Name:
Midnight entity
Place of Origin:
Midnight
First Appearance:
Other Appearances:
Main Actor:
Lesley Sharp
Other Actors:
Paul Kasey
A being with no name, (The Well) sometimes known by titles such as the Midnight entity (Midnight, The Dangerous Book of Monsters) or Midnight Entity, (“It Has No Name”) also known as the Midnight Monster, (Nightmare Creatures) the Diamond’s Shadow, and Haunting of Sky Silvestry, (“It Has No Name”) was a lifeform living on the planet Midnight. It was one of the few beings that The Doctor had no knowledge of at all, which, given his expansive, encyclopaedic knowledge of the universe and everything in it across time, was a testament, possibly due to its obscurity, or its innovation to adapt. The creature was never given a name, nor did it display any form other than a shadow running across the landscape. (Midnight) It continued to live on the planet Midnight for hundreds of thousands of years, where the Fifteenth Doctor rediscovered it 400,000 years later. It knew The Doctor’s real name. (The Well)
Although others referred to the entity as an “it”, the entity described himself using masculine pronouns. (Midnight)
When first encountered by the Doctor, the Midnight entity was only seen briefly as a shadow. It was able to possess a host, which it seemingly did with the intent of learning. (Midnight) 400,000 years later, the creature appeared with a solid form, though whether this was a new adaptation was unclear. Whatever the case, it appeared to no longer possess its host, now opting to hide behind them just out of sight, and killing anyone who forced it to be seen by viewing the host from opposite someone else. (The Well)
WAITING ON MIDNIGHT
Despite the common belief that no life could survive on Midnight, the entity claimed to have “waited so long in the dark and the cold and the diamonds.” (Midnight) It was unknown whether the Midnight entity originated on Midnight or somehow came from elsewhere, (Guide to Known Worlds) although some accounts indicated that the entity had spent much of his existence trapped beneath the diamond surface of Midnight. (Midnight, “The Cold, the Dark, and the Diamonds”) By one account, a cave system on Midnight contained ancient ruins with carvings describing the entity. (“The Cold, the Dark, and the Diamonds”
By one account, the entity was released from below the surface of Midnight due to digging at a human mining outpost. Adventurers were present for these events. (Midnight)
CRUSADER 50 INCIDENT
During a tour to the Sapphire Waterfall, a tour bus apparently broke down. While looking out a window, the on-board trainee mechanic, Claude, noticed a shadow among the diamonds that was moving in the distance, “running” towards the bus.
Following the beginning of the passengers’ paranoia, the entity knocked twice around the bus to get everyone’s attention. When Mr Cane and the Tenth Doctor knocked a different number of times, the entity mimicked the pattern exactly. Following Sky Silvestry’s hysterical blathering, the entity closed in on her from the outside and somehow entered the shuttle without any sign of a hole, while ripping off the cockpit, killing the drivers. In the following blackout from the loss of the main generator, the entity chose to possess Sky. The entity seemed to gather the strength of its host and repeated every word a person within earshot said in exact precision, including the square root of pi to 30 decimal places. Soon thereafter, the entity was able to copy others word-for-word at the exact same time, eventually doing this only to the Doctor and ignoring the other passengers. Eventually, the entity paralysed him and forced him to repeat after it instead.
Taking advantage of the hysterical level of paranoia that was already amongst the passengers, the entity convinced them that The Doctor was now possessed and needed to be thrown off the bus. However, while Professor Hobbes and Mr Cane were trying to get rid of the Doctor, the entity made a grave mistake – it began using phrases that only the Doctor had previously said, prompting the attention of the hostess. The hostess sacrificed herself by dragging the possessed Sky out into the X-tonic light, vaporising both of them to free The Doctor from the entity’s grip and to ensure the safety of the passengers.
