We just saw one of the greatest episodes of Doctor Who, or one of its worst. And I can’t decide where “Listen” ultimately falls.
It’s an uneven episode of television, juxtaposing tense and imaginative scenes against long, drowsy passages of banal writing. Its ending is magnificent, managing to shock while tying together the emotional journeys of all the characters involved. But it also feels like cheating. Like we didn’t quite earn the peek behind the curtain that we got.
“Listen” is impactful, that’s for sure. But I need to parse these mixed feelings about the episode, as I suspect their origins are grown from being a viewer who is perhaps too familiar with the subject matter. I’d like to end this analysis on a positive note, so we’ll start by getting the bad bits out of the way.
The episode starts off poorly, with the Doctor monologuing at us as he wanders around the TARDIS. Capaldi makes this “mad scientist” affect work for his incarnation of the Doctor—and honestly it’s amazing how small the list of “things Capaldi does not make work” is this early on in the run—but the entire scene was just too authorial for my taste. As the Doctor spoke I could practically see Moffat wandering in front of his laptop, brainstorming the next big new monster for the show. “Let’s see, perfect hunter. Shadows? No, I did that. Oh, what about perfect defense? Oh, the Angels, the Silence… Yeah people are getting tired of them. Ooh, the Silence…perfect hiding, maybe? Moffat, you’ve done it again! Another celebratory bath in malt liquor for me!”
I’ve grown exceptionally tired of opening monologues or voiceovers that explain the premise of an episode, and Moffat has leaned on this a lot lately, in “The Time of the Doctor” and “The Name of the Doctor” specifically. It always comes off as lazy to me, throwing me out of a story before it’s even begun, and when you have a writer like Moffat who repeats elements as often as he does (unseen monsters, sassy ninja ladies, events happening in backwards order, repeated phrasing in order to ratchet up tension, someone saying the words “shut up”) then it becomes even more grating.
It’s entirely possible that I’ve just reached my limit on this kind of thing with the show itself. Russell T. Davies’ reign had just as much voiceover-premise-over-explanation and it was just as annoying. (Rose told us she was dead before we saw it… Rassilon told us about the Master way before we saw either of them…) It’s just that now that we’ve had 9 years worth of shows I’m not willing to let the show runner, whomever they are, get away with it any longer.
It’s that backlog of Doctor Who that puts me at a remove from “Listen.” The show has since provided years of legendary stand-out episodes, with Moffat responsible for the lion’s share of them, and “Listen” competes with them instead of solely this season’s offerings. If I were a newcomer to the show I would be blown away by what we just saw, and would promptly sit all my unconverted friends down to watch how amazing and touching a daffy sci-fi show like Doctor Who can be. Then they’d see! But I could already do that before “Listen” and I can still do that without feeling the need to include “Listen” in that line-up, even as affecting as the episode is.
Because I’d rather not force anyone else to suffer through the interminable dinner sequence between Clara and Danny. I can’t tell whether the two actors have no chemistry together or whether Moffat wrote the scene on an off day because that is not the kind of flat, forced dialogue one expects from the writer of a dating show such as Coupling, a writer who regularly turns phrases on their head in Sherlock and Who, as well. It’s weird that we’re meant to initially side with Clara, despite her shockingly disrespectful comment to Danny. (Who accuses someone of being a killer on their first date?!?) We find out that it’s all set-up for other more important scenes down the line, but that just makes the story frustrating and puzzling until those scenes actually arrive. The Doctor’s opening monologue in the episode is the same way. We find out later why he feels compelled to think about a creature who can hide perfectly, but until then we’re just hoping that someone shows up in a bright orange spacesuit and forces the scene to end so something more interesting can happen.
A lot of scenes in “Listen” don’t quite make sense until the denouement, which leads to what I mentioned earlier in regards to not feeling like we’ve quite earned the right to see the Doctor as a scared little boy. Even for someone like Clara, who has hopped all over the Doctor’s timeline, this is an intensely private moment to witness. Are we sure we want to be here?
