It Has No Name

Portrayed by Paul Kasey

“Why are you repeating?...” 

The Midnight Entity. The Diamond’s Shadow. The Haunting of Sky Silvestry. No name that has been ascribed to this being in the years since its discovery can truly describe it, as it remains one of the most unknowable dangers the Doctor has ever faced.

With no recognisable physical form, this creature has survived for eons on a planet that, by all rights, should be uninhabitable. It specialises in the psychological torture of its victims, possessing people and using their brain functions to learn and mimic their behaviour. While it can lash out physically if approached, this solitary entity prefers to weaponise an entire group’s potential to turn on each other – often with devastating results. 

Character Bio

The Tenth Doctor first encounters this unseen creature on Midnight; a beautiful yet desolate planet made of diamonds, where he and Donna Noble are visiting a luxury hotel complex. When his tour shuttle breaks down on the planet’s surface, the Doctor and his fellow passengers find themselves besieged by something knocking on the shuttle walls – an impossible feat, as the X-tonic sunlight should instantly kill anything outside.

As passenger Sky Silvestry begins to panic, the entity zeroes in on her, finding a way through the hull of the shuttle and taking up residence in her mind. With Sky’s voice, the entity begins repeating everything said by the other passengers – learning how they communicate and gauging their intelligence. It eventually settles on repeating only the Doctor, which causes the other passengers to turn on him.

As their connection grows, there is a shift between the Doctor and Sky; he begins repeating her instead. Assuming that he is now the possessed one, the other passengers agree to throw the Doctor out of the shuttle – but he is saved by the sacrifice of the shuttle’s hostess, who grabs Sky and throws herself out of the airlock, freeing the Doctor from the creature’s grasp.

Over 400,000 years later, Midnight is now an exhausted mining colony known only as 6-7-6-7. When the miners delve a well deep into the planet, something comes up from inside the well – and causes them to turn on each other violently, until deaf inhabitant Aliss Fenly is the only remaining survivor. The Fifteenth Doctor and Belinda Chandra join a squadron of soldiers sent to investigate the planet and discover Aliss, who sits alone in the middle of a circular room. As the Doctor investigates, Belinda tends to Aliss – but can swear she sees something lurking behind her.

Growing paranoid, the troopers surround Aliss – but as soon as anyone stands directly behind her, they are thrown violently to their death. Begging for her life, Aliss admits that the entity will “pass on” to a new host if they kill the current one. When the Doctor learns what planet they are actually on, he immediately recognises the danger possessing Aliss as the same thing he faced many lives ago. Approaching Aliss, he can hear the creature whispering – although Aliss cannot – and, to his horror, it whispers his true name.

The Doctor uses pipes full of mercury to force the entity to behold its own reflection, freeing Aliss from its grasp as the group make their escape. As the Doctor hesitates to try and catch a glimpse of the creature, it catches up to them, seemingly taking hold of Belinda. The troopers’ commander Shaya shoots Belinda to claim the entity from her, and runs back to the well, throwing herself in – sacrificing herself to spare anyone else from its influence.

However, as the TARDIS departs, and surviving troopers Mo and Val take off from the planet, Val can’t help but look at Mo as if there’s something behind her...