Despite this, The Doctor had no idea if this action killed the entity or if it survived. In light of the incident, the Leisure Palace Company decided to withdraw its facilities from Midnight and abandon the planet to its eternal silence once more, preventing the entity, if it survived or if there were more, from claiming any more victims. (Midnight)
AFTER THE CRUSADER 50 INCIDENT
Roughly 400,000 years later, the entity resurfaced when a Lombardic mining colony opened a drilling well, which it seemingly escaped from. Rather than possessing a host as it did before, it instead hid behind their host’s back, whispering in their ears. It played tricks by allowing itself to be seen for a moment moving behind the host’s back, but hiding if they were to move around to try and get a better look.
It would kill anyone who forced it to be seen by standing directly behind the host while someone else looked from the front, by violently throwing them, the force of which would send them flying and break every bone in their body. This incited panic in the colonists, leading to them killing each other. However, anyone who killed the entity’s host then became the new host, only leading to further panic. If the host were to have a reflective surface directly behind them in place of a person, the entity, being “behind itself” would be thrown forward instead, freeing the host from the entity. To prevent this, it smashed all mirrors in the facility. Eventually, thirty-four of the thirty-five colonists were killed, with the only survivor being the cook, Aliss Fenly, who was deaf and thus unable to hear the entity’s whispering.
ENCOUNTER WITH THE FIFTEENTH DOCTOR
Fifteen days later, a Lombardic military outfit arrived to investigate the loss of communications with the colony, accompanied by the Fifteenth Doctor and Belinda Chandra. The entity killed several members of the mission, but The Doctor was able to deduce that the entity was the same one he had encountered before and that the host standing in front of a mirror would free them. Using the mercury that was used in the drilling process as a mirror, he was able to free Aliss, allowing all of them to escape the facility. During the escape, The Doctor stopped to catch a glimpse of what the entity looked like. After most of the crew escaped, it caught up to the Doctor, Belinda, and two members of the crew (Shaya Costallion and Mo Gilliben) in the storage bay near the airlock and seemingly attached itself to Belinda. Shaya was seeingly able to free Belinda of the entity by shooting just above her vagus nerve, killing her temporarily, but not doing enough damage that she couldn’t be revived through defibrillation. This appeared to cause the entity to pass from Belinda to her. She then ran to the well and jumped into it, sacrificing herself to stop the entity and allow the others to escape. When Mo had later returned returned to the ship, one of her crewmates thought she saw something behind her, causing Mo to fear that the entity may have escaped with her, taking her as a host. Whether this was truly the case is unclear. (The Well)
POWERS AND ABILITIES
The Midnight entity was capable of surviving on the planet Midnight, despite the X-tonic rays which should have killed any being on the surface. It was capable of shaking a Crusader 50 bus, causing dents in its walls and ripping off the cockpit, feats which would require great strength.
The entity could also possess humans. It would start to copy what the people around it said, then speak at the same time, and then predict what people would say. The Doctor believed it was trying to learn about its surroundings. The being seemed to be able to learn at an incredibly rapid pace and absorbed the passengers’ speech without forgetting, hesitating, or making a single mistake. It also mimicked his mannerisms, such as the Tenth Doctor’s use of Italian and French phrases, (molto bene and allons-y). (Midnight)
It was described by Jack Harkness as a creature that could eat its way into the brain and steal the host’s voice. (Monster File: Midnight)
It survived hundreds of thousands of years on the same planet, and when the Fifteenth Doctor re-encountered it, it seemes to behave differently. It hid behind a host’s back and killed anyone who walked behind said host with a third party observing the front, forcing it to be seen. Killing the host caused the entity to take the killer as a new host. The Doctor remarked it “played games” and “had fun.” It also knew The Doctor’s Name. (The Well)
BEHIND THE SCENES
This is the first time on Doctor Who where the true nature of an enemy has never been revealed. The creature’s true name is not revealed in either of the episodes it appears, although has been termed “Midnight entity” is sources such as the RPG adaptation of the episode. The end credits of The Well credits it as “It Has No Name”.
The entity resembles the species in the Doctor Who Unbound audio drama A Storm of Angels, right down to the gemstone planet it inhabited.