![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSeveral reviews have pointed out sources for Midnight: Lord of the Flies, The Crucible, Twelve Angry Men. (I loved the review titled "Eight Angry Passengers".) In the Confidential, RTD references two of these and also mentions he got the idea for the episode when writing Voyage of the Damned, as a kind of counterpoint. I've found comparing the two (not just in the obvious department) quite interesting, and illuminative in the way of storytelling, specifically regarding a story told in the Whoverse, which is why you'll get some of my rambles on the subject.
Of course, they're different types of narratives. VotD is a straightforward disaster movie. Midnight, despite the transport-vehicle-crashed MacGuffin, is a horror story. But they still compliment and contrast each other, and if you look at them, you see quite how careful drawn the correspondances are; the differences by themselves provide a comment.
In both cases, the Doctor is on this adventure without his regular companion, and without his TARDIS. It has been pointed out Midnight is the first episode since Old Who's Genesis of the Daleks to not even show the TARDIS in the background somewhere at some point, but the old girl isn't around much in VotD, either, which in both cases is important; those stories wouldn't work if the Doctor had access to his time machine, he has to be in exactly the same spot as the rest of the passengers. In both cases, before disaster strikes, we have the Doctor chatting and sort-of-befriending with some of the passengers. In VotD, he first has eye contact, then a conversation with Astrid, then goes to sit with the nice married couple, the Von Hoffs, and talks to them, making them laugh by the way he gets back at the snobs who ridiculed them from the neighbouring table, then encounters the lecturing Mr. Copper ("I have a degree in Earthonomics") and sort of befriends him, too. In Midnight, the Doctor first makes eye-contact, then chats with Sky Silvestri (who corresponds with Astrid; they even get the same "so, are you travelling alone?" conversation with the Doctor - more about that in a minute), then sits with the married couple, laughing with them as they tell a joke, then listens to Profesor Hobbes lecturing. In VotD, this friendliness and interest in the people pays off later - when the stewards are dragging him away, all the people he's talked to (plus Rickston who might be an obnoxious businessman but not a fool) are following, protesting, which saves their lives a minute later when the meteor strikes. It also helps when he needs to convince them to trust him. Not so in Midnight.
Of course, the correspondants are not alikes. Instead of the nice, working class Von Hoffs we get the middle-class Canes (not too subtle a last name, Rusty!), who might at first just come across as your avarage family, complete with sulking teenage son (is anyone reminded of the Caecilii?) but who display their panic-induced prejudice and need for a scapegoat in a murderous fashion. Foon von Hoff sacrifices herself to take out one of the Hosts to help her fellow passengers survive; Val Cane ends up as the ringleader in the "throw him out!" chant, and even afterwards, her last sentence displays the same fear and narrowness. "I've always said it was in her." Mr. Copper might be a pseudo professor and gets basically everyhing he pretends to know about Earth wrong, but he falls squarely in the "lovable rogue" type of character category, and gets to voice the moral lesson of the day. "Of all the people to survive, he (Rickston) is not the one I'd have chosen, or you. But if you could choose who survives and who dies, that would make you a kind of monster, wouldn't it?" Both audience and Doctor like him immensely. Meanwhile, Professor Hobbes's degree might be genuine, but even before the panic starts, the way he's constantly downtalking to his clearly brighter assistant is off-putting (especially since the script makes it clear that she's right and he's wrong about just everything, starting with the "what about the air?" question), and after the fear makes everyone go to extremes, his final attempt to shut her up is downright vicious. Mr. Copper promises he'll never forget Astrid; Professor Hobbes doesn't even know the Hostess' name (nor does anyone else).
VotD and Midnight start in very different emotional situations where the Doctor is concerned. In VotD, he comes directly from Martha leaving and before that the Master dying. When Astrid asks whether he travels alone, he does his usual avoidance thing, saying that there used to be someone but he's on his own now, and hastily talks about something else instead. He remains on board the spaceshipc Titanic after the TARDIS crashed into it mostly because he desperately needs the distraction. In Midnight, by contrast, he starts out downright happy. When on the phone to Donna, he geeks out about the Sapphire waterfalls, and looks forward to having dinner in an anti-gravity restaurant with her after the trip; he's travelling human-style because it's fun. When Sky Silvestri asks whether he is alone, he explains about Donna, and whether you take his later commiserating "I had a friend once who moved into another universe" after Sky told him about her ex who needed space and moved to another galaxy to be referring to Rose or Romana, one thing that is pointedly missing is him being angsty or gloomy about it. He says it in a matter of fact way, focused on Sky, not his own woes. This is a Doctor as emotionally stable as he gets.
