History Recap / DoctorWhoNSS4E10Midnight

** Made even worse by the fact that, even when [[spoiler: River sacrifices herself]] in the [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E9ForestOfTheDead preceding episode]], the Doctor can still at least ''pretend'' he's fine. Here? [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness He doesn't even bother]].

* ChekhovsGun: The Doctor's [[spoiler:{{catchphrase}}s]].

* FightingFromTheInside: Presumably the reason [[spoiler: the Doctor]] pauses and stumbles over words when [[spoiler: the alien is making him repeat things]], and ''certainly'' the reason he manages to hook his foot around the leg of one of the seats.

** Also, when [[spoiler: the Doctor is possessed]] he mentions darkness and diamonds, [[spoiler: which is something the Toclafane talked about.]] What do these foreshadow? [[spoiler: TheMaster .]]

** [[spoiler: So they do.]]
** Also, before the bus gets moving, the Hostess mentions that, should the need to use the emergency fire exit arise, "passengers [go] first", a dumb joke on the fact that the planet has no air. [[spoiler:The Hostess is the only character (aside from the Monster of the week) to actually use that door.]]

* HeroicSacrifice:[[spoiler: The Hostess.]]
* HeyItsThatGuy: You'd think Series/{{Merlin}} would handle monsters better.

--> "[[spoiler: It's gone. It's gone. It's gone, it's gone, it's gone. It's gone, it's gone, it's gone...]]"
* MeaningfulName: Prof. Hobbes, named after Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher who believed that "man is a wolf to man". [[spoiler:Turns out [[HobbesWasRight he was right.]]]]

* OhCrap: [[spoiler: The alien, after realising it's exposed itself to the hostess.]]

* SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay: [[spoiler: "Allons-y!"]] finally tips off one of the passengers that it's not Sky talking, it's the alien,[[spoiler: stealing the Doctor's voice.]]

The shuttle bus takes four hours to get to the waterfall. The Doctor very quickly decides to tamper with the [[MostAnnoyingSound truly awful]] in-flight entertainment system and befriends all the passengers instead. There's the haughty professor, his timid but clever assistant, a bickering married couple and their moody teenager ([[HeyItsThatGuy who]] [[RoleAssociation also plays]] Series/{{Merlin}}), a bored hostess, and a newly single woman named Sky Silvestry who really hates being newly single.

The fun begins an hour or so into the trip. The shuttle bus stops for no apparent reason halfway to the destination and, because the local star doesn't emit regular sunlight but super-deadly radiation, they can't leave the bus. The Doctor convinces the crew to open the blinds for a moment, and the driver sees something running towards them from the horizon. The something proceeds to bang on the sides of the bus, mimick the passengers' attempt at contact by knocking in response to their own knocks, and finally rips off the drivers' side entirely. Sky freaks out, thinking that it's her ex-wife coming to kill her, and the creature is drawn to her screams... and possesses her.

Sky, hunched on the floor, starts talking. She repeats anything anyone says. The Doctor is intrigued, if a bit scared, and tries to make contact with whatever's inside her. It's only when Sky starts talking in ''sync'' with her fellow passengers that everyone realizes they're in a horror story.

The Doctor still tries to befriend the creature, knowing there's a good chance that it's just scared, or curious, or trying to be nice. The passengers, however, take a vote to throw Sky into the sunlight. And while the Doctor tries to talk sense into them, the creature realizes that the Doctor is the cleverest person on the bus, and begins talking in sync ''only'' with him.

And now, the entire BusFullOfInnocents is suspicious of him ''because'' of what are usually his strengths: his cleverness, his confidence, his take-charge attitude, and the breadth and depth of his knowledge all mark him out as something other than human. Which he ''is'', and that's the most dangerous thing to be in a mob of terrified humans. Nothing a sonic screwdriver could fend off.

He never gets a chance to convince them otherwise, because they're all DangerouslyGenreSavvy -- just without the knowledge that the Doctor is this story's hero, making them WrongGenreSavvy in all the worst ways. Oh, and Sky is now talking ''before'' the Doctor talks. Some ingrained inhibition of the monster that held back its intelligence is passed to the Doctor; and he is forced to repeat everything ''she'' says, while the monster, now fully cognizant, pretends that Sky's completely back to normal. It's inside him, she says. It's inside him, the Doctor hears himself repeating. Cast him out into the sun, she says. Cast him out into the sun, the Doctor repeats. The people grab him and drag him towards the door. Molto Bene! Allons-y! she says. [[CatchPhrase Molto Bene! Allons-y!]] he repeats helplessly... which is when the hostess finally realizes just what's going on, and sacrifices herself to throw Sky into the burning sunlight.

This isn't one of those times when the Doctor just gets up and [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E9ForestOfTheDead pretends he's fine]]. He's deeply shaken and absolutely terrified by what could have happened.

