A world without sleep turns into a real nightmare.
Ive wished more than once that sleep could be optional.
If everyone were awake, wed have to be plugged in then, too.
Credit: Simon Ridgway/BBC America
Doctor Whos greatest fear for the future is that well be stripped of everything but our functionality.
Enter Morpheus, a pod designed to condense a months worth of rest into five minutes.
The station fell silent 24 hours ago.
A rescue crew based on Triton arrives to investigate, led by young commander Chief Nagata.
The team finds Rassmussens station apparently empty, aside from who else?
the Doctor and Clara, whove gone space exploring er, exploring.
(Its never space restaurant or space champagne or space hat.)
Their expedition is interrupted by Hulk-like dust creatures that chase the crew into a room of the space station.
How better to get the edge on your competitor, to turn that extra profit?
The Doctor is not amused.
Sleep is vital, he argues.
But weve never seen it, and neither has Clara.
Even the opening credits are different.
The longer a person uses the Morpheus chamber, the more the dust accumulates.
If they return home now, they risk spreading an infection that they dont even understand yet.
Found footage, hulking monsters, possible airborne contaminants weve got ourselves a horror movie.
NEXT: Death by karaoke
In true horror fashion, the crew is being picked off one by one.
(This episode is vindicating for those of us whove never liked Mr. As his screams echo the halls, the stations anti-grav shield goes down, pulling it toward Neptune.
An explosion blocks Chopra and 474s path.
A slower kind of death is going down in cold storage.
They make a run for it when they realize that the Sandmen are blind.
Morpheus is already rewiring her brain.
Clara stays confident (too confident?)
in the face of that news; shes sure that the Doctor will fix it.
For now, what matters is finding who hijacked the footage.
Rassmussen is all for it.
To prove his point, he opens the pod, releasing what he claims is Morpheus first client.
But was the Sandman really patient zero?
Does the dust consume the host?
Why wasnt that Sandman blind?
They can ask those questions later.
Back in the rescue ship, Rassmussen finishes his video.
There never was any infection, he says; the Sandmen were just part of the show.
(There it is.
Tickles, doesnt it?)
And the man behind the curtain isnt even Rassmussen anymore.
He rubs his eye, and the entire socket turns to dust.
Is this what the Morpheus program does to everyone?
What has it done to Clara?
Like the Doctor, we dont get all of the answers.
Weve already lost this one.
Id lie awake thinking about it, if I ever had time to sleep.
