crew, but they do stumble across the Doctor and Clara (who the psychic paper pegs as engine inspectors). They all encounter strange sand creatures, and are forced to run; Deep-Ando gets separated from the group. The rest end up in a bay full of Morpheus sleep pods, one of which Clara gets sucked into. The Doctor pulls her out, and they awaken the only person on the station, hiding in another pod: It’s Rassmussen, the inventor of the Morpheus system. He shows everyone what the pods are for—they compress a month of sleep into a five minute nap, allowing humans the ability to work continuously.
The Doctor is less than pleased with this idea, and postulates that the monster they encountered is made up of the sleep dust that collects in the corner of people’s eyes. They already consumed the crew, and now they’re after new prey. It seems that the song “Mr. Sandman” draws them to people (it’s the same song that the pods play), and the station computer requests that Deep-Ando sing the song to open a door. He is shortly killed afterward. The station’s gravity shields fail, dragging the station toward Neptune. In the ensuing panic, Rassmussen is killed by the Sandmen—Clara’s name for the monsters. The Doctor fixes the gravity shield and he, Nagata, and Clara hide in the freezer while Chopra and 474 head back to ship, assuming everyone else is dead. 474 gives up his life, saving Chopra from a fire created as a result of the gravity shield problem, but Chopra gets killed by the Sandmen anyway. While in the freezer, the Doctor discovers that the Sandmen are blind, and he uses that to their advantage in escaping the cold room.
Eventually, the Doctor picks up the sonic sunglasses and discovers that a bunch of video is being constantly transmitted, presenting their current dilemma from the perspectives of everyone onboard the station. He assumes that there are cameras in the soldier’s helmet, until Nagata tells him that they don’t have any. It’s then that the Doctor realizes that the video is being taken from the POV of everyone who has been inside the Morpheus pods, Clara included (Chopra doesn’t have a feed because he refused to use them). This tie results in the pod users being infected and then consumed. He assures Clara and Nagata that he can reverse the problem on the TARDIS.
When the three of them arrive back at the rescue ship, they find Rassmussen, who turns out to be very alive. The man is trying to use the ship to transport the very first Morpheus pod, carrying what he calls patient zero of this whole problem. He caused the gravity shield failure so he could transport the pod to the ship without being discovered. Believing that the Sandmen are superior beings, he wants them to make it to Triton and infect the solar system. Rassmussen tries to get the trio infected by patient zero, but the Doctor helps them escape while Nagata shoot Rassmussen dead. Once they make it to the TARDIS, the Doctor decides that all of that seemed far too easy and rehearsed. Sure enough, the Sandmen surround them—so the Doctor turns off the gravity shields again and the station takes a dive into Neptune.
At the end of the episode, we get some narration from Rassmussen who reveals that he, too, is a Sandman, and that the footage we’ve been watching was created to keep you fixated, transmitting their message into your mind. You are now becoming a Sandman as well….
Commentary
This is one of the only non-serial episodes of this season, an interesting break after four consecutive two-parters. Even so, this episode falls down on delivering the shivers it promises, which makes its uniqueness less exciting than it should be. Mark Gatiss has never done a Who episode set in the future, but this is unfortunately a pretty solid miss for him.
It was cool that the episode forewent the standard opener for a screen full of creepy code. Not something that Who does generally (the opener usually only changes with a new Doctor), so it really sets this episode apart in terms of tone. Additionally, it’s been ages since we’ve had an episode centered on found footage, so the change up was a welcome one. Problem is, found footage episodes that focus on new characters must take time to introduce and set up those fresh faces. It would have been nice to spend some time with the rescue crew, but the Doctor and Clara burst in before you know it, and then it’s off to the races.
The story contains ideas that are topical and fascinating: In a world where so many people are expected to work endless hours with little compensation—all in the name of proving how much they care about their jobs—creating an economy built on the backs of workers who never sleep is a highly relevant point on which to turn the plot. The importance of quality snooze time is touched upon as well, which feels extra relevant as study after study keeps emerging about how no one is getting enough sleep, or particularly good sleep, either. It’s too bad that the episode doesn’t engage more with these ideas; the damage caused by a true sleep deficit is horror all by itself, and applying that to this narrative would have worked beautifully.