And then things start to get pear-shaped. In VotD, Midshipman Frame is the first to notice the approaching meteors; in Midnight, Jo the engineer is the first one to notice something - that might or might not be a shadow - approaching the ship. In both cases, the bridge is the first thing that gets attacked and disabled. VotD goes for the full special effect extravaganza, as this is part of the point of having a sci fi Titanic around; the crash is the first big display of the evening. In Midnight, we never leave the room, never see more than the passengers do, and the only effect used is sound. I didn't think of this when I wrote my own review, but another review drew a parallel to the classic film The Haunting by Robert Wise (not the remake!), and the use of knocking as a means to induce terror is indeed similar, and similarly effective. In theory, it shouldn't be threatening. It's just a noise, just a sound, the same one. But we can't see what makes that sound, and that starts to unnerve passengers and audience alike.
Even after a crash with three meteors and drifting, the Titanic by its sheer size never feels claustrophobic. There is plenty of room for the Doctor to manouevre, to display all the tricks in his repertoire to save the situation. His rallying of the motley group of survivors is successful from the first go; after that initial "and who are you to be in charge?" protest from Rickston which gets the "I'm a Time Lord from the Planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous etc." speech, they're all solidly behind him, not that anyone but Rickston was showing signs of not being before. They see the Doctor restore communication to the bridge (and the fact he remains in contact with Midshipman Frame throughout is very important, as the exchanged information, as about the Hosts, saves both Frame and the Doctor at different points, they see him open doors that were locked, they see him stall the Hosts momentarily by talking them into answering his questions. They also get inspired to show their own heroism; each of them makes essential contributions. Bannakaffalatta saves everyone by using his energy converter; Mr. Copper is the one pointing out after the Cyborg's death that this instrument will help them fight the Host if they can reload it, which they do, and it continues to save the remaining survivor's lives. I've already talked about Foon. Through the catastrophe, the characters are bonding and/or sharing; the Von Hoffs share a last loving scene before their demise when Foon confesses how she won them the trip with the Titanic, Mr. Copper tells Astrid and the Doctor the truth about having cheated his way on board (which later makes the Doctor facilitate his escape before the authorities can arrive), Bannakaffalatta and Astrid befriend and flirt with each other, Astrid and the Doctor get close enough that she asks to go with him later. After the day is saved (in the sense of Earth not getting destroyed by nuclear fallout from crashing with the Titanic, and the Titanic from crashing, plus the three last survivors and the Doctor), relief is expressed in physical way: Rickston and Mr. Copper hug after having clung together during the Titanic's free fall, the Doctor and Midshipman Frame sit slumped against each other. When the Doctor tries to save Astrid from the transport pattern in vain, Mr. Copper gently talks him down; human connections all around.
The (nameless) vehicle from the Crusader line offers a complete contrast. There is, literally, no room to manoeuvre. Contact with the people steering the vehicle doesn't work because the equivalent of the bridge is blown away. There is nothing left to steer (which is how the Doctor managed to save the Titanic at the last second). There are no doors to be opened because anyone going outside is instantly vaporized. There are no repairs to be made from within; all the sonic screwdriver can do is open a panel that proves they've lost their cabin. There is no lair of the villain to be found (which is what the Doctor does in VotD), and as for stalling by talk, as for human bonding - well. The only successful attempt to calm everyone down and encourage them the Doctor makes is before the alien enters the vehicle, when everyone is panicking about air, and he first quiets them and then lets DeeDee explain why air won't be a problem. After that, everything that can go wrong does. His earlier friendliness to Sky Silvestri, the only traveller who like himself didn't arrive in the company of someone else, is seen as a sign he's in league with the alien. (Both Hobbes and Val Cane bring it up repeatedly.) Ditto his pointing out Sky could still be in there, and the gentleness he showed to her directly after the attack. Showing compassion makes him look as bad in their eyes his casual arrogance does when it is directed at the other outsider on board. Speech in VotC was a way for the Doctor to stall the Host, to stall Max Capricorn, which is what he usually does. In Midnight, his attempts to communicate with the alien, to figure it out (and try to find out whether or not something of Sky is still surviving) not only enhance the other passenger's distrust but in the end enable the alien to take his voice away. "Who are you?" isn't replied to with a proud "I'm a Time Lord" speech; he goes for his usual human alias instead, John Smith, not used since he actually became John Smith, human and helpless in Human Nature, and nobody believes him. Appeals to everyone's better nature fail; this includes the two almost-companions, DeeDee and Jethro, both of whom waver at different points but in the end can't bring themselves to act against the majority. His earlier prediction - that the alien was likely to go from echoing and mimicry to absorbing and becoming - turns out to be correct, but while hearing the Doctor's out loud diagnosis of Max Capricorn's plot enables Astrid to get into the vehicle that allows her to finish off Capricorn, seeing the Doctor's prediction come true does not enable DeeDee and Jethro; they're simply too scared and too pressured.
