Sleep No More

How do you make an original show with an idea that has been done to death. We found out this was with Sleep No More, the latest episode of Doctor Who, that uses as its basis the concept of the “found footage” film – the supposed journals of a lost soul who perished whilst documenting some unknown supernatural peril.

It’s surprising that Doctor Who hasn’t done this before as the big advantage of this style of production is that it costs sod-all to make. At least, traditionally it has done with films like Man Bites Dog and The Blair Witch Project; it has also been used on more recent films such as Cloverfield which had a more substantial budget with fancy CGI effects and no excuse whatsoever for the wobbly camerawork (one of my bugbears in modern film making is the lack of a tripod).

Sleep No More shouldn’t work. One of the main criteria of “found footage” is that the suspension of disbelief should hang on the fact that the film is of real events and I’m pretty sure that footage of a 38th Century space station orbiting Neptune doesn’t fit that narrative. However, this does come from the pen of Mark Gatiss who as well as being one of the most consistent Doctor Who writers (never a bad episode but probably never a classic either) is also so steeped in the horror genre that if anyone could pull it off, he should be able to.

What is a delight here is to see how many references from other films, and other Who episodes, can be packed into a single episode. There is an obvious Alien reference (via Ark in Space) and a big nod to Event Horizon (passing 42 alone the way). The standard found footage claustrophobia and muddled viewpoints are straight from the likes of Cloverfield (it certainly never feels at the budget end of the genre). It is also sneaky that Reece Shearsmith  has starred in the 9th episode of the 9th series of the revived Doctor Who which nods nicely towards his own, excellent, Inside No 9 series – in fact the whole episode could fit more easily in that series than Doctor Who itself. But the clever thing here is that Gatiss has seemingly offered up one thing (a found footage film) and actually produced something that is more in the mould of Japanese horror, notably the original Ring film.

Every so often Doctor Who goes off on a tangent and produces something unconventional. On occasion, these are lauded as masterpieces (such as Blink) or derided as missteps (such as Love and Monsters – although I personally liked that one). I’ve only watched this the once, so far, at broadcast and I have to admit that I was a bit tired at the time I watched it (it is really is on at an arse of a time at the moment). I’m going to re-watch it in the week but I suspect that this is one that will either become revelatory or fall apart on repeated viewing. Sleep No More is certainly unique but at the moment it feels like most of Gatiss’ work: another good, solid episode but probably not a classic.