Doctor Who Night Terrors Review (Creepy Doll Spoilers)

Doctor Who
Night Terrors
By Mark Gatiss

"Please save me from the monsters."

What appears to be one of the creepiest and scariest stories of the season and in fact the whole series since it came back in 2005. Night Terrors is here and was it as scary as it

appears in the trailer.  Well It was pretty scary but it did kind of remind me of Fear Her just a bit.  What I mean by that is the girl in Fear Her put people into her drawings while George puts them in a really creepy dollhouse.  What a creepy dollhouse it was to filled with creepy dolls that if they touch you turn into one of those dolls also.  But more or less the basis of this story is quiet simple.  Face up to your fears.  Quite simply really as the Doctor was able to get through to George by telling him to face his fears and then telling Alex to love his son no matter that he is an alien.  In other words love your son or daughter no matter how weird or different they may be or become.  I really liked the creepiness of the dolls.  They had the look and movements of being truly frightening. On top of that adding a little kids voice to them made the dolls even more menacing.  "We just want to play"  spooky.

I liked the feel of this episode.   It was basically pretty simple to follow and did not have a lot of characters in it to follow.  I liked the tension that surrounded the episode.  I liked how Rory and Amy got jerked around and were thrown into all the weirdness of the doll house.  I thought as I was watching it that they had been transported into a doll house.  As all the clues were there and when that fact was brought to fruition I thought what a great idea.  A dollhouse with creepy psychotic dolls.  I did like the fact that the Doctor solved the problem without using the sonic screwdriver or on an over abundance of sci- fi mumble jumble. But then when you get past the neatness of the horror aspect and the message that  this story is trying to convey it isn't really all that special.   I mean we've had stories like this before and done a tad bit better.  It just seems the expectations of this episode were pretty high for me and after watching the trailer and reading and watching the interviews about it I just seemed to be let down by Night Terrors.  I was expecting more.  But I do have to say this I do think Mark Gatiss did redeem himself from last years not so good Victory of the Daleks.  So not a bad episode but Night Terrors did have the potential to be special and just missed the mark.
Grade B