Then again, like “Listen” and its standout contemporaries, the end of the episode seems like too private a moment only for longtime viewers of the show. We’ve been through multiple Doctors, a Time War, and so many obfuscations of origin that we can’t even count them all. We truly know the weight of this vulnerable moment in the Doctor’s childhood. And it’s made even more vulnerable because it’s Capaldi’s incarnation of the Doctor who takes us there. We haven’t seen much, but what we have seen is a man who is guarded and wary of most everything, including himself. This is a momentous piece of himself to share. Equal or superior to Ten’s admission of love to Rose all the way back in Bad Wolf Bay. Equal or superior to Ten’s own anguished rejection of his own death. Private, honest moments with the Doctor are true treasures, rare and wonderful.
So am I putting too much weight on “Listen”? Is that why its flaws stick with me? Is that why I can’t just accept it as a nicely self-contained bedtime story about the Doctor as told by the Doctor? In some ways I’m approaching this episode like the Doctor approaches the Hideaway Monster. The flaws in this episode are real, and I will hunt them to the end of inhabited time in order to expose them.
But in the end, the flaws are just me approaching Doctor Who burdened by the history of my own reactions. The repetition of story structures, the weight of the Doctor’s childhood…these are reactions that I’m adding to the story. I can focus on that breath on the back of my neck, that hand on my ankle…or I can look out the window. I can let the episode portray what it wishes to portray.
Because there’s no question about it, I’ll be thinking about “Listen” long after tonight. It is an exceptional episode of Doctor Who.
Quick thoughts:
- Didn’t we already see mankind’s first time traveler (and the end of a world) in last season’s “Hide”?
- I love the idea that Clara’s family line spawns humankind’s first time travelers. She can’t help it!
- Nice callback to “The Day of the Doctor.” I was wondering if that barn was actually a part of the Doctor’s family’s old estate, or something akin to that. Nice to have confirmation of an emotional connection between the building and the Doctor.
- When do you think Twelve will remember he has to go back to the Time War to help out all the other Doctors?
- I really did want to see the monster. I’m bummed that we didn’t get to, but thematically the monster was always meant to be a distraction. Not something real.
- Even though it is real. Another nicely done twist. The Doctor imagines a monster under the bed and 2000 years later actually tracks down a real creature that matches the characteristics of his fear. It’s a red herring so perfect it’s not even a red herring.
Chris Lough is a writer so perfect he’s not even a writer. But is on Twitter.
Good review of the episode. I’m perhaps a bit kinder to this episode than you are, if only because I was not fond of the first three episodes in Capaldi’s run, but this one kept my attention to find out what happens next. Yes, it’s flawed, but then so are most episodes of “Doctor Who” if you look at them too closely. Yes, it contradicts previous episodes, but “Time can be rewritten” is a strong Moffat trope (overused, probably, to explain a complete lack of desire to maintain any real continuity beyond a single episode, but still a trope).
For me, the real lack in the episode is the main thing left not properly explained. It’s not *all* in The Doctor’s head because we, the viewer, saw and heard … something. And yet, we’re expected to let it all go because The Doctor was scared as a child. It felt as if there was a missing scene in which we end up seeing what it really was, and having The Doctor reject it as not possibly being the truth. *Then,* learning about his childhood fears would make sense.
Still, The Doctor’s initial monologuing aside, this is the first episode which made me believe I could be a fan of this particular Doctor.
I don’t agree that there was a monster. Everything we were shown had a non-monstery explanation — another kid playing a prank, people being forgetful, noises as the ship settled. I think the whole point was that, for once, the monster was just the Doctor’s own imagination.
And that’s why I disagree with your review. The authorial tone of the opening narration is perfect, because what’s brilliant about what Moffat did here is that he’s using his own reputation as a misdirect. We’re so used to expecting him to come up with these conceptual monsters that we thought he was just doing another one in the same vein, and he wanted us to think that, because it concealed the twist that this wasn’t a monster story at all, just a pure character piece.
