Night Terrors (TV story)

Night Terrors was the ninth episode in the sixth series of Doctor Who.

Synopsis
The Doctor receives a distress call from the scariest place in the Universe: a child’s bedroom. Every night George lies awake, terrorised by every fear imaginable – fears that live in his bedroom cupboard. His parents are getting desperate – George needs a doctor. Fortunately for George, his pleas for help break through the barriers of all time and space and the Doctor makes a house call. But allaying his fears won’t be easy. George’s monsters are real.

Plot
In an apartment block, a child named George is terrified of everything. When his mother, Claire, says goodnight before she goes to work, George makes her turn the light on and off five times to keep the monsters away. When she leaves, George starts chanting "Please save me from the monsters" over and over. Through the crack in his bedroom door, he can see and hear his mother talking to his father, Alex. They may need a specialist to see him. In the TARDIS at the other side of the universe, the Doctor gets George's message on his psychic paper and decides to make a house call on little George.

When they arrive, Amy, Rory and he split up to look for a scared child. Each visits a different apartment: the Doctor talks to the elderly Mrs Rossiter; Rory talks to the landlord, Jim Purcell; and Amy meets twin girls and their mother. All of them are suspicious of the strangers and slam the doors in their faces. The Doctor spots George looking out of his window and knocks on his apartment door. Amy and Rory get in a lift to join the Doctor, but it plummets and they disappear. They end up in an unusual house that Rory suspects is from the 1700s until they find a electric lamp. They also find a wooden pan that is painted to look like copper.

Meanwhile the Doctor asks George's father, Alex, about George's fears. Alex replies that George is "scared to death of everything". Alex reveals that he and Claire created a tradition with George - anything that scares him, they put in the cupboard. The Doctor and Alex intend to open George's closet, but the landlord arrives and starts hectoring Alex about his rent, while the Doctor brings all of George's toys to life with his sonic screwdriver. He scans George's cupboard. Whatever is inside it is off the scale. Alex comes back in and reaches for the cupboard - the Doctor stops him, saying "George's monsters are real".

Amy and Rory are still exploring the strange house. They hear a sinister giggling from a closet. Their fears are allayed when they see the cupboard contains only a wooden doll, but when they turn away, the doll moves.

Back in the apartment, the Doctor tells Alex who he is and convinces him of the truth. They argue whether to open the cupboard. At the same time, Purcell is sucked through the carpet of his living room into the house with Rory and Amy. He is caught by the dolls and turned into one of them in front of Amy and Rory's eyes. The Doctor opens George's cupboard. He finds nothing inside but some clothes and a dollhouse.

Amy and Rory try to escape the dolls, but Amy is caught and made into a doll in front of a horrified Rory. At the apartment, The Doctor knows he's missing something and examines a photo album of Alex and Claire. Claire is not pregnant in a photo taken only weeks before George was born. Alex shouts that Claire can't have kids, then looks confused. He only just remembered that. Both turn to look at Alex's "son", and the Doctor asks, "What are you, George?" Suddenly, a light comes from the cupboard and Alex and The Doctor are dragged inside while George chants "Please save me from the monsters".

Inside the cupboard, the Doctor realizes that they are in George's dollhouse. They meet up with Rory. The Doctor realizes that George is a Tenza - aliens that hatch in space, then assimilate themselves to their foster parents' needs. George saw Claire's longing for a child, so took the shape of a human boy and placed a percerption filter to fool his parents. A very scared George steps into his cupboard.

In the dollhouse, George appears. The Doctor, Rory and Alex are fighting off the dolls. The Doctor realizes that the whole cycle of fear began with George's fear that Alex would send him away; a tearful Alex hugs his son and promises to never send him away. All the dolls stop moving.

Back in the apartment, Claire arrives home and is surprised to see her son happy and well. The Doctor commends Alex for his actions, then heads back to the TARDIS with Amy and Rory. The creepy nursery rhyme the dolls had been chanting continues: "Tick tock goes the clock, even for the Doctor" as the time and place of the Doctor's death flash up on the screen.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
 * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
 * Alex - Daniel Mays
 * George - Jamie Oram
 * Claire - Emma Cunniffe
 * Jim Purcell - Andrew Tiernan
 * Elsie Rossiter - Leila Hoffman
 * Julie - Sophie Cosson

The Doctor

 * The Doctor mentions three of his favourite bedtime stories as a child: The Three Little Sontarans, The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes and Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday.