(And oh, irony: the one instance where Doctorish speech comes in useful and pays off is unintentional. The Hostess was the only person on board he didn't have chats with before disaster struck, as she was annoyed by his "oh, I can't wait! Allons-y!" earlier. But she did remember the expression, and it clinched it for her that Sky was still the alien, using the Doctor's speech.)
And the visuals: VotD went out of its way to give us the Doctor in the light, both during the early speech with the flames behind him and in the finger-snapping taking-over-the-Host flying scene. You know who gets the light from above and behind visual in Midnight? Possessed!Sky once she's standing with the other passengers, while the only source of light on the completely immobilized Doctor is the blue flickering viewscreen in front of him. He's literally in the shadow, until they start to drag him to the airlock. And the aftermath in the vehicle; everyone is sitting alone and far away from each other, not just the Doctor. Nobody can look at each other, not just Jethro at his parents, but also the Canes at each other, DeeDee and Professor Hobbes, and naturally, nobody can look at the Doctor. Or answer the one question he asks, about the Hostess' name. Most of the passengers of the Crusader flight might be alive while all but three passengers of the Titanic are dead, but what happened means hugging, leaning and clinging, let alone confidence exchanging a la VotD in Midnight is impossible. There is not one convenient single villain to blame the disaster on, as Max Capricorn was. Or killing robots who were just obeying their orders. Yes, there is the alien, but it in the end, it was nothing but a reflection of themselves, full of their own murderous intentions and filling them with fear in turn. When watching the episode the first time, you expect Sky to be zombified or otherwise turned in to a monster when the Doctor persuades her to turn around. But she doesn't even have a scratch; no artificial effects are used to convey her otherness. It's all done from within, which could be the motto of the episode. "Look at his eyes, they're the same as hers" is said before the Doctor gets immobilized; once he is, nobody can see his eyes, and they are the only means of expression he has left, conveying the horror, but in vain. And then the Hostess saves everyone, but they still can't bear to look, perhaps because they see clearly, at last.
The very end of both stories, on the other hand, is a different kind of comment, on the emotional status of the Doctor at two different points in his personal timeline. In VotD, after helping Mr. Copper escape from the ship, the Doctor declines his tentative question (taking "what about me?" as a request to travel together, which it probably was), though he cheers Mr. Copper up by revealing what his credit card means on Earth, giving him the prospect of a nice comfortable retirement. Still, this is the Doctor in denial ("I travel alone"), not able to open himself up. In Midnight, otoh, Donna only has to see him to realise he needs a hug, and afterwards he tells her everything, not even attempting an "I'm alright". This is the Doctor open. He was not able to reach the other passengers, and his attempts to bargain with the alien only brought possession, but over the months, he has build up a strong connection to Donna, and that is the one communication in this story that really, really works.
Of course, they're different types of narratives. VotD is a straightforward disaster movie. Midnight, despite the transport-vehicle-crashed MacGuffin, is a horror story. But they still compliment and contrast each other, and if you look at them, you see quite how careful drawn the correspondances are; the differences by themselves provide a comment.