And that’s very encouraging. My problem with Moffat for a while now has been a tendency to do the same things over and over — and here he’s basically recognizing that, taking it, and twisting it in a whole new direction. It’s very heartening, because it shows he’s willing and able to change — to regenerate his writing style, if you will, to go with the regenerated Doctor. I didn’t find the long dialogue scenes boring; in fact, I loved the slower, more contemplative tone, because it was so refreshingly different from the hectic pace of the Smith era. It’s a whole new show now and I like it.
The opening monologue was also good as an insight into the new Doctor’s thought process. He’s not just bopping around, stumbling into trouble and improvising solutions. He’s more methodical, analytical. He’s trying to anticipate problems — or maybe he’s just relentlessly curious and eager to learn things by seeking out specific answers rather than just wandering and seeing what he happens to find. There’s a touch of the Seventh Doctor in that calculating, proactive approach.
Was the barn on Gallifrey?
@3: Apparently.
I thought this was not only the best episode of the season so far, but the best episode in a long time, and the first time a Moffat-penned episode has impressed me in at least as long. Best time-loop story I’ve seen in ages, by turns heartwarming and super creepy up to its very last moments, with a surprising amount of character complexity stuffed into the length of a standard TV episode. There wasn’t even any Missy/Heaven nonsense to throw a wrench in the pacing this week. Somehow, I think the only proper way to end a story about primal fear of this kind is to leave it entirely up in the air as to whether there was anything to fear in the first place. Even the stuff with Clara and the young Doctor, which is the sort of thing I’d normally find annoyingly retconnish, was so well-done here that I found it really fascinating. It felt longer than most episodes, somehow, but looking at the runtime, it’s not — maybe it’s just that it was dense, mostly dialogue, conceptual stuff, rather than gun battles and explosions and running around. I’m totally okay with that and wish they’d do it more often. It felt like a Moffat story, for sure — but it felt like a Moffat story from the RTD era, before his tenure as showrunner made him so polarizing.
It also made going up into my very poorly lit attic afterward to get my laundry off the clothesline an even more terrifying experience than usual. Especially when the hairs on the back of my neck pricked up….
I got everything your all saying (and enjoyed and leaning with comment 5) , but the bit that left me puzzled is….
After watching this epidsode I seen two possible out comes.
A, There is a creature that hides one creature for everyone.
B, It was the Dr’s Dream (or not a dream because it was in fact clara).
So the problem I am having in my mind is in fact of if outcome B is corrrect then why does every human remember having the dream of not being alone and being grabbed by the ankle, when its only ever happened to the DR on a completly diffrent planet and most proberly time.
Or maybe theres a C, as above and both are ture, and I really hope that is not the case. that would be really lame… (excuse the slang, best way to word it)
The reason im posting a is i’m hoping to be set right with a D.
Or maybe I missed a bit that explained why every human has the same child hood dream as the Dr?
thanks
Marklar
Honestly, I was less impressed with its good moments than you were, but overall this basically covers my sentiments on the episode. This this series has been an unfortunate disappointment for me, despite the fact that I have LOVED what Peter Capaldi has done so far, and a big part of it is Moffat.
Another major problem I have is with Clara, you touched on the incredibly insensitive comment during the date where she calls him a killer which really bothered me. Not only is that incredibly disrespectful, that is the second time she has done it, and it is not like it went over terribly well the first time either. I was never her biggest fan, but those kind of moments with her this season have easily made her my least favorite companion. The relationship between her and Danny is so forced it makes me uncomfortable watching it.
@6: Maybe it’s just the Doctor broadcasting his dream. It said in the episode that special people can hear dreams, maybe REALLY special people can share their own.
I think this is one of the better episodes of Doctor Who, but I can also see that it might only seem that way to a fan, and that a newcomer might be a bit put off. I agree with CLB@2, and that this episode is Moffat Moffat-ing his own writing style, and if you’re not familiar with Moffat’s earlier episodes, especially the RTD-era ones like Blink or The Girl in the Fireplace, then this episode can come off as kind of, “Wait, that was it?”
