196 – "Midnight"
Doctor Who episode
The Doctor, Driver Joe and Technician Claude stare in awe at Planet Midnight's enchanting landscape.
Cast
Doctor David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Companion Catherine Tate (Donna Noble)
Guest stars
Billie Piper – Rose Tyler Lesley Sharp – Sky Silvestry Rakie Ayola – Hostess David Troughton – Professor Hobbes Ayesha Antoine – Dee Dee Blasco Lindsey Coulson – Val Cane Daniel Ryan – Biff Kane Colin Morgan – Jethro Tony Bluto – Driver Joe Duane Henry – Mechanic Claude
Production
Writer	Russell T Davies
Director	Alice Troughton
Script editor	Helen Raynor
Producer	Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s)	Russell T Davies Julie Gardner
Production code	4.8
Series	Series 4
Length	45 minutes
Originally broadcast	14 June 2008
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → "Forest of the Dead" "Turn Left"
IMDb profile

"Midnight" is the tenth episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 14 June 2008. The episode placed much more emphasis on the role of David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor than in the rest of the fourth series of the program, with the Doctor's companion Donna Noble, played by actress Catherine Tate, playing only a minimal role. For this reason the writer Stephen James Walker has described this episode in his book Monsters Within as being "companion-lite", in his analysis of this episode's successor, the "Doctor-lite" episode "Turn Left".^[1]

Contents 1 Plot 1.1 Synopsis 1.2 Continuity 2 Production 2.1 Cast notes 3 Reception 4 Cultural references 4.1 Literature 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Plot

[edit] Synopsis

While visiting the crystalline resort planet of Midnight, the exposed surface of which is bathed in xtonic radiation due to its close orbit around its sun, The Doctor is unable to persuade the spa-going Donna from joining him on a long shuttle bus trip to see the Sapphire Waterfall. Alone, The Doctor joins the other passengers on the shuttle—Professor Hobbes and his assistant Dee Dee, the Kane family of Biff, Val, and Jethro, and businesswoman Sky Silvestry—as it sets out; when the hostess attempts to start the cacophony of en route entertainment, The Doctor disables the system, and the rest of the passengers readily join him in casual conversation.

The bus stops mid-route, the pilots citing a problem with its micropetrol engines and sending a request for help. The Doctor insists they raise the radiation shields briefly to see if there's anything outside that caused the problem, but they see nothing; however, as they close the shields, one pilot claims to have spotted something moving outside. Soon, a rhythmic knocking starts on the hull of the shuttle, mimicking the patterns that the passengers make on the walls. The knocking moves around the hull to where Sky is cowering; the shuttle is rocked briefly, causing the lights to fail, but when they return, they find that the pilot cabin has been torn away, killing the pilots, and that Sky appears to be possessed amid an array of damaged seats.

The Doctor talks to Sky, but she can only repeat the words he or the other passengers say. However, as he talks to her more, the delay in her repetition decreases, and soon is repeating whatever anyone says simultaneously. The other passengers fear for what has possessed Sky, and cabin fever sets in; they start to accuse The Doctor, distrusting him for not revealing who he truly is. The Doctor realises Sky is now repeating only his words, and turns back to Sky to try to help her. Soon, it is the Doctor that is now repeating Sky's words, causing the other passengers to think the possession has moved onto the Doctor. Though Sky tries to encourage the other passengers to throw The Doctor out of one of the airlocks, both the hostess and Dee Dee, and later, Jethro, believe this to be the next stage of Sky's possession. When Sky uses archaic phrases that The Doctor had used at the start of the trip, the hostess realises Sky is still possessed and sacrifices herself to drag Sky out of the other airlock. With Sky gone, the Doctor regains his normal self while the other passengers come to grips with what happens. As they wait out for rescue, The Doctor realises that no one knew the hostess's real name. At the spa, a mournful Doctor reunites with Donna. When she tries to imitate one of the Doctor's phrases, he quickly tells her not to.

[edit] Continuity

Rose Tyler appears briefly on one of the shuttle's television screens shortly after the lifeform attacks the transport, echoing a similar appearance in The Poison Sky^[2]. In both instances, she silently shouts for the Doctor, who is not there to see the image in the first instance and is looking the opposite way in this episode. She also appears briefly in Partners in Crime. Rose is also mentioned by the Doctor by name along with Martha and Donna. In an early conversation with Sky about becoming recently single, the Doctor indirectly referred to Rose as one who "went to a different universe."

