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Night Terrors (Doctor Who)

220 – "Night Terrors"
Doctor Who episode
Night Terrors.jpg
The life-size dolls featured in the episode were based on the real life peg dolls from Germany.
Cast
Others
Production
Directed by Richard Clark
Written by Mark Gatiss
Produced by Sanne Wohlenberg
Executive producer(s)
Incidental music composer Murray Gold
Production code 2.4
Series Series 6
Length 45 minutes
Originally broadcast 3 September 2011
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by →
"Let's Kill Hitler" "The Girl Who Waited"
List of Doctor Who serials

"Night Terrors" is the ninth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC America on 3 September 2011. It was written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Richard Clark.

In the episode, alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companions Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) decide to make a "house call" to an eight-year-old boy named George (Jamie Oram) who is terrified of almost everything, and especially dreads the cupboard in his bedroom. While the Doctor discusses this with George's father Alex (Daniel Mays), Amy and Rory become trapped in a doll house with terrifying life-size peg dolls.

"Night Terrors" was inspired by Gatiss's fear of dolls, and the ones in the episode were designed to be scary and crude-looking. The episode was moved from the first half of the series to the second, which necessitated changes to make it fit into the series' story arc. It was the first to be filmed, with production taking place in September 2010 at a council estate in Redcliffe, Bristol and at Dyrham Park, where the doll's house interior scenes were filmed. The episode was watched by 7.07 million viewers in the UK and received generally positive to mixed reviews from critics, though some were critical of how it fitted into the overarching story as it came after a heavy story-arc episode.

The Doctor decides to make a "house call" after his psychic paper receives a message from George, a frightened 8-year-old child, asking his help in getting rid of the monsters in his bedroom. On arrival at a council estate on present-day Earth, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory split up to try to locate the child. The Doctor, taking the guise of a social services worker, finds the right flat, and meets George's father, Alex, while his mother Claire is working a night shift. Through Alex's photo album, the Doctor learns that George has been frightened all his life, fearing many of the sounds and people around the flat and is helped to cope by various habits, including metaphorically placing his fears in his wardrobe.


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