Showing us The Doctor’s childhood (and a callback to the barn from the 50th) was a nice surprise, but I don’t think it’s unearned. Capaldi is the Twelfth Doctor, but in a way, he’s also the First, as in the First of a new Regeneration Cycle. From what I understand, that’s an honor that most Time Lords don’t get to experience, and perhaps there’s a reason for that. Perhaps the trauma of rewinding your regenerations back to the first one leaves you even more unsure of your identity than just ticking the counter to the next one does. So in order for The Doctor to understand who he is (“Clara, am I a good man?”), he (and by proxy, we) have to find out more about who he was, especially the him of that time before we first met him in that junkyard more than 50 years ago. (And, again, this is another aspect of this episode that might not appeal to newbies.)
Just a few random thoughts:
So, I thought Tardis cannot land on Gallifrey, even in the past, because the planet is sort of “time-sealed,” but this made me think: it has actually never been time-sealed, Doctor just thought it was, and while the ninth, tenth and eleventh Doctor were all “oh, my lost homeplanet, I can never see it again,” they in fact could, all the time? That somehow makes it even more sad.
I always thought “Time lord” is what all the people of Gallifrey are called. You know, like Earth – human, Gallifrey – Time lord. That scene in the barn indicated though you had to join the army and study the Academy to become a Time lord. Sooo… when Doctor says “I am a Time lord,” he doesn´t mean “I´m of a race called Time lords,” but in fact “I have this military/academic title which only few people of my planet possess!”?
That dinner scene was terribly awkward, but it was meant to be so. I wonder if Clara and Danny’s scenes will get better once the awkwardness is gone…
Seeing the Doctor crying didn’t bothered me, because of that scene in The Sound of Drums about the Untempered Schism: “I ran away. I never stopped!”
As often in a Moffat episodes, I liked the little details, such as the line about the lovely darkness, without which we wouldn’t be able to see the stars.
@9 Perhaps the Tardis could land on Gallifrey because the Doctor had taken the safeties off to reach the end of the universe?
As I understand it, all Time Lords are from Gallifrey but not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords, and only the Time Lords can regenerate etc. Which makes a kind of Brave New World-ish sense: if you have an entire race of people who can cheat death, travel through time and possess psychic powers, who’s going to be willing to muck out the toilets?
I think the dialogue was implying not that the Doctor had joined the army to become a Time Lord, but that he would have to join the army because the man (his father? the orphanage master?) thought that he wouldn’t make it into the academy to become a Time Lord (indeed, the Tom Baker run revealed that he barely scraped a pass on his second attempt at final exams).
What bothered me was why the two adults were dressed like Victorians, when Gallifreyans have always been shown to possess a…unique fashion sense of their own.
@11: I just got a mental picture of a Time Lord in one of those “unique fashion sense of their own” robes mucking out the toilets :), thanks for that!
The “victorian” dresses could be explained the same: the pompous robes are for the Time Lords, the ordinary Gallifreyans have to wear something more practical… anyway we didn’t see that much of those two.
And thanks for the explanation, both of the Tardis safety and the army thing. The Time Lord – not Time Lord is still bothering me a little, even though what you say makes sense. I just think Doctor would refer to his people as “Gallifreyans,” not “the Time Lords,” as if they (and he) were something special, even if they are.
I was listening to a few random pieces of instrumental music on youtube just after watching this episode including some parts of the Bioshock soundtrack, I randomly tapped a link to one of the old songs from the game and was a few lines in when I realised how appropriate the song was to this episode.
‘Hush Hush Hush Here Comes The Bogeyman’
Have a listen on youtube and think of this episode.
As far as I know, Gallifreyans were always the race that lived on Gallifrey, and the Time Lords are just one part of that race. Before the show went on indefinite hiatus after “Survival,” the plan had been to have Ace enroll in the Academy and become a Time Lord, so you don’t even technically have to be Gallifreyan. Regeneration is an artificial addition, not something inherent in the species — if you believe the expanded universe novels, it’s biomechanical, and if you go with the now-TV-canon Big Finish audios, Rassilon stole it from the vampires in E-Space. (The distinction between Gallifreyan and Time Lord also offers pretty much the only decent explanation I’ve seen for why he would’ve wanted to save Gallifrey in the 50th anniversary special, as the Time Lords have proven manipulative and meddling at their best and downright evil at their worst, never doing a single thing to merit the Doctor’s pity during the Time War. But if he’s saving a bunch of innocent people along with them, it makes more sense to me.)