As I mentioned before, the guest stars in this episode unfortunately don’t get enough characterization or development to be interesting, and it’s too bad because all of the actors are great. It’s particularly distressing that the narrative goes through all the trouble of setting up these “grunts” (the clones) and then barely addresses their creation, use, or fates. It took the Tenth Doctor two whole seasons to eventually go back and help out the Ood, but even then, the Ood were better developed as a species on their very first outing. I suppose we can hope to see the grunts in later episodes, but for now it was simply an atmospheric choice that did nothing for the story.
There’s way too much serendipity in this plot; the Doctor just happens to put on his sonic sunglasses and discover the video feed… because. The Doctor decides that the Sandmen are created because you don’t wipe the sleep from your eyes… and then he never elaborates on how that works. People get separated because they just… run in opposite directions. The dust in people’s eyes are video feeds now? The Sandmen are blind because they needed something to slow them down?
Speaking of the Sandmen, they’re fun in theory, but they just aren’t scary enough to carry the entire episode. The explanation that they are created by the sleep in our eyes could have been a fun one—it’s a bit silly, but it feels very Classic Who—yet we get next to know guidance on how that jump occurs. It doesn’t help that their rules are foggy and strain their mobility entirely. The Doctor’s insistence that he can fix Clara and Nagata following their exposure seems hollow because there is very little reason given on why he should be able to do that. (And if this exposure to the Sandmen becomes something that eventually does put Clara in peril down the road, that needed to be made much more clear.) Because they end up such a vague villain, the meta ending of the episode doesn’t come off at all. Rather than being frightened, we’re merely left with a justification for the “found footage” aspect, and it’s not a very sharp one. It seems as though the tale would have been more chilling in short story format, or perhaps as a radio play.
Putting another idea in the ring, this episode could have been a fantastic choice for a Doctor Lite episode. While we obviously can’t get enough of Twelve, there’s no real reason the Doctor needs to be involved in this particular adventure. It would have been much more fun to have him and Clara swoop in at the end and fix things up, and then the meta final scene would have been much scarier. Plus, we would have had the opportunity to enjoy time with the rescue crew, and then feel sad when each one of them got picked off.
There is more than one similarity between this tale and previous points in other Who episodes. The idea that the Sandmen video is “transmitting” their message to people watching the feed is similar to the Fisher King’s plot in the “Under the Lake” two-parter. Then there’s the idea that watching the Sandmen causes you to become one, very similar to the Weeping Angels. Also, the station’s computer system tells Deep-Ando to sing a song to unlock a door—a decision made by the crew when they were drunk, according to the computer. This is the same gamut created by the crew in the episode “42,” but it was used to heighten tension in there. If all this ends up being intentional, that could be interesting… but it seems more likely that the connections are accidental.
All in all, one of the weaker offers of the season. While the premise showed promise, there simply wasn’t enough oomph behind to make the Sandmen the stuff of nightmares.
Emmet Asher-Perrin did spend the rest of the evening singing “Mr. Sandman,” though. So there’s that. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
At the beginning, Rassmussen asks us to pay attention, and considering the theme of sleep introduced by the trailer, I was fully expecting something along the lines of Amy’s Choice or Last Christmas, and I took note of every inconsistency that shows it is a dream. Of course there is the fact that the found footage is edited and has a soundtrack, but there are also all the inconsistencies in the plot. There are the ones raised by Emily, but also:
– Why would people accept so readily the Doctor’s authority, given that the credentials he gives them are in no way related to the crisis? Just because Clara says so?
– Why would they accept such a grotesque theory (diminishing the amount of sleep would increase the quantity of sleep dust??) Why would the Doctor even suggest such a preposterous theory?
– Why would Clara and the Doctor feel so strongly opposed to useful technology just because it’s new?
– Why would it take so long to notice that the found footage is found nowhere (where did the Doctor get the feed if he doesn’t know they don’t have helmet cameras? And by the way, where did Nagata’s helmet go in the freezer scene?)
– Why would the creatures, which are so fragile that closing the door on them is enough to destroy them, are immune to space weapons? Why do they barely try shooting them anyway?
– Why does everyone assumes that they can contaminate others and having them leave the station would spell the end of humanity, when there is no indication of that?
Those are common critics in Doctor Who, but here they are blatantly obvious, so in many parts, it seems like the episode is having fun poking holes at the common tropes of the show: we have a base under siege, the Doctor arrives out of nowhere and everybody accepts his authority and his grotesque theories for no reason (the cold star in Amy’s Choice made far more sense), a sci-fi technology that was developed for profit is inherently evil even though no side-effect has been observed up until then, the abilities and the strengths of the monsters vary as the plot demands but are immune to bullets anyway, and the local danger is about to get spread all over the world / galaxy. So I was really expecting the pay off to explain everything.
