Doctor Who: Midnight

One of the great strengths of Doctor Who is the versatility of the story telling format - he can go anywhere, and anytime, which pretty much allows you to tell whatever type of story you like. This can allow you to tell great epic stories, like Human Nature/The Family of Blood and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. It should allow the writers a lot of freedom to produce the stories they really want to tell. That said, there should be a minimum standard. There is no excuse of childish nonsense like the Adipose or the farting Slitheen. And that minimum standard should be that each episode should either be exciting or scary.

Last night's episode, Midnight, achieved that latter. Magnificently.

To some extent a retelling of The Twilight Zone's Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, Midnight managed to be a claustrophobic mix of a ghost story, a tale of pseudo-demonic possession and a horror story. It showed how people really behave when panicked, when faced with the unknown. It also put the Doctor in a situation where he genuinely wasn't in control, and his smug intellectual arrogance got him into trouble rather that got him respect. The monster he was fighting was clearly more powerful than him. And - perhaps best of all - we never got to know what that monster was or how it could be defeated. It was left open at the end of the episode as to whether the monster had actually been destroyed, with a strong implication that it hadn't. There was no real explanation of what it was, or why it took over Sky; or, indeed, what it wanted and what it could really do. The fact that the Doctor was so clearly traumatised at the end of the episode left a real chill in the air.

A simple story, on a small set with limited special effects, Midnight was far, far more than powerful than it had any right to be. A glowing testament to the calibre of the writer, actors, and director, Midnight was a powerful reminder of just how scary Doctor Who can -and arguably should - be.