@14 Ace on the Academy of Time Lords? That would be fantastic! I wonder what happened to her. And I think Doctor would have saved Gallifrey, even if it was full of Time Lords an no one else, even if they are what they are, because he is not. So, going through the Academy makes you a totally different species, OK, thanks for explaining.
I have a theory on what was under the blanket. It is a crazy theory, mind you, but still: there clearly isn’t some “creature under every bed” – in Doctor’s case it was Clara, so… what was under the blanket? It sure wasn’t some kid from next room – no footsteps. So, what if it was a Silence? Like some little Silence kid, who got left behind, forgotten (heh) when the other Silences were escaping from Earth in 1969. So he’s hiding, for people are still “programmed” to kill them all on sight, living under the beds, trying to make contact with somebody, because he’s lonely, but if anyone sees him, he’ll forget it, so he just grabs the people’s legs to be noticed, and hey, when he’s under the blanket, they cannot actually see him, so they won’t forget, right?
– Either that, or it was some really sneaky sontaran. It looked a bit like sontaran, it had the right size and Doctor mentioned something about sontarans later, but sontaran? Sneaky? Nah…
Overall I agree with you, though I liked it a little more than you did. The main thing that’s bugging me, that a few of my fellow commenters have already touched upon, is: how did the TARDIS land on Gallifrey? Gallifrey is supposed to be hidden away where nobody can get to it. What’s more, Clara knows the Doctor is looking for it. So couldn’t she have maybe admitted where they had gone?
@16 SerDragonReborn: I agree, the lack of comunication almost reminded me of Wheel of Time. I can just imagine the dialogue somewhere at the end of series:
Clara: Hey, Doctor, what’s with all the writing weird calculations on the blacboard?
Doctor: Obviously I’m trying to calculate where the Gallifrey is!
Clara: But… we were there… you know, the other day…
Doctor: What? What?? What?!?
I can agree that the episode was a bit unfocused, but several emotional scenes really paid off for me.
1–the various date scenes between Danny and Clara. Love them as a couple and I would hate to see them split up. Which means, I guess that I hope that Danny is not the replacement companion. Curses!
2–Fear as a superpower. We get a moment of science bound up with the process of comforting a child. Although, I wonder about the Doctor’s
3–Dad skills
I laughed . He comforted and then was ready to switch back to task.
4–Clara makes a truly fine governess. She is a master the children in episode. And the Doctor at the end. She is so good that kids that she is nerve wracked with adults like Danny who she doesn’t want to order around or comfort like a child.
I wonder if they are setting up Clara as governess up for a battle with the evil governess of Missy for end-season?
@6: “So the problem I am having in my mind is in fact of if outcome B is corrrect then why does every human remember having the dream of not being alone and being grabbed by the ankle, when its only ever happened to the DR on a completly diffrent planet and most proberly time.”
Maybe the Doctor just assumed everyone had had that dream. When he pressed Clara about whether she’d had the dream, she was uncertain, but she let him talk her into going along with the premise that she had. I mean, really, who remembers their dreams with any clarity? The power of suggestion could easily alter someone’s memory of what happened in their dreams. (I had a really interesting dream about the Twelfth Doctor last night, one that I really wish I could describe here, but now I can’t remember the interesting parts!)
Remember what Clara said: That it’s human nature to fear there’s something behind us, and the underside of the bed is just what’s behind us when we sleep (assuming we sleep on our backs). That’s enough of an explanation for why so many people would have similar dreams. The Doctor’s premise was that we sensed something behind us because there really was something there — but Clara’s conclusion at the end of the episode was that the only constant companion we all have is fear.
