This week, the Doctor makes a house call in a little boy’s bedroom in this episode written by Mark Gatiss. So, how scary is it and is it any good? Find out in my review.

Review: Doctor Who – Series 6 – Episode 9: Night Terrors

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS INCLUDING A FULL PLOT SUMMARY. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE EPISODE, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

As with all previous reviews, the plot summary will be in regular type, with my comments in bold.

In an apartment block, a child named George (Jamie Oram) is terrified of everything. When his mother, Claire (Emma Cunniffe), says goodnight before she goes to work, George makes her turn the light on and off five times to keep the monsters away. When she leaves, George starts chanting “Please save me from the monsters” over and over. Through the crack in his bedroom door, he can see and hear his mother talking to his father, Alex (Daniel Mays). They may need a specialist to see him. In the TARDIS at the other side of the universe, the Doctor (Matt Smith) gets George’s message on his psychic paper and decides to make a house call on little George.

When they arrive, Amy (Karen Gillan), Rory (Arthur Darville) and he split up to look for a scared child. Each visits a different apartment: the Doctor talks to the elderly Mrs Rossiter (Leila Hoffman) ; Rory talks to the landlord, Jim Purcell (Andrew Tiernan) ; and Amy meets twin girls and their mother. The twins are pretty creepy, but they’re not monsters. By the way, in an unintentionally hilarious moment, Mrs. Rossiter gets “eaten” by a pile of trash bags. All of them are suspicious of the strangers and slam the doors in their faces. Wouldn’t you? The Doctor spots George looking out of his window and knocks on his apartment door. Amy and Rory get in a lift to join the Doctor, but the lift plummets and they disappear from it. Rory: “We’re dead AGAIN.” They end up in an unusual house that Rory suspects is from the 1700s until they find a electric lamp. ROCKY HORROR REFERENCE: “Castles don’t have phones.” They also find a wooden pan that is painted to look like copper. Which Amy immediately begins wielding. They also find a large glass eye in a drawer.

Meanwhile the Doctor asks George’s father, Alex, about George’s fears. Alex replies that George is “scared to death of everything”. Alex reveals that he and Claire created a tradition with George – anything that scares him, they put in the cupboard. The Doctor and Alex intend to open George’s closet, but the landlord arrives and starts harassing Alex about his rent, while the Doctor brings all of George’s toys to life using his sonic screwdriver. Of the two, I think George is having the better time at this point. The Doctor scans George’s cupboard. Whatever is inside it is off the scale. Alex comes back in and reaches for the cupboard – the Doctor stops him, saying “George’s monsters are real”. Cue the chills up your spine.

Meanwhile, Amy and Rory are still exploring the strange house. They hear a sinister giggling from a closet. And, it is really sinister. Their fears are allayed when they see the cupboard contains only a wooden doll, but when they turn away, the doll moves. Cue more chills.

Back in the apartment block, the Doctor tells Alex who he is and convinces him of the truth. They argue whether to open the cupboard. This is an incredibly well acted scene between Matt and Daniel. At the same time, Purcell is sucked through the carpet of his living room into the house with Rory and Amy.  He’s melting, melting. What a world, what world. My favorite part is his dog just watches and makes NO effort to help him at all. He is caught by the dolls and turned into one of them in front of Amy and Rory’s eyes. He was a jerk, so most people were probably not that sad. The transformation effect is horrifying. The Doctor opens George’s cupboard. He finds nothing inside but some clothes and a dollhouse.

Amy and Rory try to escape the dolls, but Amy is caught and made into a doll in front of a horrified Rory. This is a shocking development. At the apartment, The Doctor knows he’s missing something and examines a photo album of Alex and Claire. Claire is not pregnant in a photo taken only weeks before George was born. Alex shouts that Claire can’t have kids, then looks confused. I didn’t see this coming, did anyone else? He only just remembered that. Both turn to look at Alex’s “son”, and the Doctor asks, “What are you, George?” Suddenly, a light comes from the cupboard and Alex and The Doctor are dragged inside while George chants “Please save me from the monsters”. It’s Doctor Who meets Poltergeist.

Inside the cupboard, the Doctor realizes that they are in George’s dollhouse.  The funny thing is, through this whole episode, they never explain why George, a boy, HAS A DOLLHOUSE! They meet up with Rory. The Doctor realizes that George is a Tenza – an alien race that hatch in space, then assimilate themselves to their foster parents’ needs. George saw Claire’s longing for a child, so took the shape of a human boy and placed a percerption filter to fool his parents. A very scared George steps into his cupboard. He’s just been told he was an alien and he caused his father to be sucked into a cupboard full of everything he fears. I’d be scared to.

In the dollhouse, George appears. The Doctor, Rory and Alex are fighting off the dolls. The Doctor realizes that the whole cycle of fear began with George’s fear that Alex would send him away; a tearful Alex hugs his son and promises to never send him away. All the dolls stop moving. This is an awesome, “feel good” moment.

Back in the apartment, Claire arrives home and is surprised to see her son happy and well. The Doctor commends Alex for his actions, then heads back to the TARDIS with Amy and Rory. Though he tells them he might be back for puberty, which is “always an awkward time.” The creepy nursery rhyme the dolls had been chanting continues: “Tick tock goes the clock, even for the Doctor” as the time and place of the Doctor’s death flash up on the screen. And so, the main story arc continues.

The Verdict: If you take one thing away from this episode, it should be that dolls are very, very scary. After watching this episode, I am a bit scared of them. Mark Gatiss is certainly scared of them. And, you probably should be too. The biggest problem with this episode seems to be the time it takes to get moving. There is a bit of a slow patch at the beginning. The acting by the three leads is, as usual, impeccable. But, there are some great guest star performances as well. Most notably is Jamie Oram as George. Jamie really makes George’s fear palpable, and grows it through the course of the episode. Also stellar is Daniel Mays as Alex, a normal guy, thrust into very abnormal circumstances. Much like “The Lodger” this story deals with normal people into whose lives the chaos that always accompanies the Doctor is introduced. Alex, to his credit, rolls with the punches, mostly out of desperation to make some sense out of George’s peculiarities. The humanity added by his performance is fantastic. All in all, this is a very good episode. The only people who probably won’t like it are the makers of peg dolls, as this episode has made them appear so creepy that no child who sees this episode will ask for one.