But no, that episode was just that bad.
This is a two parter. The next time segment showed that the sleep-sand-monsters are in the upcoming Diagon Alley episode. It is, however, completely pointless as an episode.
I don’t care about inconsistencies, I embrace them when it comes to Who… but this episode was just plain awful. Not just the worst in the season, the worst in all new Who.
I was very disappointed by this episode after the first viewing, it seemed so inconsistent to me, and I had to force myself to re-watch it though I usually enjoy watching Doctor Who episodes again. I wanted to give this episode a chance, but unfortunately, it did not gain anything on the second viewing. However, I re-watched it listening to the dialogues through my headphones, which is not the usual way I do it, and I agree with the author of this article that this story might have worked better as an audio drama. That’s just what came to my mind on the re-watch, and it is great to learn that I am not the only one with these sentiments. It was so sad for me to find the episode disappointing, I have seen almost all of the New Who, and until this time I was always more or less happy after an episode.
To be fair, the first guy goes straight, while Nigata is screaming “No, this way”. That’s understandable.
But one of Athreeren’s points really resonated with me. These four military types spend the entire episode (or as much of it as they survive) waving what look like pretty awesome weapons, and then nobody ever tries to actually use one on the sandmen until near the end of the episode! And to make it even more ludicrous, when Nigata does finally use hers, Clara gets on her moral high-horse and says “is that your answer for everything?” Apparently not…
But so many loose ends. Chopra apparently gets swallowed by a Morpheus machine, the way Clara did. Everybody walks past it numerous times, but nobody pays it any attention. At the very end, Nigata is right behind Clara and the Doctor, but they appear not to have let her into the Tardis. Just bad.
And if it really is supposed to be a one-off, then the Doctor has left the Sandmen on the loose, because the transmission is clearly sent—and received. Somebody was watching …
I disagree that it doesn’t make sense that the Doctor would oppose a technology that eliminates sleep. We do have adequate scientific research that sleep is absolutely necessary to the human body. But jumping to the immediate conclusion that the sandmen were made from the sleep-sand from our eyes was a bit much for even a life-long whovian to swallow.
It started okay but turned bad fast.
“The sleep in your eyes becomes intelligent monsters” was so stupid I had to fall back on my old headcanon, that the Doctor outright makes up $!@@@@@$, ridiculous explanations just to relieve the tedium of being the smartest person in the room, or to see if anyone will call him on it. And seriously, I know DW has some bad science, but… how gravity works is pretty basic, and they got it so wrong I’m embarrassed for them.
I was actually quite pleased that they had a diverse guest cast, and then somewhat disappointed to find that the explanation for why the crew were Japanese and Indian people was… because Japan and India joined together after tectonic ships. Like, by the 38th century, it’s not enough to just say, “Yeah, so-and-so country’s pretty diverse, and a random team is probably going to have a big mix!”
Though, on the other hand, that it IS a future that’s not the future of a British/American empire is nice, at least.
Very unsatisfying ending. The Doctor just runs away without solving the problem/mystery? The monsters actually, what, succeed in spreading the signal that will doom all humanity? So humanity dies out in the 38th century? Maybe Earth was recolonized by the Federation from the Peladon episodes — I think they were around by then. Still, I feel there should’ve been some closing scene where the Doctor hacks into the signal and says “Now watch closely and I’ll show you the antidote transmission,” or something. (And don’t blink!) As it is, it’s a story without resolution. Maybe that works for horror, I guess, but I don’t think it works for Doctor Who. It’s unsatisfying to see the Doctor fail so completely, to be essentially ineffectual.
Also, sleep-dust turning into monsters is the dumbest Doctor Who monster idea ever. And you don’t need a “gravity shield” to keep from falling onto a planet — you just need to be in orbit. (Plus, Neptune’s cloudtop gravity is only 14% higher than Earth’s surface gravity, so it wouldn’t be this huge crushing pull even aside from all the other ways that Gravity Does Not Work That Way.)
I did kind of like the way it took the (usually nebulously justified) core conceit of the “found footage” genre — that someone edited this whole collection of raw footage into a conveniently dramatic narrative — and actually made that, in itself, the villain’s plan. It provides a better justification for using the “found footage” approach than most examples of that genre do. Maybe also a gibe at “reality TV” and how its version of “reality” is mostly staged and fabricated. But I’m still not at all clear on what actually happened and how much of it was real.