@9: That occurred to me too — how did the TARDIS get to Gallifrey, and if it could do that once, could it do it again? Maybe it can only go to Gallifrey before the war, before the time lock. But that still raises questions.
Or maybe the fact that the TARDIS can get to Gallifrey’s past now is evidence that the barrier is starting to break down, that it will be possible for him to reach the “present” Gallifrey (whatever that means) at some point.
@15: The Doctor’s line about Sontarans when he woke up was a quote of Tom Baker’s first mutterings when he woke up following his regeneration in “Robot,” which were in turn a callback to “The Time Warrior,” the debut of the Sontarans.
Rewatching this episode, it becomes clear to me that it is in fact about the Doctor’s fear…of being alone. He’s desperate for a connection to people so he insists that historical figures have had the same dream as him. He so badly wants not to be alone that he did, in fact, forget that it was he who wrote LISTEN on the board.
The show would have been much better if the whole scene with the whatever under the red blanket hadn’t been there, and the monster had been implied. Then, the final scene would have been a perfect emotional payoff for the Doctor’s frantic search for the monster under the bed.
As is, it makes the story a pretentious mess.
Funnily enough, the reality show I watch after WHO, THE DEAD FILES, was about a dark thing that lurked under the bed which grabbed ankles, and the dark thing could be alien or other dimensional.
@@.-@: Except that the barn’s on a planet that has a blue sky; Gallifrey’s sky is orange. Not that that counted for anything in The Five Doctors, of course…
Note that, in the episode, we get a split second out-of-focus view of the head of the critter on the bed after it doffs the bedspread. It sure did look an awful lot like an out-of-focus Peter Capaldi’s head to me.
I suspect we’re being set up for another recursive trip back through the episode (like with Eleven in the episode about the angels on the space liner?) later this season—the future-Doctor picks up the chalk and writes “LISTEN” on his chalkboard when the now-Doctor isn’t looking (just like that split-second disappearing act he pulled where he ended up with the night watchman’s coffee), and he bops into Pink’s room and does the monster-on-the-bed routine for some reason that will become clear when the future episode airs.
Because Moffat.
Another offhand suggestion: What if the manifestations like the thing on the bed and the banging at the hatch were actually psychic or hypnotic projections from the Doctor into the minds of the other people in the room? He was so convinced of the reality of this that he unwittingly hypnotized the people around him into perceiving them. The power of suggestion can be very potent even without Time Lord telepathy, let alone with it.
Getting really tired of the Doctor insulting Clara. Talk about punching down — he’s a Time Lord and she’s a schoolteacher and a woman. It’s not funny, no matter how much Clara laughed.
This episode had moments of Moffat at his best interspersed with Moffat at his worst. I agree with the comment above that we have already had what were purported to be the ultimate hiding opponents, the Silents, which raises a good point–why didn’t the Doctor think of them? And even if he doesn’t remember them, we the viewers do, which takes a lot of steam out of this idea.
When the barn appeared, I wondered the same thing I wondered during the 50th anniversary show–why are there barns on Gallifrey? All previous mentions seem to present a high tech society that lives in bubbly looking high tech cities–not folks that raise livestock, and muck out stables. And why would the boy be sleeping in a barn? Just to tie it into the 50th? Or was the barn in the 50th just an image in the Doctor’s mind drawn from his youth–an echo of dimly remembered trauma?
The interactions between Danny and Clara zigzagged between clever and clunky. As did what occurred at the end of time.
And in the end, I think there was just too much timey wimeyness for my taste, too many loops, too many paradoxes, too much authorial trickery as opposed to characters driving the story.
So in the end, it was a mixed bag last night–not sure if it was a flawed masterpiece or a brilliant failure.
@15: IIRC, there was a throwaway line that mentioned Ace running a charity organization.
My theory concerning Danny is that he was a member of UNIT (or some other monster-hunting organization). It would explain a couple of things (such as his line to Clara to tell her the truth, no matter how strange it is).
