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“Professor, I’m glad you’ve got an absolute definition of life in the universe, but perhaps the universe has got ideas of its own. Now trust me – I’ve got previous.”

Russell T. Davies pens this year’s “bottle” show – basically a one-set thriller in a disabled travel bus that succeeds in being extra, extra-creepy.

Plot Points – On the planet Midnight, the Doctor takes a land-rover tour to see a crystal waterfall, while Donna stays behind to sunbathe. En route, the bus is disabled and attacked by an unseen force, which then comes to “posses” one of the passengers, Sky Silvestry (Lesley Sharp). Escalating paranoia and unrest puts the Doctor’s life in danger.

Doctor Who? – This year’s prop is the stethoscope. When asked his name, the Doctor says “John Smith,” his old U.N.I.T./Human Nature alias. He seems delighted to hear everyone’s stories.

Hey, Hey, Donna  – Big D is on vacation this week. That’s okay; she’ll need her rest for next week’s episode. It’s interesting to theorize how “Midnight” would have unfolded had Donna been with the Doctor.

This Year’s Arc – Rose shows up on the viewscreen. Again. And the moon of Poosh has gone missing.

Too Cool – Lesley Sharp gives one of the most impressive guest-performances since the show’s return. Although it’s obvious that a lot of the “doubling” of the speech was done in post-production, most of it is down to acting, and the precision with which this is carried off is a tribute to Sharp (and Tennant as well), and the intensive rehearsals this must have required. The result is stunning and insanely creepy, as impressive as any CGI creation.

Weird Science – Everybody goes to great lengths to say how dangerous this “extonic” radiation is, and yet twice the people in the cabin (and particularly the Hostess) are exposed directly to it, with no ill effects. True, the Doctor says that after the cockpit was lost the ship would put a “seal” on the cabin, but that implies it’s just keeping the air in – specialized glass (with shutters over that) was needed in the cockpit, so why is the Hostess able to stare straight into extonic “sunlight” (or whatever that white blast is) without dying or at least being blinded?

Dumb Stuff – Why is the Doctor acting like a tourist? Surely he could’ve just popped over to the diamond waterfall in the TARDIS and taken a look? Okay, so Donna needs some R&R after losing her cute hubbie in The Library, but sitting in a bus for eight hours does not seem like the Doctor’s style. Is it really believable that, in such a confined space, multiple loud/obnoxious media elements would be playing simultaneously? How would anyone be able to enjoy any one of them? (Yes, I know it’s a gag, but a pretty dumb one.) And doesn’t a door that automatically closes itself after the air seal has dissolved seem like a pretty big design flaw? Oh, and I don’t usually list things like this, but this one’s so bloody obvious: at the beginning, just as the Doctor hangs up the phone, there’s a big chunk of green screen fabric behind him, where they forgot to add the CG background (check the shots just before, there’s no green anywhere). Save your off-air copies, as this will likely get fixed for the DVD.

Lost in Translation – Christina Rossetti was a nineteenth century English poet from a prominent artistic family. However, the poem quoted here, “Goblin Market,” is generally thought to be about feminine sexuality and Victorian social mores. Which means that, to fit this story, the poetry has to be taken absolutely at face value (“things are not what they seem”), rather than for its thematic qualities, which is a bit odd, really. But, since there’s so little poetry (actual or otherwise) in Doctor Who, I’m not inclined to fuss too much.

This Season’s Self-Sacrifice Tote Board: 4 (Rattigan, Jenny, River Song, the Hostess)

Classic Who – David Troughton (Professor Hobbes) is the son of Second Doctor Patrick Troughton, and appeared in the classic series story “Curse of Peladon” (9.2, 1972) as King Peladon (he also had bit parts in a couple of earlier stories).  Director Alice Troughton, however, is unrelated to the acting dynasty.

Final Answer – Atypical of both vintage Who and the new series, and obviously inspired by the classic Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street,” (there are also echoes of the first Quatermass serial) “Midnight” is nevertheless one of the finest stand-alone stories ever crafted for NuWho, and certainly one of the very best scripts by Russell T. Davies. This is a “first contact” tale in which the nature of the alien is never fully revealed, and no easy answers are given, which is damn refreshing given how obvious and in-your-face this series tends to be. It’s nice to see the Doctor – a “big picture” kind of guy – reacting to people on a personal level, and the story is beautifully structured (although the intrusion of commercials is likely to harm this significantly). But really, the power of “Midnight” is mainly down to the performances – both Sharp and Tennant are absolutely superb, and as a result, this is perhaps the most frightening episode of NuWho ever created. That’s quite an accomplishment, and by virtue of all these things, “Midnight” seems a bit out of place in this decidedly mediocre season.

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