Twenty minutes later, the rescue team arrives, and the Doctor has learned a few painful lessons about mob mentality. This episode marks the beginning of a shift in the Doctor's attitude: he realizes that while HumansAreSpecial, HumansAreTheRealMonsters when they get scared.

* AlliterativeName: Sky Sylvestry

* BottleEpisode: Takes place almost entirely in a single room, with half the main duo offscreen. There is a minimum of special effects, most restricted to CGI scenery. And it's ''still'' one of the creepiest episodes ever.
* BreakTheCutie: The Doctor and Dee Dee to a lesser extent. Here's hoping she told the Professor where to stick his research...

* ContinuityNod: The Doctor says "Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Donna Noble, TARDIS!" in rapid succession.

* DeathWorld: The "ex-tonic" sunlight destroys any living creature within seconds -- ''in theory''.

** And the Doctor's usual methods of sorting out an alien problem, i.e. getting a close look at it, talking to it, etc. backfire completely

** The in-flight entertainment system, consisting of several media playing at the same time, is also foreshadowing for the creature talking in sync with people.

* InvisibleMonsters: The creature that possesses Sky is never seen. A few vaguely humanoid shadows are seen from the cockpit, but not by the viewers, and that's all.

* JustAKid: Jethro's mother dismisses him as "Just a boy" when his opinion differs from her own. Ironic, because she had ''just'' sought out his opinion and [[HumansAreBastards didn't dismiss him when he agreed with her.]] Especially ridiculous because he looks like he's at least seventeen (not to mention Colin Morgan was 22 when this was made, although he has yet to actually look his age.)

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: The whole spiel by the passengers on how suspicious The Doctor is.

* MeaningfulName: Pr. Hobbes, named after Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher who believed that "man is a wolf to man". [[spoiler:Turns out [[HobbesWasRight he was right.]]]]

* ThePublicDomainChannel: The entertainment screens on the shuttle bus only show old black-and-white Earth movies. Unlike most examples of the trope, the characters are aware that they're old movies, and aren't especially entertained.

* {{Troll}}/NightmareFetishist: Jethro decides to say "[[NumberOfTheBeast six-six-six]]" to the creature out of dark curiosity, thinking it might be a satanic possession. He gets rebuffed by his parents for doing so and smiles for successfully pissing them off.

* ContinuityNod: The Doctor says Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Donna Noble in rapid succession.

* ShoutOut: To Christina Rosetti's poem "Literature/GoblinMarket".

* BottleEpisode: Takes place almost entirely in a single room. There is a minimum of special effects, most restricted to CGI scenery. And it's ''still'' one of the creepiest episodes ever.

* BottleEpisode: Takes place almost entirely in a single room. There is a minimum of special effects, most restricted to CGI scenery.

* ShoutOut: To Christina Rosetti's poem "GoblinMarket".

The Professor's assistant recites lines from Christina Rossetti's "GoblinMarket", which doesn't exactly make things ''less'' creepy. Also, Rose briefly shows up on a screen, screaming at the Doctor. [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E5ThePoisonSky Again]]. He doesn't notice.

* JustAKid: Jethro's mother dismisses him as "Just a boy" when his opinion differs from her own. Especially ridiculous because he looks like he's at least seventeen (not to mention Colin Morgan was 22 when this was made, although he has yet to actually look his age.)

* JustAKid: Jethro's mother dismisses him as "Just a boy" when his opinion differs from her own. Especially ridiculous because he looks like he's at least seventeen.

* MeaningfulName: Pr. Hobbes, named after Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher who believed that "man is a wolf to man". [[spoiler:Turns out he was right.]]

* HeyItsThatGuy: You'd think Merlin would handle monsters better.

He never gets a chance to convince them otherwise, because they're all DangerouslyGenreSavvy -- just without the knowledge that the Doctor is this story's hero, making them WrongGenreSavvy in all the worst ways. Oh, and Sky is now talking ''before'' the Doctor talks. She's stolen his speech. And he's paralyzed, forced to repeat everything ''she'' says, while the monster merrily pretends that Sky's completely back to normal. It's inside him, she says. It's inside him, the Doctor hears himself repeating. Cast him out into the sun, she says. Cast him out into the sun, the Doctor repeats. The people grab him and drag him towards the door. Molto Bene! Allons-y! she says. [[CatchPhrase Molto Bene! Allons-y!]] he repeats helplessly... which is when the hostess finally realizes just what's going on, and sacrifices herself to throw Sky into the burning sunlight.

* TemptingFate: Lampshaded by The Doctor
--> Taking a big spaceship with a bunch of strangers across a diamond planet called Midnight... ''what could possibly go wrong?''
* WhamEpisode: HumansAreBastards, the show briefly jumps off the deep end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism, and everything the Doctor believes in is shattered to the core. Wham.