Foods and beverages from the real world

 * The Doctor and Alex drink tea.
 * The Doctor mentions Jammie Dodgers.

Races and species

 * George is a Tenza. He is able to match himself to people's needs and create perception filters.

Television series from the real world

 * Rory mentions EastEnders.

Story notes

 * This episode had the working titles: House Call, (The Doctor notes that he doesn't often make house calls) and What are Little Boys Made of? (a play on the Star Trek episode What are Little Girls Made Of?).
 * This was originally going to be the fourth episode of the series, but was moved to the second half as Steven Moffat felt that the first half was "too dark". This necessitated minor changes to the episode. A scene with Madame Kovarian was removed, and the ending with the data file from Let's Kill Hitler was added. (This means Karen Gillan, when she filmed the episode, was in fact performing as the Ganger version of Amy.)
 * The scene where the Doctor and Alex are being sucked into the cupboard is very similar to the movie Poltergeist where the daughter is sucked into the spirit realm through her bedroom cupboard.
 * When Alex is looking at pictures, an announcer from the television can be heard. She says that he is watching BBC One on Saturday night, the same channel and day Doctor Who is on.
 * One of the children's stories the Doctor mentions, Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday, shares its title with a story in the recently published Doctor Who The Official Annual 2012. Had Night Terrors aired as originally planned in the first half of the season, the story would have been published afterwards (suggesting a probable tie-in with the episode).

Ratings

 * UK Overnight: 5.5 million
 * UK Final: 7.07 million

Myths

 * Amy will be turned into a doll. This was proven true.

Filming locations

 * Dyrham House, Bristol

Production errors
to be added

Continuity

 * Inside the dollhouse, Rory initially thinks he and Amy are "dead again". (DW: Amy's Choice, Cold Blood, The Pandorica Opens) He also believes at one point that the TARDIS is altering time and space again. (DW: Amy's Choice, The Doctor's Wife)
 * The Doctor asks for a Jammie Dodger. (DW: Victory of the Daleks, The Impossible Astronaut)
 * When the Doctor and Alex wake up in the Doll House, Alex wonders how it can be bigger on the inside. The Doctor says "More common than you'd think, actually" referring to the TARDIS, among other things.
 * When the Doctor explains to Alex that George is using a perception filter, he stops in the hallway to look in a mirror and makes the same face he did when he first saw his reflection in DW: The Vampires of Venice.
 * The Doctor performs his odd greeting kiss with Claire. (DW: The Lodger)
 * The sonic screwdriver doesn't work on wood. (DW: Silence in the Library, The Hungry Earth, The Curse of the Black Spot)
 * The information of the Doctor's death is shown (DW: Let's Kill Hitler) and the story arc involving his death is continued with the Peg Dolls' nursery rhyme (see plot above).
 * The Eighth Doctor was previously turned into a doll by the Celestial Toymaker in a manner similar to Amy. (CC: Solitaire)
 * The Doctor again shows a connection to and concern for children. (DW: The Eleventh Hour, The Beast Below, The Hungry Earth, A Christmas Carol, The Impossible Astronaut, The Curse of the Black Spot).
 * The Doctor asks if there are any jelly babies he can have.
 * The Doctor says "It's good to be all back together again, in the flesh.", which may or may not be foreshadowing that one or more of Amy, Rory, and the Doctor are not actually there, but The Flesh.
 * This episode was originally filmed for the first half of the series. It was probably meant to be foreshadowing for DW: The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People.
 * The Doctor mentions the titles of children's books from Gallifrey: "The Three Little Sontarans"; "The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes" and "Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday". The latter title marks the first acknowledgment in televised canon of the events of the 1970s stage play SP: Doctor Who and the Daleks in The Seven Keys to Doomsday.

Timeline

 * This story occurs after: DW: Let's Kill Hitler
 * This story occurs before: DW: The Girl Who Waited

Home video releases
This episode will be released on DVD and Blu-ray shortly after the airing of episode thirteen.