@26: The Time Lords, the elite class of Gallifreyans, lived in high-tech bubble cities, but “The Invasion of Time” showed that the lower-class Gallifreyans, the Outsiders, lived in much more primitive conditions, basically a hunter-gatherer lifestyle with spears and bows. There may have been other commoners living an agrarian lifestyle. “Listen” offers the intriguing implication that the Doctor was a commoner by birth, that he became a Time Lord by matriculating at the Academy rather than being born to the nobility. That would certainly help explain his populist, anti-authority leanings.
@26 AlanBrown: To the barns on Gallifrey – I wondered too, but there was something in the classic episode (Invasion of Time) about Gallifreyan society being divided between those living in high-tech bubbly cities and the others, who looked pretty barbarian/nomadic (so, no barns for either of them) – but maybe the life on Gallifrey is just as complex as on, say, Earth, and there are lots of people of all sorts of lifestyle. But I remember thinking once it has to do with the timetravelling, like, all pieces of history mixed up in one big wibbly-wobbly mess. Now I think: Time Lords probably keep all the science for themselves, so rest of the Gallifreyans could be not-at-all-different from us.
Anyway, until today’s episode I was sure that mentioned barn in Day of the Doctor wasn’t on Gallifrey.
@27 Alduc: Thanks for info.
Since we’re talking about the difference between Time Lords and regular Gallifreyans, I’ve always wondered, do regular Gallifreyans have two hearts, or is that something that happens to them when they become Time Lords? Perhaps when a Gallifreyan views the Untempered Schism, a second heart just grows, and that second heart is what powers the regenerations.
Do we know for certain that the barn is on Gallifrey? All I can say is that it was used by Gallifreyans. It certainly did not look to be in a location that was much affected by the Time War in the Anniversary Special. Given that Gallifreyans can access all of time and space, I don’t think we can say that it is on Gallifrey for certain. All we can say is that it is (probably, I think the Cloister Bell tolling as they access the location seals that deal) in the Doctor’s own timeline. Maybe.
I think it is fitting that in a n episode devoted to ambiguous situations that even the location of the barn has a plausible alternative explanation.
I quite liked this episode’s exploration of ambiguity and uncertainty. It is the sort of Big Concept that people keep calling for from Moffat. It is just a mark of how devoted to compaining about him some of those critics are that they are now moaning about him doing so.
Christopher and Tessuna,
Thanks for the insights into classic Who episodes. I grew up with only two TV stations available, then was busy with military life, and never saw more than an episode or two of classic Who. I have seen a few of the episodes (such as the episode from each Doctor that aired on BBC America last year), but always appreciate someone filling in the gaps of my knowledge. And since we are on the topic, I would love to see another round of episodes from Doctors 1-7 on BBC America on a regular basis.
My take on the visit to the barn is that the original Time Lords would have decided very quickly that they didn’t want anyone changing their past and would probably have had a default setting on Tardises to prevent this. After the Time War the doctor thinks that Gallifrey is gone and doesn’t try to find a way to get back to its past as any changes could mess up the universe more than the war already had. Since he now knows that the planet still exists somewhere he has an additional reason for not wanting to change things. (Getting to present day Gallifrey might be possible but may not be a great idea until it can be brought back to our universe without triggering another war.) In “Listen” taking the safeties off means that the Tardis was able to go back to the Doctor’s past on Gallifrey but nothing changed as Clara’s visit had always been a part of his history.
Aw, c’mon, nobody’s going to bite concerning my theory of an impending time loop? You have to admit, without it there are parts of the episode that don’t make a whole lot of sense. The conclusion suggests the whole thing is about the Doctor’s fear of the dark, and yet something demonstrably wrote “LISTEN” on the Doctor’s chalkboard, in his own handwriting.
And there was definitely something on that bed. (And why, after wondering what it could be, did the Doctor so uncharacteristically pass up the chance to pull the blanket off and have a look, instead having everyone turn their backs so it could go away? You’d think he’d have wanted to find out, given how much risk he took to see what was outside the door in the world at the end of the universe. Did he, perhaps, actually know that it was future-him under the blanket (they perhaps met in the hallway outside and had a conversation that won’t be seen until the later episode) and need to avoid the complication of meeting himself in front of his companion?)
