ANDREW'S
DOCTOR WHO REVIEWS 
This story uses the ‘found footage’ concept which was most
famously used in The Blair Witch Project. I’ve never been a great fan of this
idea and although it was once cutting edge by the time Doctor Who got around to
doing it it was not. As a one off experiment you can put up with it, but it’s
not something I’d like to see again and it makes the story very fragmentary.
A researcher, Rasmussen (Reece Shearsmith) aboard a ship
orbiting Neptune in the far future transmits a shaky recording to the Universe
suggesting that people do not watch the ensuing video, but that it would
explain everything.
A rescue mission is sent to the ship but when they arrive
they find only the Doctor and Clara aboard and all are chased by creatures –
the Sandmen – who appear to be made of sand. They come across Rasmussen and he
explains he has invented sleep pods (which he calls Morpheus) which compress
sleep into short bursts, a month in a few minutes. The Doctor believes that the
machines have created the Sandmen from the rheum that you sometimes wake with
in the corner of your eye.
The Sandmen arrive and kill everyone except the Doctor,
Clara and one of the soldiers, Nagata (Elaine Tan). They seem to kill Rasmussen
too, but they later find him alive. He plans to use his Morpheus machines to
spread the Sandmen to Triton and then across the Universe. Nagata shoots
Rasmussen and the Doctor sends the ship into a collision course with Nepture.
The Doctor, Clara and Nagata escape in the TARDIS.
As the footage shows Rasmussen, still alive, crashing into
Neptune and rubbing his eye to reveal he too is a Sandman he reveals that the
act of watching the film will allow the Sandmen infection to spread.
The positive things about this story is that the Sandmen are
pretty eerie and when Rasmussen rubs his eye and the sand comes out it is quite
disturbing. Reece Shearsmith is very good as Rasmussen, the story really
revolves round him so much more than the Doctor or Clara, so given to a lesser
actor it could have made a story that is quite hard to concentrate on
completely unwatchable – so thank you Reece!
However, the found footage gets hard to watch by the time
you hit 45 minutes and the fractured, wobbly, blurry camera work just gets on
your nerves after a while. It actually is to the detriment of the story because
it distracts you from an okay plot line and one where, for once, the Doctor
actually seems to get it wrong and does not defeat the enemy.
At the end of the day, this is a brave and clever
experiment, but one which I very rarely revisit just because it is hard work to
watch which ultimately stops it being enjoyable, which is surely the point.
NEXT UP: FACE THE RAVEN
© Text copyright - Raving Loony
Productions and
Andrew J. Müller,
Roy Barton
and Shaun Runham
© Photos and Artwork - Andrew J. Müller
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2022
