Saturday 24 September 2011

Night frights

Mark Gatiss picked up the post-Hitler baton and delved straight from the bizarre River Song madcap mystery tale into classic Doctor Who fodder - the monsters in the bedroom cupboard.

There's something refreshing about the time travelling trio's return to Rose Tyler-ville - a working class estate where there's a little boy in need of a Doctor.

The set up work here is brilliant - macabre dolls and toys, the Doctor as the eccentric alien promising to fix things, Rory and Amy stuck in a giants doll's house - all the ingredients for a belter.

In fact I particularly enjoyed the chap being sucked into the floor - very plastic chair in Terror of the Autons

But something just didn't quite work from there.

I can only put it down to the ending - with Daniel Mays' beleaguered dad's love saving his troubled alien 'son' - not quite delivering on the spooky build up.

As I think back there wasn't anything essentially wrong with that ending, it's just that these 'emotion can win through the moment' endings have become a little too common now and it just felt a little samey.

Maybe it also needed a little extra time? This would have been an excellent four-parter in the late 60s I'm sure..

Others have already said that this was "Fear Her done properly" - and that's probably about right.

6.5/10

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