Doctor Who review: Sleep No More

This is the eighth episode Mark Gatiss has written for Doctor Who and his first with in a futuristic setting.  Although it is a more adventurous episode than traditional tales such as The Unquiet Dead, Cold War and Robin of Sherwood, overall it is less satisfying.

The found footage style is effective within low-budget horror films (The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity) which rely on suggestion and slow-building suspense but doesn't work so well in this fast-paced and elaborate story.   However, to Gatiss's credit, he does subvert the form through revelations in the plot.  

At the beginning of the episode, we believe we are seeing the characters through their head-cams of the rescue team.  The three of the four actors playing the rescue team are played of British-Asian descent and the Doctor recognises the space station as belonging to the "Indo-Japanese" in the 38th century.  The use of ethnically diverse cast is welcome although it unclear why Nagata (Elaine Tan) is played with a strong Geordie accent.  Diversity is also provided by the casting of trans actress Bethany Black as the genetically engineered "grunt" 474.  Although the set-up of this guest cast is interesting, the characters are not developed as the episode goes on and are ultimately quite forgettable.

Surprising for a found footage episode we see the monsters very soon after we first hear them.  In appearance, the Sandmen are traditional slow-moving "men in rubber suit" monsters that are not that dissimilar from the Time Zombies from Journey to the Centre of the Tardis (2013).  

The set design is far more impressive than the design of the creatures.  Particularly impressive are the Morpheus sleep pods and the digital effects such as the Mister Sandmen singing holograms.  Reece Shearsmith plays Rassmussen, the inventor of the Morpheus technology.  Shearsmith is well cast in this role and is likely to have been the choice of his former League of Gentlemen colleague Gatiss. Interestingly, his character has similarities to Gatiss's Professor Lazarus from The Lazarus Experiment (2007):  both are scientists who anger the Doctor by inventing machines which disrupt natural order and have deadly side-effects.  The Doctor swiftly surmises that the Sandmen are this side-effect: creatures which have evolved out of the sleep dust from people's eyes. a mutation caused by the Morpheus process.  This is a very odd and unconvincing idea which is possibly even more wacky than the Moon-egg concept from last year's Kill the Moon (although the final scene seems to suggest another explanation).  Furthermore, the Doctor predicts that these creatures could are powerful enough to wipe out the human race.

The Doctor appears to be correct with his theory although there are further twists.  We learn that rather than head-cams, the action has been recorded through the dust in people's eyes.  However, the final scene then seems to suggest that some or all of what we have just seen did not what really happen.  It is suggested that the Sandmen will actually take over humanity through a signal in the film we have just watched.  Overall, Sleep No More is a collection of clever ideas which don't fully form a dramatic and coherent story.