This is the first story since 1975's Genesis of the Daleks where the TARDIS does not appear.^[3]

Two of the Tenth Doctor's common phrases are used to identify his voice: "allons-y" (French for "let's go") and "molto bene" (Italian for "very well" or "very good"), first used in Army of Ghosts and The Family of Blood respectively.^[3]

A running gag associated with the Tenth Doctor has him curtly telling off his companion (Rose Tyler in Tooth and Claw, Martha Jones in The Shakespeare Code, and Donna Noble in The Unicorn and the Wasp) when she attempts to imitate the local accent ineptly. At the end of this episode, he uses the same catchphrase "Don't - don't do that" when Donna imitates his own speech, as it reminds him of his ordeal.

[edit] Production

This episode is the fiftieth episode filmed for the revived series, and was filmed at the same time as "Turn Left". Donna has a minor role in the episode (appearing in only the pre-credits sequence and the final scene), while the Doctor has a minor role in "Turn Left".^[2][4][5]

[edit] Cast notes

David Troughton, cast here as Professor Hobbes, was a late replacement for Sam Kelly, who broke his leg and had to withdraw from the production.^[6] Troughton joined the rest of the cast in Cardiff with just two days notice.^[6] Now known for his stage work with the RSC as well as television, David Troughton is the son of Patrick Troughton, who portrayed the Second Doctor. He had a long association with the early series in the 1960s and early 1970s, appearing as an uncredited extra in the first, fifth, and sixth episodes of the Second Doctor serial The Enemy of the World^[7], as Private Moor in the sixth episode of the Second Doctor serial The War Games^[8], and as King Peladon in all four episodes of the Third Doctor serial The Curse of Peladon. ^[9][10] More recently he has appeared as the Tinghus in the Doctor Who audio adventure Cuddlesome, as well as appearing as a new version of the Doctor's old foe the Black Guardian during the events of The Judgement of Isskar (Only appearing at the conclusion of the audio), The Destroyer of Delights, and The Chaos Pool.

Daniel Ryan (Biff Kane) had announced in a 2006 interview that he was going to ask Russell T Davies for a role in Doctor Who, as he wanted his children to see him acting on television in a programme that was not inaccessible. Davies had previously written an episode of Linda Green, which Ryan starred in, and Ryan's former castmates Sean Gallagher and Claire Rushbrook had already appeared in Doctor Who.^[11]

[edit] Reception

"Midnight" was watched by 8.05 million viewers, a 38% share of the total television audience, making it the fifth most-watched programme of the week.^[12] The episode received an Appreciation Index score of 86 (considered Excellent).^[13]

The Guardian's TV reviewer Sam Wollaston described the episode as "great... it's tense and claustrophobic, and gnaws away at you." He praised the fact that all the action happened in one confined space with an unseen enemy, saying "this is psychological drama rather than full-blown horror; creepy-unknown scary, not special-effect-monster scary."^[14] The Times's reviewer Andrew Billen was more critical, writing that Tennant's Doctor was becoming "increasingly irritating". He called the episode "sheet upon sheet of dialogue" that "felt too much of a writing exercise to be really scary" and a case-in-point of how the 2008 series "fails as often as it succeeds". Billen did, however, praise the episode for its claustrophobic atmosphere and for showing the series was "not afraid of variety," but instead "dead scared of repetition".^[15]

[edit] Cultural references

[edit] Literature

• Dee Dee Blasco quotes, and the Doctor references, Christina Rossetti's poem "Goblin Market," excerpting the famous lines:

"We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Tenth Doctor

• Midnight (TV story) on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki
• "Midnight" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
• Shooting Script for "Midnight" at the official website for Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook's Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale
• "Midnight" at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• "Midnight" at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

v • d • e Doctor Who series 4 episodes "Voyage of the Damned" • "Partners in Crime" • "The Fires of Pompeii" • "Planet of the Ood" • "The Sontaran Stratagem" • "The Poison Sky" • "The Doctor's Daughter" • "The Unicorn and the Wasp" • "Silence in the Library" • "Forest of the Dead" • "Midnight" • "Turn Left" • "The Stolen Earth"  • "Journey's End" • "The Next Doctor" Mini episodes: "Time Crash" • "Music of the Spheres"