In both cases, the Doctor is on this adventure without his regular companion, and without his TARDIS. It has been pointed out Midnight is the first episode since Old Who's Genesis of the Daleks to not even show the TARDIS in the background somewhere at some point, but the old girl isn't around much in VotD, either, which in both cases is important; those stories wouldn't work if the Doctor had access to his time machine, he has to be in exactly the same spot as the rest of the passengers. In both cases, before disaster strikes, we have the Doctor chatting and sort-of-befriending with some of the passengers. In VotD, he first has eye contact, then a conversation with Astrid, then goes to sit with the nice married couple, the Von Hoffs, and talks to them, making them laugh by the way he gets back at the snobs who ridiculed them from the neighbouring table, then encounters the lecturing Mr. Copper ("I have a degree in Earthonomics") and sort of befriends him, too. In Midnight, the Doctor first makes eye-contact, then chats with Sky Silvestri (who corresponds with Astrid; they even get the same "so, are you travelling alone?" conversation with the Doctor - more about that in a minute), then sits with the married couple, laughing with them as they tell a joke, then listens to Profesor Hobbes lecturing. In VotD, this friendliness and interest in the people pays off later - when the stewards are dragging him away, all the people he's talked to (plus Rickston who might be an obnoxious businessman but not a fool) are following, protesting, which saves their lives a minute later when the meteor strikes. It also helps when he needs to convince them to trust him. Not so in Midnight.
Of course, the correspondants are not alikes. Instead of the nice, working class Von Hoffs we get the middle-class Canes (not too subtle a last name, Rusty!), who might at first just come across as your avarage family, complete with sulking teenage son (is anyone reminded of the Caecilii?) but who display their panic-induced prejudice and need for a scapegoat in a murderous fashion. Foon von Hoff sacrifices herself to take out one of the Hosts to help her fellow passengers survive; Val Cane ends up as the ringleader in the "throw him out!" chant, and even afterwards, her last sentence displays the same fear and narrowness. "I've always said it was in her." Mr. Copper might be a pseudo professor and gets basically everyhing he pretends to know about Earth wrong, but he falls squarely in the "lovable rogue" type of character category, and gets to voice the moral lesson of the day. "Of all the people to survive, he (Rickston) is not the one I'd have chosen, or you. But if you could choose who survives and who dies, that would make you a kind of monster, wouldn't it?" Both audience and Doctor like him immensely. Meanwhile, Professor Hobbes's degree might be genuine, but even before the panic starts, the way he's constantly downtalking to his clearly brighter assistant is off-putting (especially since the script makes it clear that she's right and he's wrong about just everything, starting with the "what about the air?" question), and after the fear makes everyone go to extremes, his final attempt to shut her up is downright vicious. Mr. Copper promises he'll never forget Astrid; Professor Hobbes doesn't even know the Hostess' name (nor does anyone else).
VotD and Midnight start in very different emotional situations where the Doctor is concerned. In VotD, he comes directly from Martha leaving and before that the Master dying. When Astrid asks whether he travels alone, he does his usual avoidance thing, saying that there used to be someone but he's on his own now, and hastily talks about something else instead. He remains on board the spaceshipc Titanic after the TARDIS crashed into it mostly because he desperately needs the distraction. In Midnight, by contrast, he starts out downright happy. When on the phone to Donna, he geeks out about the Sapphire waterfalls, and looks forward to having dinner in an anti-gravity restaurant with her after the trip; he's travelling human-style because it's fun. When Sky Silvestri asks whether he is alone, he explains about Donna, and whether you take his later commiserating "I had a friend once who moved into another universe" after Sky told him about her ex who needed space and moved to another galaxy to be referring to Rose or Romana, one thing that is pointedly missing is him being angsty or gloomy about it. He says it in a matter of fact way, focused on Sky, not his own woes. This is a Doctor as emotionally stable as he gets.
And then things start to get pear-shaped. In VotD, Midshipman Frame is the first to notice the approaching meteors; in Midnight, Jo the engineer is the first one to notice something - that might or might not be a shadow - approaching the ship. In both cases, the bridge is the first thing that gets attacked and disabled. VotD goes for the full special effect extravaganza, as this is part of the point of having a sci fi Titanic around; the crash is the first big display of the evening. In Midnight, we never leave the room, never see more than the passengers do, and the only effect used is sound. I didn't think of this when I wrote my own review, but another review drew a parallel to the classic film The Haunting by Robert Wise (not the remake!), and the use of knocking as a means to induce terror is indeed similar, and similarly effective. In theory, it shouldn't be threatening. It's just a noise, just a sound, the same one. But we can't see what makes that sound, and that starts to unnerve passengers and audience alike.
