{"id":2399,"date":"2020-01-24T15:48:45","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T15:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2399"},"modified":"2020-01-24T15:57:52","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T15:57:52","slug":"so-what-did-i-think-of-nikola-teslas-night-of-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2020\/01\/24\/so-what-did-i-think-of-nikola-teslas-night-of-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"So\u2026 what did I think of Nikola Tesla\u2019s Night of Terror?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This was about the most entertained I\u2019ve been by Doctor Who probably since Chris Chibnall took over. I still think The Witchfinders<\/em> and It Takes You Away <\/em>are the episodes to beat, but the one thing I can say about Nina Metivier\u2019s script is that it was fun. Sadly, elsewhere there are plenty of flaws, but let\u2019s try and be positive, eh?<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t try and reinvent the form in any way. The Doctor and her new celebrity historical pal team up to rid the Earth of aggressive aliens. Good. That\u2019s the kind of story you can tell in 45 minutes. It should work \u2013 and by and large \u2013 it does. Tesla is an interesting figure, his rivalry with Edison gives the narrative a few millimetres of depth, and it\u2019s perfectly understandable that the story didn\u2019t want to go into Tesla\u2019s misogyny or views on eugenics.<\/p>\n

And you can\u2019t say it\u2019s slow and boring either. It\u2019s a \u2013 sometimes bewildering \u2013 whirlwind of narrative beats, flinging us from Niagara Falls to Wardenclyffe to the Orient Express (for some reason) to the Skithra ship while viewers struggle to catch a breath. And director Nida Manzoor tries, and largely succeeds, to give the breakneck narrative some quieter moments to breath in.<\/p>\n

There are two big problems with this episode as a whole. Even for a space-adventure-romp kind of story, it doesn\u2019t make a whole lot of sense, and often what is said does not match what is depicted. The Skithra are scavengers (or at least, this lot are). They don\u2019t really know how to work their stolen technology and it keeps on breaking, meaning they have to find someone skilled to repair it for them. You might think that it\u2019s in their inability to maintain their weapons and means of transport that the seeds of their destruction will be sown, but this isn\u2019t the case \u2013 indeed what we actually see is all of their tech working flawlessly first time, every time.<\/p>\n

The first mis-matched piece of tech they are seen brandishing is a Silurian weapon, which the Doctor diagnoses as \u201calien\u201d. The trouble is that the Silurians are native to Earth and ruled the planet 70 million years ago. Does that make the Skithra time-travellers as well? If so, it doesn\u2019t come up again. And then \u2013 rather than kidnap a scientist at the same time as they are making off with all of this hooky gear \u2013 they pick a barely technologically advanced planet and zero in on one inventor virtualy at random. Tesla could no more fix their devices than my cat could change the oil in your car.<\/p>\n

And why do they bother making bad copies of the people they kill? They can\u2019t pass as the people they are duplicates of, and they never try to. The scorpion versions look great, but if they aren\u2019t interested in pretending to be humans, why do they ever bother with this kind of disguise? And the plan to deal with them is a bit ho-hum as well. It\u2019s the latest in a long line of big zappy tower things \u2013 see also Partners in Crime<\/em>, The Vampires of Venice<\/em>, The Idiot\u2019s Lantern <\/em>and probably more besides. And again, what we\u2019re told doesn\u2019t match up with what we see. First we\u2019re told \u2013 again, yawn \u2013 if we kill the Queen, then all her brood will die too. Then, the Doctor \u2013 who hates guns \u2013 turns Tesla\u2019s mast into a great big gun to blast the Skithra ship out of the sky. Then, what in fact happens is that teleporting the Queen back on board her own ship causes all of her brood to teleport back with her. Huh!? And then the zappy thing just looks like it makes the Skithra ship go away. A pretty poor solution, as \u2013 whether it makes sense or not \u2013 Rani from the Sarah Jane Adventures cos-playing as Queen of the Racnoss seemed very keen on Tesla, so she\u2019ll probably be back in ten minutes or so.<\/p>\n

Now, to be fair, a lot of this is fridge logic, and on first watch, it all goes by so quickly, that not all of this niggles. The playing of Goran Vi\u0161nji\u0107 and Robert Glenister is strong enough and the twist that the Queen isn\u2019t on board the ship do work well. What did not evade me on first watch is that whereas two weeks ago, two famous women from history can\u2019t be trusted to keep their traps shut without being mind-raped by the Doctor, this week, two famous men from history can see the inside of the TARDIS, meet aliens from other planets, handle and inspect off-world technology and be left at the end of the story with all of their memories intact.<\/p>\n

But the biggest problem with this story is that the regular cast just troops around after the Doctor with no stake in the plot at all. There\u2019s an attempt here to make the interaction with Tesla and the Skithra to mean something to the Doctor, and Jodie Whittaker plays the \u201cdead planet\u201d line beautifully. But it never really works. Are we really supposed to buy the Doctor \u2013 who stole a TARDIS from Gallifrey \u2013 having the murderous moral high ground over the thieving Skithra? But at least there\u2019s a nod in the direction of who the Doctor is. With the other regulars, they are just along for the ride or doing dad jokes in the background. Graham\u2019s gun doesn\u2019t work, Yasmin can\u2019t get people off the streets without Edison\u2019s help, Ryan as usual, might as well have not bothered turning up.<\/p>\n

In fact, if you\u2019re interested, here\u2019s the whole episode with every single line from the companions cut out. Doesn\u2019t hurt it in the least. I could probably have lost all of Dorothy Skerrit’s lines too, if I’d tried.<\/p>\n