Doctor Who: No Place

The Doctor and Donna join Sylvia and Wilf on a reality TV show about home improvements at supposedly haunted houses (which sounds depressingly plausible). This, naturally enough, leads to the exploration of a house at which seemingly supernatural events are recurring, despite the scepticism of the TV show's presenter. However, it also turns out to be a place that Donna visited as a child, when it was still a school, and there is more going on than first meets the eye.

This is clearly intended to be a spooky story, and it does have a number of good scenes that work towards that aim. The problem is, they don't cohere together terribly well, consisting of one scary piece of telekinesis after another without much development of the story beyond that, until the closing moments. Honestly, the ending is rather weak, too, although it does a decent job of explaining what was happening, and why the Doctor has chosen to use the TV show, rather than simply exploring the place on his own.

This is alleviated by the presence of Wilf, providing an earthy grounding and, of course, the interaction between Donna and the Doctor, who are pretending to be a married couple. Sylvia is perhaps rather less well used, although she does serve to put Donna's childhood interaction with the place into context. Still, the characterisation is good, and there's a decent mix of humour and chills, just not an especially strong story to go along with it.