Even after a crash with three meteors and drifting, the Titanic by its sheer size never feels claustrophobic. There is plenty of room for the Doctor to manouevre, to display all the tricks in his repertoire to save the situation. His rallying of the motley group of survivors is successful from the first go; after that initial "and who are you to be in charge?" protest from Rickston which gets the "I'm a Time Lord from the Planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous etc." speech, they're all solidly behind him, not that anyone but Rickston was showing signs of not being before. They see the Doctor restore communication to the bridge (and the fact he remains in contact with Midshipman Frame throughout is very important, as the exchanged information, as about the Hosts, saves both Frame and the Doctor at different points, they see him open doors that were locked, they see him stall the Hosts momentarily by talking them into answering his questions. They also get inspired to show their own heroism; each of them makes essential contributions. Bannakaffalatta saves everyone by using his energy converter; Mr. Copper is the one pointing out after the Cyborg's death that this instrument will help them fight the Host if they can reload it, which they do, and it continues to save the remaining survivor's lives. I've already talked about Foon. Through the catastrophe, the characters are bonding and/or sharing; the Von Hoffs share a last loving scene before their demise when Foon confesses how she won them the trip with the Titanic, Mr. Copper tells Astrid and the Doctor the truth about having cheated his way on board (which later makes the Doctor facilitate his escape before the authorities can arrive), Bannakaffalatta and Astrid befriend and flirt with each other, Astrid and the Doctor get close enough that she asks to go with him later. After the day is saved (in the sense of Earth not getting destroyed by nuclear fallout from crashing with the Titanic, and the Titanic from crashing, plus the three last survivors and the Doctor), relief is expressed in physical way: Rickston and Mr. Copper hug after having clung together during the Titanic's free fall, the Doctor and Midshipman Frame sit slumped against each other. When the Doctor tries to save Astrid from the transport pattern in vain, Mr. Copper gently talks him down; human connections all around.
The (nameless) vehicle from the Crusader line offers a complete contrast. There is, literally, no room to manoeuvre. Contact with the people steering the vehicle doesn't work because the equivalent of the bridge is blown away. There is nothing left to steer (which is how the Doctor managed to save the Titanic at the last second). There are no doors to be opened because anyone going outside is instantly vaporized. There are no repairs to be made from within; all the sonic screwdriver can do is open a panel that proves they've lost their cabin. There is no lair of the villain to be found (which is what the Doctor does in VotD), and as for stalling by talk, as for human bonding - well. The only successful attempt to calm everyone down and encourage them the Doctor makes is before the alien enters the vehicle, when everyone is panicking about air, and he first quiets them and then lets DeeDee explain why air won't be a problem. After that, everything that can go wrong does. His earlier friendliness to Sky Silvestri, the only traveller who like himself didn't arrive in the company of someone else, is seen as a sign he's in league with the alien. (Both Hobbes and Val Cane bring it up repeatedly.) Ditto his pointing out Sky could still be in there, and the gentleness he showed to her directly after the attack. Showing compassion makes him look as bad in their eyes his casual arrogance does when it is directed at the other outsider on board. Speech in VotC was a way for the Doctor to stall the Host, to stall Max Capricorn, which is what he usually does. In Midnight, his attempts to communicate with the alien, to figure it out (and try to find out whether or not something of Sky is still surviving) not only enhance the other passenger's distrust but in the end enable the alien to take his voice away. "Who are you?" isn't replied to with a proud "I'm a Time Lord" speech; he goes for his usual human alias instead, John Smith, not used since he actually became John Smith, human and helpless in Human Nature, and nobody believes him. Appeals to everyone's better nature fail; this includes the two almost-companions, DeeDee and Jethro, both of whom waver at different points but in the end can't bring themselves to act against the majority. His earlier prediction - that the alien was likely to go from echoing and mimicry to absorbing and becoming - turns out to be correct, but while hearing the Doctor's out loud diagnosis of Max Capricorn's plot enables Astrid to get into the vehicle that allows her to finish off Capricorn, seeing the Doctor's prediction come true does not enable DeeDee and Jethro; they're simply too scared and too pressured.
(And oh, irony: the one instance where Doctorish speech comes in useful and pays off is unintentional. The Hostess was the only person on board he didn't have chats with before disaster struck, as she was annoyed by his "oh, I can't wait! Allons-y!" earlier. But she did remember the expression, and it clinched it for her that Sky was still the alien, using the Doctor's speech.)
