Doctor Who does haunted house in the perfect story for Halloween. There’s been plenty of scares in stories before this one – The Impossible Planet, Hide, Listen to name but a few – but this for me is the one that does it the best. There’s jump scares and spooky goings on, but the real frights come from the tension and the atmosphere that is built up from the start.
Unusually for this era, we start with a cold open that sets the tone for the rest of the episode. The story of how Frankenstein was written – the four guests at Villa Diodati having a contest to see who could write the best ghost story, with Mary Shelley being the winner after coming up with Frankenstein in a fever dream – is well known, and provides the perfect setting for this tale. As the Doctor & Co. explore the villa we get all the trappings of a haunted house tale done perfectly: shifting doors & staircases, animated corpses, things that go bump in the night… The tension just builds and builds.
The credit for that must go to the direction of Emma Sullivan & the cinematography of Ed Moore. Right from the start, as we shoot the Villa Diodati gang through a rain streaked window, the episode is dark, dank and gloomy. the use of lighting is utterly superb; it brings to mind Barry Lyndon, which Kubrick lit using natural light only – here, everything is lit barely by candlelight. There are shadows in every corner hiding god knows what, with the odd flash of lightning showing us everything & giving us some scares. The house broods in darkness, with its colour palette of soft yellows giving an authentic period feel. It feels like you’re there in that storm with them.
Against that, crashing in with a burst of bright electric blue, arrives another of Chibnall’s greatest creations: Ashad, the Lone Cyberman. My favourite Cybermen are the 80’s ones, lead by David Bank’s Cyberleader. Yes, Cybermen should be emotionless but they also need some character, and the personality Banks gives them lifts them up. The 60’s Cybers, more of a blunt tool than anything, work best when the have that figurehead to lead them like Tomb’s Controller. Come the 2st Century, sadly they come back as blank, featureless robots. Rusty does his best in Age of Steel to convey the body horror that there are people inside those suits, but it doesn’t last, and they spend the next decade or so just stomping around shouting “Delete!”
Chibnall fixes all of that with Ashad, the half converted human who retains his emotions, but still wants to be a Cyberman. First up the design is amazing: half Mondasian, half “Normal” Cyber, with the faceplate half missing to show the person inside. It’s such an amazing costume, it reminds us that there’s someone inside a Cyberman & gives a real sense of battlefield desperation – it’s like the Cyberman version of Thals using bows & arrows against a biplane in Genesis. Patrick O’Kane gives an amazing turn as Ashad, but he he is helped by Maxine Alderton’s wonderful script: the scene in the cellar where he admits he killed his own family is utterly chilling; only the scene where we don’t know if he’s going to kill the baby comes close. They both hit home in a way that cheap scares don’t: it’s the character & what they’re capable of that’s terrifying here.
Alderton also gives Jodie some gold. Having arrived on a jolly, swatting off Byron throughout, once the events turn truly sour The Doctor has to take a stand against her friends. They’ve been so much a Fam so far, it’s a jolt when she needs to point out how things actually work when travelling with her, and Jodie nails it perfectly. The Doctor always has an impossible choice to make; whereas Moffat made that front & centre of Capaldi’s time, it’s more subtle in the Chibnall era, which makes it more effective when it’s pushed out there in this episode.
There’s a lot of standout performances with the rest of the supporting cast; in fact no one puts a foot wrong. In any other episode we’d be singing the praises of Lili Miller or Jacob Collins-Levy as the narcissistic, nihilistic aristocrats, but they are equalled by Lewis Rainer’s tortured Percy Bysshe, Nadia Parkes’ terrified Claire & Maxim Baldry’s incredulous Polidori. Hell, even Stefan Bednarczyk & Sarah Perles shine as the servants. It’s one of the best allround supporting casts we’ve had.
What starts as a thrillingly tense haunted house story flips into a chilling Cyberman story that acts as a perfect dogleg for the series finale. Chibnall again revitalises an old, worn out monster; Maxine Alderton shows how good a writer she is, and the cast all sparkle. That they are overshadowed by the direction shows just how visually amazing this story is. A genuine classic, perfect for a stormy October night.
COMING TOMORROW: “I waited… for you…”
Skies Full of Diamonds 