The Doctor picks up a distress call from a little boy called George, and goes in search of him. George has night terrors which come to life.
I've slated Mark Gatiss's last few offerings, and this is definitely one of his best, I'm pretty sure he dislikes dolls, and that's very evident here. This is wonderfully imaginative and creative, lots of people have an irrational fear of dolls, and boy does this play on it. When they arrive in the place of the dolls it has a feel of the Celestial toymaker about it.
This episode gets a little bit of stick, I understand why, but i really love it. Like Curse of the Black spot it's an episode you can watch without needing to know what's going on with the story arc running through, it feels independent of it somehow.
Does Steven Moffat have a thing about eyes??? Big glass one here, there's the Attraxi, and the eyes belonging to the flesh.
It's fun, exciting, nightmarish, it has some beautifully touching moments, Daniel Mays is a cracking actor, but the young man playing George was so good, their scene at the end is so touching. Even the most hardened people will feel a little lump in the throat.
Some really nice funny bits provided by the neighbours, Mrs Rossiter (Sherpa Tenzing) in particular. I love the idea of the Dolls and people being transformed into them, they are so damn creepy, more scary then anything for a while. It's big fun. 8/10