And the visuals: VotD went out of its way to give us the Doctor in the light, both during the early speech with the flames behind him and in the finger-snapping taking-over-the-Host flying scene. You know who gets the light from above and behind visual in Midnight? Possessed!Sky once she's standing with the other passengers, while the only source of light on the completely immobilized Doctor is the blue flickering viewscreen in front of him. He's literally in the shadow, until they start to drag him to the airlock. And the aftermath in the vehicle; everyone is sitting alone and far away from each other, not just the Doctor. Nobody can look at each other, not just Jethro at his parents, but also the Canes at each other, DeeDee and Professor Hobbes, and naturally, nobody can look at the Doctor. Or answer the one question he asks, about the Hostess' name. Most of the passengers of the Crusader flight might be alive while all but three passengers of the Titanic are dead, but what happened means hugging, leaning and clinging, let alone confidence exchanging a la VotD in Midnight is impossible. There is not one convenient single villain to blame the disaster on, as Max Capricorn was. Or killing robots who were just obeying their orders. Yes, there is the alien, but it in the end, it was nothing but a reflection of themselves, full of their own murderous intentions and filling them with fear in turn. When watching the episode the first time, you expect Sky to be zombified or otherwise turned in to a monster when the Doctor persuades her to turn around. But she doesn't even have a scratch; no artificial effects are used to convey her otherness. It's all done from within, which could be the motto of the episode. "Look at his eyes, they're the same as hers" is said before the Doctor gets immobilized; once he is, nobody can see his eyes, and they are the only means of expression he has left, conveying the horror, but in vain. And then the Hostess saves everyone, but they still can't bear to look, perhaps because they see clearly, at last.
The very end of both stories, on the other hand, is a different kind of comment, on the emotional status of the Doctor at two different points in his personal timeline. In VotD, after helping Mr. Copper escape from the ship, the Doctor declines his tentative question (taking "what about me?" as a request to travel together, which it probably was), though he cheers Mr. Copper up by revealing what his credit card means on Earth, giving him the prospect of a nice comfortable retirement. Still, this is the Doctor in denial ("I travel alone"), not able to open himself up. In Midnight, otoh, Donna only has to see him to realise he needs a hug, and afterwards he tells her everything, not even attempting an "I'm alright". This is the Doctor open. He was not able to reach the other passengers, and his attempts to bargain with the alien only brought possession, but over the months, he has build up a strong connection to Donna, and that is the one communication in this story that really, really works.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 02:05 pm (UTC)My first thought when watching it was a comparison with Clarke's A Fall of Moondust which had the same tense "no way out" vibe - I think he modelled it on submarine disaster movies etc. - but no horror element; there were a few incidents of characters arguing etc., but all resolved fairly quickly. Your comparison with Lord of the Flies is much better.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 09:50 pm (UTC)In other news: I have a new moodtheme! Look at the prettyness!
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 10:03 pm (UTC)(Although I can easily see having that reaction to Stargate, depending on which four episodes you watched. I'm only watching it (and enjoying the heck out of it) now because people forced me to give it a second chance, and showed me the right episodes to convince me. :))
And, yay, mood theme! Aww, look at poor melancholy Donna...
no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 12:37 am (UTC)I think that's what made Midnight a much more interesting episode for me - I enjoyed VotD as a spectacle, but it didn't really engage me or make me think. I think your were right on the money when you pointed out how Sky, in her possessed state, looks no different. You could put it down to a teeny tiny budget, but it works so well thematically that you can't fault it: more often than not, the worst monsters are ordinary people.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 10:57 am (UTC)I hadn't noticed that! I love it. I love how there are no special effects to convey otherness, the acting takes care of the job. Also I admire your brain a lot.
And this is my obligatory Donna mention: I love so much how there's not even an attempt at alright between them. And I see you have a new Donna mood theme! I am anxious for the next episode, and being unspoiled is getting harder and harder.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 12:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 01:59 pm (UTC)I'm one of those people who loved "Midnight". It completely turned around the Doctor's tendancy to win people's trust and respect wherever he goes. The panic in his face when "I'm clever!" didn't work this time was... ooh!
no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-19 07:38 pm (UTC)It is interesting how the failures of communication throughout the episode make the Doctor and Donna's instinctive understanding of each other stand out even more. They have such a lovely connection.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-20 06:38 am (UTC)