Twenty minutes later, the rescue team arrives, and the Doctor has learned a few painful lessons about mob mentality. This episode marks the beginning of a shift in the Doctor's attitude: he realizes that while HumansAreSpecial, all HumansAreBastards when they get scared.

* HumansAreBastards: Very uncharacteristic for this show, and especially this Doctor, who up until now has had a great love and admiration for humans as a species. This episode flips that all upside down, leaving the Doctor shaken and disturbed in the aftermath. It can be argued that the Tenth Doctor is never quite the same after this experience.

"WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong?" asks the Doctor.

* WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong: The Doctor gets this exact line in the teaser.

** The in-flight entertainment system, consisting of several media playing at the same time, is also foreshadowing for the creature talking in sync with people.

* BuryYourGays: Played with here by gay author RussellTDavies. Sky's ex-partner was female, and the hostess notably addresses her passengers as "ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon".[[hottip:*:This is presumably more because the passengers might not all be human; the Doctor isn't, for a start.]] Neither of these things is PlayedForLaughs -- it's just considered normal by everyone and never commented on. The fact that Sky dies isn't because she's not straight, but simply because within the context of the plot, the Doctor relates to her most and tells her he [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS2E13Doomsday lost someone too recently]].

* HellIsThatNoise: Every word out of Sky's mouth post-[[NothingIsScarier whatever it was that happened.]]

* UncannyValley: The way the Sky-creature moves its head at first is just ''wrong''.

A "companion-lite" PsychologicalHorror BottleEpisode by RussellTDavies, written as a contrast to the "Doctor-lite episode" that directly follows it.

The Doctor and Donna go to an alien spa on a beautiful but uninhabitable planet called Midnight -- because, all world-saving and death-avoiding aside, they really are just travellers. Donna relaxes at the hotel while the Doctor goes on a little sightseeing tour to a waterfall made entirely of sapphires.

"{{What could possibly go wrong}}?" asks the Doctor.

The shuttle bus takes four hours to get to the waterfall. The Doctor very quickly decides to tamper with the [[MostAnnoyingSound truly awful]] in-flight entertainment system and befriends all the passengers instead. There's the haughty professor, his timid but clever assistant, a bickering married couple and their moody teenager ([[HeyItsThatGuy who]] [[RoleAssociation also plays]] {{Series/Merlin}}), a bored hostess, and a newly single woman named Sky Silvestry who really hates being newly single.

The fun begins an hour or so into the trip. The shuttle bus stops for no apparent reason halfway to the destination and, because the local star doesn't emit regular sunlight but super-deadly radiation, they can't leave the bus. The Doctor convinces the crew to open the blinds for a moment, and the driver sees something running towards them from the horizon. The something proceeds to bang on the sides of the bus, mimick the passengers' attempt at contact by knocking in response to their own knocks, and finally rips off the drivers' side entirely. Sky freaks out, thinking that it's her ex-wife coming to kill her, and the creature is drawn to her screams... and possesses her.

Sky, hunched on the floor, starts talking. She repeats anything anyone says. The Doctor is intrigued, if a bit scared, and tries to make contact with whatever's inside her. It's only when Sky starts talking in ''sync'' with her fellow passengers that everyone realizes they're in a horror story.

The Doctor still tries to befriend the creature, knowing there's a good chance that it's just scared, or curious, or trying to be nice. The passengers, however, take a vote to throw Sky into the sunlight. And while the Doctor tries to talk sense into them, the creature realizes that the Doctor is the cleverest person on the bus, and begins talking in sync ''only'' with him.

And now, the entire BusFullOfInnocents is suspicious of him ''because'' of what are usually his strengths: his cleverness, his confidence, his take-charge attitude, and the breadth and depth of his knowledge all mark him out as something other than human. Which he ''is'', and that's the most dangerous thing to be in a mob of terrified humans. Nothing a sonic screwdriver could fend off.

He never gets a chance to convince them otherwise, because they're all DangerouslyGenreSavvy -- just without the knowledge that the Doctor is this story's hero, making them WrongGenreSavvy in all the worst ways. Oh, and Sky is now talking ''before'' the Doctor talks. She's stolen his speech. And he's paralyzed, forced to repeat everything ''she'' says, while the monster merrily pretends that Sky's completely back to normal. It's inside him, she says. It's inside him, the Doctor hears himself repeating. Cast him out into the sun, she says. Cast him out into the sun, the Doctor repeats. The people grab him and drag him towards the door. Molto Bene! Allons-y! she says. [[CatchPhrase Molto Bene! Allons-y!]] he repeats helplessly... which is when the hostess finally realizes just what's going on, and sacrifices herself to throw Sky into the burning sunlight.

