After the last two weeks’ fantastic Steven Moffat-scripted 2-parter, it would take a brave man to follow up with a new Doctor Who episode featuring an invisible villain causing paranoia. And yet, that’s exactly what showrunner Russell T. Davies has done. However, this week’s episode, “Midnight,” goes the opposite direction with scale and pares it down to a small handful of people stuck in one location. And it’s brilliant.

Donna and The Doctor are taking a vacation (the Brits like to call it a holiday) on a planet called Midnight. It has a luxury hotel, and outside, the crystalline world orbits close to its sun sending extonic (?) radiation that would not allow anything to survive outside. The Doctor tries to convince Donna to go with him on a small shuttle-bus ride to see the Sapphire Waterfall, but Donna is content to chill by the pool. The Doctor opts to go on his own.

The shuttle bus ride takes four hours. Other passengers include Val and Biff Cane and their emo teenage son, Jethro; Professor Hobbes (played by David Troughton, the real-life son of Second Doctor Patrick) and his assistant Dee DeeBlasco; and businesswoman Sky Silvestri. There is also a stewardess, a driver, and a trainee mechanic. There’s a pretty funny bit where the Hostess explains the windows need to be closed for the ride to protect them from the sun, but they have various entertainment options available to them – and then turns them all on at once. The Doctor shorts out the system with his sonic screwdriver and gleefully says they’ll simply have to talk to pass the time.

The trip goes smoothly enough, even though it had to reroute to a new course, but then it stops short of its destination. The Doctor goes up to the pilot’s cabin to talk to the driver and mechanic about what’s going on. They try to placate him by making something up but the Doctor is too clever and they admit they’re not sure why it’s stopped. He convinces them to open their window for just a moment to take a look at an area no one’s ever seen before. The temptation is too great and the three of them get a glimpse of a beautiful diamond-looking world. Just as the window closes back down, the mechanic insists he saw something heading for them. The driver and mechanic call for a rescue shuttlecraft while the Doctor heads back to his seat.

The Doctor tells the passengers the same fib he was told, but Dee Dee’s parents worked on similar shuttles and she says that doesn’t make sense. Then they are interrupted by something banging and knocking on the outside of the bus. The Professor tries to calm everyone by explaining it’s simply the sun causing the hull to gently warp. But the knocking continues, moving around the ship and getting closest to Sky, the most scared of them all. There is a knock at the door she is near. The Canes are nervous but Dee Dee explains that it would take too much strength to open the door from outside due to the pressure difference.

Biff Cane casually knocks against the door three times. And he is answered back with the same three knocks. Everyone inside is getting very scared, and the Doctor isn’t having much luck placating these folks. He tests the door with a double knock and gets answered with the same sound. Then the lights fail and the shuttle is violently shaken. When the lights come back on, the seats by Sky have been ripped away and she is huddled in the corner, facing away from everyone.

When the Hostess goes to check on the driver and mechanic, they see that the entire front of the bus has been ripped off. The door is shut before decompression sucks them all outside (Dee Dee explains they have about 6 seconds before the pressurized cabin would fail). The two were instantly killed when they were exposed to the sun.

Eventually, the Doctor convinces Sky to turn around and look at him. She looks at everyone with intense stares and only mimics exactly what they say. This further upsets the passengers and for the rest of the episodes, the Doctor struggles to keep things calm while they wait for the rescue shuttle. Unfortunately, with everyone trapped in the same room, people simply don’t listen.

Sky’s repetition becomes shorter and shorter until she is actually speaking in unison with the vacationers. The passengers begin discussing throwing her out the hatch. The Doctor tries to convince them not to do that, but they become suspicious of him. He showed up without a real ticket, won’t reveal his real name, or what he’s a doctor of. This was a fantastic bit of character work as people’s alliances shift and switch depending on who they think is arguing the most sensible course of action. Eventually, they all realize that Sky is no longer copying all of them, but only the Doctor, further making them distrust him.

The Doctor attempts to reason with or understand Sky (or more accurately, whatever has infected her). Instead, she uses his words and begins saying what he will say before him. Slowly, she moves and the Doctor becomes paralyzed, repeating what Sky says.

The passengers reason that whatever had infected Sky moved to the Doctor. Dee Dee disagrees, arguing that that Sky stole his voice, only to be yelled at by The Professor. The other passengers refuse to listen and Mr. Cane and Professor Hobbes drag the Doctor to the door hatch, to throw him out. Just as they get him close to the door, the Hostess recognizes Sky repeat a phrase she’d heard the Doctor speak earlier. The Hostess grabs Sky and opens the door. Seconds later, the air decompresses and they are sucked out into the void. The door is shut and the Doctor slowly recovers, and they wait for the rescue shuttle. While waiting, they all realize that no one ever learned the Hostess’ actual name. A sad Doctor returns to Donna, who comforts him.

Amazing, really. Russel T. Davies catches plenty of flack for always having huge, bombastic episodes, and occasional campiness. Also, for always inserting gay characters. Well, Sky was gay, but the rest of it is just plain wrong. This was a small, character-driven episode that really was gripping. I wasn’t bored, and there’s little I can fault with the logic or performances. I especially appreciated that the menace was never explained. The Doctor didn’t know what it was, we never learned, and it was much creepier that way.

I gotta give a third straight 5 out of 5 sonic screwdrivers to this show. How long can they keep the quality this high?