Midnight

Leaving Donna behind to relax, The Doctor takes off on a trip across the mysterious planet Midnight, he's joined by fellow travellers including Professor Hobbs and his assistant Dee Dee, sultry Mrs Sylvestry, Mr and Mrs Kane, and their son Jethro. The staff are made of 2 drivers and a hostess. All is going calmly and humorously, until the craft stops dead, and something starts tapping outside, and it wants to get in.....

The concept of the planet Midnight is such a good one, a planet nobody can step on, brilliant, the visions of it too are stunning.

This episode is all about fear, terror and tension. It works on so many levels, everyone is scared, and that's when human nature is at its worst, it's never really been done before, or since on Doctor Who, it's a very unique episode. There is no let up, literally after 12 minutes until the end, it will have you on edge of your seat. What people do when they're scared.

It's insane how well written this is, this episode rivals Blink for brilliance. Is this possibly Russell T Davies's best piece of writing? I can see arguments for (it's the next episode which is my personal favourite.)

Tennant is utterly magical, he's such an incredible actor, had Lesley Sharp not been cast i'm not so sure it would have been so special, she is utterly spellbinding, when she turns around after the break in, she is so bleak (and the music is terrifying, like a 70s Hammer horror film,) her timing is astounding.

I applaud Davies for leaving the episode unanswered, who knows, maybe one day we could take another trip around Midnight, and have answers to some of the unanswered questions.

Do I hear Nicola Redmond's voice at the end? 'prepare for boarding.'

Finally how good does Colin Morgan look!! 10/10

Seriously. Just. Wow.

"Midnight", I can safely say, is a Doctor Who experience unlike any other. In a series that had previously left me quite underwhelmed, this completely blew my mind.

This is bar none Russell T. Davies' greatest work. He tosses aside all of the DW typicality: the companion, the hideous monsters, the running... Even the Tardis takes a leave of absence. In their places, he gives us a claustrophobic,motionless, and tense 45 minutes of sheer paranoia - and boy is it amazing!

Here we find The Doctor leaving Donna behind at a spa while he boards a tour bus on its way around Midnight, or 'the diamond planet'. He gets acquainted and rather chummy with the other passengers to pass the time, until suddenly the bus stops unexpectedly in a place where no person has ever gone, and they realize that they are no longer the only passenger on board . . .

As we all know, Steven Moffat is the master in creating a disturbing, chilling, and very cerebral atmosphere. Remember "Blink"? He created a monster that was genuinely terrifying without being aggressive or loaded with prosthetic. Well, Davies does him one better here. This time, we don't even know what the monster is, or what it looks like. It's more of an essence, like a demon possession. It grabs hold of its victim and corrupts it. How? We don't know. Why? Don't know. And that's what makes it so horrific.

This seems to be The Doctor's strongest adversary to date. He can't use words to talk sense into it, or use his screwdriver to find out more about it, and as paranoia strikes everyone on bored, he can't even win their trust. There's nothing for him to fight, and he is left in the mercy of scared innocents that think of him as a risk to their own safety. In fact, this is the only time we've seen the 10th rendered completely helpless - and David Tennant plays to that beautifully! In fact, everyone in this episode did a magnificent job! It's just a gripping study in character and emotion from start to finish.

All in all, this was my favorite episode to date, and by the end of it, my heart was racing so fast, I just had to watch it again.

MIDNIGHT is quite a change of pace for the fourth series of the new DOCTOR WHO, and, once again, Russell T. Davies and company are unafraid to step into new territory. One of the hallmarks of the new series is its willingness to be inspired by specific films and television: a good first example is VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED, the WHO version of a Seventies disaster film, in particular, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. Using POSEIDON as a jumping off point, it became an outstanding adventure on its own terms. And now we have the WHO version of Alfred Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT: a story which takes place on one set, and places a small group of characters in an intense pressure-cooker. All the usual WHO trappings are stripped from David Tennant's Doctor, and he is reduced to being the lone voice of sanity which is roundly ignored by the rest of the cast. Even his Sonic Screwdriver is used sparingly. No spoilers, just one of the best-written and intense character pieces ever. If you haven't seen it, watch MIDNIGHT after the sun has gone down, when shadows and sounds become dangerous. It's that good.

Seriously, ignore carrotjuicer3000's review. This is one of the best episodes of season 4, maybe of the whole series. It's suspenseful, its well written, its just....eerie. Just because its a standalone episode doesn't mean its not just as good as others. And not every episode needs comic relief, specially not one like this. So Tate is not missed. She gets the next few episodes focused on her anyways.

Lesley Sharp is fantastic in her role, marvellously creepy... Tennant is brilliant as always. The supporting cast is fantastic too, which includes Colin Morgan(Merlin).

Once you start watching this episode, you literally can't stop. Every time I've seen it repeated on BBC3, and skipped over the channel, at any point during the episode, I'd have to continue watching. Who'd a thunk an episode set in one room would be so brilliant? It's simply....molto bene.

The usual Doctor Who episode contains tons of monsters, special effects and a lot of action. This one is a pleasant change of pace. The focus has shifted from all the scary costumes and onto the actors themselves. While some may find this episode boring, others may treasure how well all the actors were handling their parts - the strange lonely lady, the common family with a rebellious son, the professor who thinks he knows it all and his bright, but overlooked assistant - these are all characters acted out with the utmost conviction. I am happy that the suspense in this episode does not come from another blatant alien attack on Earth and from the weird-looking aliens themselves, but from the build-up of strange occurrences, which leave room for the viewer's own imagination. As for Catherine Tate missing, well, that made the episode just more cohesive, because she would have ruined the atmosfear ;)