This isn't one of those times when the Doctor just gets up and [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E9ForestOfTheDead pretends he's fine]]. He's deeply shaken and absolutely terrified by what could have happened.

Twenty minutes later, the rescue team arrives, and the Doctor has learned a few painful lessons about mob mentality. This episode marks the beginning of a shift in the Doctor's attitude: he realizes that while HumansAreSpecial, all HumansAreBastards when they get scared.

* BuryYourGays: Played with here by gay author RussellTDavies. Sky's ex-partner was female, and the hostess notably addresses her passengers as "ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon".[[hottip:*:This is presumably more because the passengers might not all be human; the Doctor isn't, for a start.]] Neither of these things is PlayedForLaughs -- it's just considered normal by everyone and never commented on. The fact that Sky dies isn't because she's not straight, but simply because within the context of the plot, the Doctor relates to her most and tells her he [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS2E13Doomsday lost someone too recently]].
* BusFullOfInnocents: Horrifyingly subverted.

* ContinuityNod: The Doctor says Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Donna Noble in rapid succession.

* {{Deconstruction}}:

** Has a similar plot to RTD's "[[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned Voyage of the Damned]]", but handled very differently. Also goes a long way to turning over most of the hallmarks of the programme so far; the Doctor fails almost completely, we never learn anything about the alien (not even if it's actually dead or not at the end!), all the HumansAreBastards at one point or another, and there's no running up and down corridors to boot!

* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: We spend five or ten minutes meeting the [[HumansAreBastards apparently]] nice other passengers before everything goes [[{{Discworld}} wahoonie-shaped]].
* DrivenToSuicide: WordOfGod says that Sky planned to kill herself at the waterfall.

* GoThroughMe: "If you try to throw her out that door, you'll have to get past me first!"

** The in-flight entertainment system, consisting of several media playing at the same time, is also foreshadowing for the creature talking in sync with people.

* {{Humans are Bastards}}: Very uncharacteristic for this show, and especially this Doctor, who up until now has had a great love and admiration for humans as a species. This episode flips that all upside down, leaving the Doctor shaken and disturbed in the aftermath. It can be argued that the Tenth Doctor is never quite the same after this experience.

*** We also have no idea if it's trapped on Midnight or if it can manifest in other places. And the way that the creature describes itself, speaking of being from the "Dark and the cold", is eerily similar to creatures like Death and Abaddon from ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' and The Beast.

* RunningGag: The usual humour of "No... no, don't do that" is pretty thoroughly murdered, though.

* YouLookFamiliar: David Troughton, son of Second Doctor actor Patrick Troughton, and eponymous monarch from the Third Doctor story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E2TheCurseOfPeladon The Curse of Peladon]]", makes a guest appearance as Prof. Hobbes.

He never gets a chance to convince them otherwise, because they're all DangerouslyGenreSavvy -- just without the knowledge that the Doctor is this story's hero, making them WrongGenreSavvy in all the worst ways. Oh, and Sky is now talking ''before'' the Doctor talks. She's stolen his speech. And he's paralyzed, forced to repeat everything ''she'' says, while the monster merrily pretends that Sky's completely back to normal. It's inside him, she says. It's inside him, the Doctor hears himself repeating. Cast him out into the sun, she says. Cast him out into the sun, the Doctor repeats. The people grab him and drag him towards the door. Molto Bene! Allons-y! she says. Molto Bene! Allons-y! he repeats helplessly... which is when the hostess finally realizes just what's going on, and sacrifices herself to throw Sky into the burning sunlight.

* BuryYourGays: Played with here by gay author RussellTDavies. Sky's ex-partner was female, and the hostess notably addresses her passengers as "ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon". Neither of these things is PlayedForLaughs -- it's just considered normal by everyone and never commented on. The fact that Sky dies isn't because she's not straight, but simply because within the context of the plot, the Doctor relates to her most and tells her he [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS2E13Doomsday lost someone too recently]].

* EnclosedSpace: Nothing can leave the Bus without being destroyed by the sun.

** Also, before the bus gets moving, the Hostess mentions that, should the need to use the emergency fire exit arise, "passengers first", a dumb joke on the fact that the planet has no air. [[spoiler:The Hostess is the only character (aside from the Monster of the week) to actually use that door.]]

* IronicEcho: "Don't. Don't do that" is one for previous episodes.

* ThePublicDomainChannel: The entertainment screens on the shuttle bus only show old black-and-white movies. Unlike most examples of the trope, the characters are aware that they're old movies, and aren't especially entertained.
* RunningGag: The usual humor of "No... no, don't do that" is pretty thoroughly murdered, though.

--> Taking a big spaceship with a bunch of strangers across a diamond planet called Midnight... ''what could possibly go wrong''?