And I liked getting a glimpse of a future society that’s not Caucasian-dominated, something we also got to see briefly in “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship.” Although having them speak with regional British accents made it a bit weird for me. (Was Nagata’s accent Liverpudlian? It had kind of a Dave Lister quality, I thought. But the actress is apparently from London.) Still, why would a hybrid Japanese-Indian civilization from the 38th century be so fond of a 1954 American song?
All in all, as with most of Gatiss’s episodes, the execution falls far short of the concept. I’m very glad that he’s not interested in taking over as showrunner, because I don’t think that would turn out very well.
@6 I kept expecting them to find out some other explanation for the monsters; that the sleep in your eye thing was just smokescreen by the Doctor. The actual “twist” of the story was disappointing.
I’d assumed they were using the gravity shields to enable a slower orbit without crashing into anything. Or some similar shortcut through inconvenient orbital mechanics. One assumes there’s a reason they wanted the station in an unstable orbit.
@8/noblehunter: Even so, if they lost the “shield” and fell toward Neptune, they’d just be in free fall, not experiencing progressively greater heaviness as they fell. Weight isn’t caused by gravity pulling you, it’s caused by gravity pulling you against a fixed surface that resists that pull. If you and the station you’re in are falling at the same rate, then you wouldn’t be pulled against its floor and would feel weightless. (Heck, orbit is free-falling — it’s just falling sideways fast enough to miss the planet.)
@5: I completely agree that such a machine could be bad, like staying awake by drinking loads of energy drinks is bad for you. But Rassmussen and the users claim that it is exactly equivalent to a full night of sleep: how can Clara and the Doctor know that Morpheus doesn’t fully rejuvenate the mind and the body? Chopra’s and the Rip van Winkles’ opposition on the other hand makes complete sense, as they have seen the technology develop and probably have gathered information about it. I would have preferred it if Chopra had explained why it was bad and the Doctor had agreed with him, rather than the opposite.
Just a note about pronouns – I’m pretty sure the “grunt” character of 474 is female and referred to with female pronouns throughout the episode (the only time she is called ‘it’ is by the character of Chopra, who dislikes and disapproves of the existence of grunts). She’s played by trans actor Bethany Black.
(the Wikipedia page for the episode uses male pronouns but in Mark Gatiss’ interviews he refers to the character as female, so)
http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2015/11/doctor-who-13-things-you-may-not-know-about-sleep-no-more-by-mark-gatiss/
@3. Steady on, it can’t be the worst in all of Who. Love & Monsters still exists. Until the universe is rebooted without that episode, starring the second least funny “comedian” in all of Britain, it will always carry the title of worst Who ever. Yes, even worse than Time and the Rani or Creature From the Pit.
@5
But one of Athreeren’s points really resonated with me. These four military types spend the entire episode (or as much of it as they survive) waving what look like pretty awesome weapons, and then nobody ever tries to actually use one on the sandmen until near the end of the episode!
Even when 474 actually charges and attacks a monster she doesn’t shoot. Through a lot of the episode I was wondering if the failure to ever shoot was part of the unreality of the footage we were seeing – the creatures weren’t really visible to the characters but only in the videos, or something like that. I suppose there might have been a cut scene in which people shot and the Doctor pointed out that bullets just pass through, but then that speaks to bad directing. There were a couple of nice touches, though – I remember trying to work out a couple of times whether POV scenes were from Clara’s point of view (and then thinking ‘well, that’s just bad directing’)
where did Nagata’s helmet go in the freezer scene
I think she just took it off briefly for comfort, and again it was a subtle clue we were supposed to pick up on that we were still seeing her POV. But overall the episode certainly suffers in comparison to, say, the Last Christmas in terms of what’s-actually-real games.
There’s some chance some of this will get addressed – the Doctor still has to drop Nagata off on Triton, for example – so I’ll withhold a little judgement. I didn’t catch the sleep monsters in the next-episode preview but I thought there are always supposed to be at least a little connection between each pair, so we’ll see.
I enjoyed the episode. It was a nice change of pace from some of the bloated-feeling “to be continued” stories that have made up the season to date. The science was daffy, but I have always considered Doctor Who more fantasy than it is SF. There was some pointed social commentary about the constant drive to compete fueling the development of this technology. I liked the fact that the Doctor left before finding out what was really going on, as it made for a nice, creepy, old fashioned ghost story twist at the end. But then, I liked The Robots of Sherwood, last year’s Gatiss-penned episode that a lot of people disliked.
