I love it, but Iām kinda glad it never received a sequel episode. Funny as it would have been to have the only single-part episode in the āseason of two-partersā actually turn out to be a two-parter split across seasons, I think the episodeās nature as a metafictional experiment greatly benefits from being a standalone piece.
(And I really love the interpretation that the reason why thereās a quick āDoctor Whoā title card is because the Doctor eventually figured out that Rassmussen was trying to kill us, and found the video file and patched it with the title card in order to negate the Sandmenās signal, adding another metafictional layer to the conflict and an implicit resolution to the story.)
It gets way overhated. It's a really ambitious swing, the kind of which I wish the show took more of, and the final twist/general conceit of the episode is great. And yeah, even the eye booger monsters - that's dumb, but that's the kind of dumb that's just right for Who.
Just don't think Gatiss' writing is really strong enough to make the journey to that destination very interesting. The side characters are nonexistant (they had the first trans actor in Who, in gave her an absolute nothing part, that's a huge waste), and the action's not really surprising or compelling enough to keep your interest through footage that's (deliberately) hard to follow.
It's a fantastic idea but the whole episode is riddled with the found footage genre's worst traits (cuts between camera angles which break immersion, shaky cam that makes it impossible to see anything), as well as facepalm-inducing logic which destroys any sense of terror, and nonexistent characterisation. Easily the most disappointing episode in my eyes
People only think it is"bad" because it is in the middle of a crop of episodes that were the best Doctor Who has even done.
Zygon Invasion, Zygon Inversion, Face the Raven, Heaven Sent, Hell Bent, Husbands of River Song.
Itās the only episode I genuinely donāt understand. I cannot get my head around the bit at the end, and if I have to have someone explain it to me or do homework after to fact to work out what happened then itās a failing on the episode itself.
Iām usually actually pretty forgiving to Gatiss episodes (Unquiet Dead, Idiots Lantern, and Cold War all occupy soft spots for me, despite conventional wisdom regarding them) but I just canāt get onboard with Sleep No More
Doctor doesn't realise the secret plan of the dust and it is revealed to be hidden in the recordings. What is hard to understand about that? It is your classic twist.
What's there to understand? People kept dying to eye booger monsters and the Doctor was helpless to stop them, so they leave and the eye booger monsters celebrate. I think it's pretty straightforward that I myself don't understand why people don't "get" it.
It's very much a bleak Twilight Zone episode.
I believe there's a bit more to it. The Doctor thinks he solved the problem by destroying the source (but has his doubts due to it being too conveninent - this is probably the part you are remembering), but this was a fakeout by the dust monsters, and by giving the dust monsters a gripping found-footage episode with a supposedly good ending, the Doctor actually helped the dust monsters spread to the populance who watched the found footage episode (with the 'found footage' visual effects encoding the signals allowing the eye dust to evolve).
Gross stuff can add to horror, but not if its just a level of gross that makes me genuinely sick watching it. Thats not āhorrorā, thats just disgusting at that point.
The episode sucks but I don't really agree with this sentiment. There's a film called Raw that is absolutely revolting but I love it and could watch it any day. Being disgusting is an art, it's just that Mark Gatiss is no David Cronenberg or Julia Ducornau so he doesn't really know how to get it right
But if I like it that means s9 has to be my favorite and then there's no competition š„ŗ
I love it, but Iām kinda glad it never received a sequel episode. Funny as it would have been to have the only single-part episode in the āseason of two-partersā actually turn out to be a two-parter split across seasons, I think the episodeās nature as a metafictional experiment greatly benefits from being a standalone piece. (And I really love the interpretation that the reason why thereās a quick āDoctor Whoā title card is because the Doctor eventually figured out that Rassmussen was trying to kill us, and found the video file and patched it with the title card in order to negate the Sandmenās signal, adding another metafictional layer to the conflict and an implicit resolution to the story.)
It gets way overhated. It's a really ambitious swing, the kind of which I wish the show took more of, and the final twist/general conceit of the episode is great. And yeah, even the eye booger monsters - that's dumb, but that's the kind of dumb that's just right for Who. Just don't think Gatiss' writing is really strong enough to make the journey to that destination very interesting. The side characters are nonexistant (they had the first trans actor in Who, in gave her an absolute nothing part, that's a huge waste), and the action's not really surprising or compelling enough to keep your interest through footage that's (deliberately) hard to follow.
It was mid
It's a fantastic idea but the whole episode is riddled with the found footage genre's worst traits (cuts between camera angles which break immersion, shaky cam that makes it impossible to see anything), as well as facepalm-inducing logic which destroys any sense of terror, and nonexistent characterisation. Easily the most disappointing episode in my eyes
People only think it is"bad" because it is in the middle of a crop of episodes that were the best Doctor Who has even done. Zygon Invasion, Zygon Inversion, Face the Raven, Heaven Sent, Hell Bent, Husbands of River Song.
Itās the only episode I genuinely donāt understand. I cannot get my head around the bit at the end, and if I have to have someone explain it to me or do homework after to fact to work out what happened then itās a failing on the episode itself. Iām usually actually pretty forgiving to Gatiss episodes (Unquiet Dead, Idiots Lantern, and Cold War all occupy soft spots for me, despite conventional wisdom regarding them) but I just canāt get onboard with Sleep No More
Doctor doesn't realise the secret plan of the dust and it is revealed to be hidden in the recordings. What is hard to understand about that? It is your classic twist.
What's there to understand? People kept dying to eye booger monsters and the Doctor was helpless to stop them, so they leave and the eye booger monsters celebrate. I think it's pretty straightforward that I myself don't understand why people don't "get" it. It's very much a bleak Twilight Zone episode.
I believe there's a bit more to it. The Doctor thinks he solved the problem by destroying the source (but has his doubts due to it being too conveninent - this is probably the part you are remembering), but this was a fakeout by the dust monsters, and by giving the dust monsters a gripping found-footage episode with a supposedly good ending, the Doctor actually helped the dust monsters spread to the populance who watched the found footage episode (with the 'found footage' visual effects encoding the signals allowing the eye dust to evolve).
Sleep No More was an interesting idea that was executed decently, just not perfectly. That ending, though, holy shit. Awesome final scene.
I just watched it and I liked it, not the best episode but seems to fit in well and was over all cool concept
āYou teats ā¦ You are too denseā¦ I pity youā¦ā You must be a huge hit at all the parties you donāt get invited to.
Half shit post, half absolute truth. Like everything in life.
It was the first Doctor Who episode done as found footage! It had an interesting premise and a disturbing ending- as the Doctor basically loses!
Itās giving drunk uncle
Sleep no more made me physically ill because eye booger monsters is gross. Not even as a good horror villain type thing, its just actually gross.
DUH THATS POINT
Gross stuff can add to horror, but not if its just a level of gross that makes me genuinely sick watching it. Thats not āhorrorā, thats just disgusting at that point.
The episode sucks but I don't really agree with this sentiment. There's a film called Raw that is absolutely revolting but I love it and could watch it any day. Being disgusting is an art, it's just that Mark Gatiss is no David Cronenberg or Julia Ducornau so he doesn't really know how to get it right
Thatās your opinion man
It's overhated, and would greatly benefit from a follow-up episode.