@13/Bruce: I’m pretty sure I remember a shot of someone shooting at a Sandman without any effect beyond leaving temporary pits in their sandy bodies.
I kept waiting for the revelation that the Sandmen were created from the psychic force of all those tortured sleep deprived minds that had somehow been pulled out of the people who used the machines and that the sand was just what the force was using. So, the force reformed them every time one was broken down.
@12 according to episode-by-episode IMDb ratings, Fear Her is even more loathed than Love & Monsters (closely followed by last season’s In the Forest of the Night).
@6 – ghostly1: I love your headcanon. It is now mine as well.
@16, that would have been such a better explanation.
I’ve been enjoying this season immensely, but this particular episode fell flat for me. It just seemed to drag on with people making bad decisions and then stop with no real resolution. I’m sure we’ll see the Sandmen again, I’m just not sure if I want to.
Interesting. I was left with the impression that Rassmussen is an unreliable narrator. He says he included all the elements to make it an entertaining show, so as to keep our attention. He might have cobbled it together out of other footage, or simply created scenes that he thought would fascinate us. Plenty of other shows have done this, although it’s a trope I don’t care for.
Since sleep seeds are probably mostly evaporated tears, that makes them crystals of salt and protein, so no matter how they are animated, a good spray of water should dissolve them. Sheesh.
(A really smart show would acknowledge this but then explain that all the water on a space station is reclaimed, recycled and highly rationed, and there just isn’t any way to bring a large enough quantity into play.)
@17: Last month, someone told me that the only reason the episode with the Moon dragon was not the worst episode of Doctor Who ever was that it was impossible to make one worse than Love and Monsters. I answered: “What, you’ve never seen Fear Her?” Fear Her must be recognized as the episode against which all the terrible episodes of Doctor Who must be judged.
Here’s what I thought of the episode and why the storytelling was inconsistent.
It’s revealed in the end that Rassmussen orchestrated the entirety of the found footage. He made it just so it would be entertaining, not smart, suggesting that what originally happened (before the footage got tampered with) was much smarter and more realistic. Well, realistic in Doctor Who standards, at least. The Doctor and Clara running away at the end was a jab at the entire “unsolved ending” cliché that found footage horror movies seem to always have; Rassmussen purposely made it that way. He even said so himself! He made it to have big, huge climax at the end! Oh, so dramatic! But, since we were observing the found footage that was messed with and not what actually happened, the Doctor and Clara most definitely would have stayed to figure out what just happened in reality. You just have to keep in mind while watching it that you’re viewing the orchestrated footage on top of an orchestrated, rehearsed event. You’re probably wondering, “Well why would the footage need to be edited if the event was already intricately planned out?” Well, the Doctor and Clara showed up, which wasn’t a part of the original plan. That part wasn’t predicted. Only the rescue crew was. In the real footage (again, not the one we viewed, the footage we watched was the tampered one) the Doctor and Clara would have obviously started trying to figure things out (possibly come close to ending the creatures altogether?) but that’s not what Rassmussen wanted, since he wanted you to be scared so you would lose sleep, so the “virus” (I guess you could call it) of the Sandmen would start to develop and inevitably take over you since you watched the video (remind anyone of “what holds the image of an angel becomes itself an angel”?). But, since Rassmussen isn’t an experienced horror movie editor, it’s pretty easy to understand why it still wasn’t that scary when it was supposed to be. In my opinion, it was pretty well-done for Gatiss to consider all of that (the entire editing footage part with Rassmussen, purposely making it appear to have loose ends just to make it seem even more like a stereotypical found footage movie), knowing he isn’t the most recurring writer for Who. I trust Gatiss, he’s a pretty good writer, seeing his work with Sherlock. Maybe not the greatest for Doctor Who style writing, though. I will say that. I did like his work with Robot of Sherwood, though.
Yeah, there was some of the plot that could have been changed to make it better of an episode, but, overall, I give it a… 3.7 out of 5 stars. It wasn’t terrible, and I enjoyed watching it.
Given what happens in the next episode, there’s always the possibility that this could be the start of a several-episode-long dream sequence perpetrated by a Morpheus Pod, and the Doctor’s still asleep by the time it’s over.
Well, okay, probably not, but it would be an interesting narrative trick.