Perhaps this is triggered by it coming out later on what Clara did. Given how much trouble she has keeping her mouth shut about things she learned in her time trips (“Rupert Pink”), perhaps she lets it slip that Doctor used to sleep in a barn. (Just let her try to tell the Doctor that “someone” told her that!)
Anyway, assuming that was an out-of-focus Capaldi under the blanket, something causes the Doctor to have to cross his own timeline in this particular instance. They wouldn’t tease something like that if it weren’t going to be important later on. And the revelation that they somehow ended up on the Gallifrey of the Doctor’s childhood might just be important enough to do that.
@34: “and yet something demonstrably wrote “LISTEN” on the Doctor’s chalkboard, in his own handwriting.”
Which is evidence that the Doctor himself wrote it. Clara overtly suggested that he had done so and just forgotten. Every time something strange happened, there was dialogue about how it could have a mundane explanation. So everything was, at the very least, ambiguous.
Still, just to play along with your time-loop conjecture: What if the “kid under the blanket” at the children’s home was actually the young Doctor that Clara comforted in the barn?
This is super long, and I apologize in advance.
I was terribly disappointed with this episode. It just felt like 95% exposition for 5% payoff. While parts were intriguing (like the scene with the “thing” under the blanket), most of it was just boring.
I cannot STAND Danny. His character is terrible. He was a soldier, but rather than being a more traditional PTSD-affected one, he seems weak and not like anyone I have ever known personally with a military background (or that would join the military to begin with). I guess he joined because he grew up in a children’s home playing with toy soldiers? He claims he dug wells, so maybe he wasn’t a front-line type of solider, and only “fought” when absolutely necessary (like if his unit was attacked).
He is always super-awkward with Clara, but they do not seem to actually like one another. Maybe it’s just physical? Clara has been downright sh***y to him, especially with her snarky soldier “jokes.” He reacts less like a former soldier and more like a child who was called fat on the playground. I don’t understand what he sees in her anyway. While Clara has (at times) been a strong character, with Danny, she is just a complete b**** for no reason, even though his angst with her is because she was so cruel to him to begin with (yet SHE storms out on the date?!).
And Clara has been meaner lately (note that she slapped the Doctor in the opener). She used to be sort of a fun contrarion, but she is just plain meaner now. At least with the Doctor, maybe she feels she can be since he owes her for jumping into the timestream, but Danny doesn’t owe her squat.
I don’t know why Moffat leans so hard on relationships anyway. River/Doctor and Rory/Amy were fine, but why does Clara need a boyfriend? She has a job and time with the Doctor. Where is all this extra time to go date coming from? And as I said, Danny isn’t that interesting, and she is mean to him anyway.
I hope the whole “Clara/Danny’s” X-times-great-grandson thing is not established now as a must. They do not seem to belong together, and the notion that there are “destined” to be together is inane. Rory/Amy made sense, but this is so forced.
If Clara is going to exit later this year, I hope she doesn’t just say “I want to get married, so bye.” That would just make Clara another woman who makes all her big decisions because MEN.
I hope Danny doesn’t actually get too involved with the TARDIS and travelling. At least if he is just Clara’s on-Earth beau, he is kept in that part of her life. He doesn’t seem like he would be good on travels, and then the Doctor is just carting around a couple like a carriage driver in the park.
I really do enjoy Capaldi’s doctor. I hope he gets a better companion(s) after Clara eventually goes. I think her being so young and him been an “older” Doctor doesn’t work as well as a more mature companion would.
For me this episode was the worst of the season. Normally, I enjoy even weaker episodes to a degree, but after this one, I couldn’t help but feel cheated out of an hour I had been eagerly anticipating. Next week’s episode looks really good though, so hopefully, we can put this clunker behind us, and get back on the road toward the bigger arc of the season (Missy, Promised Land), which I am hoping has an amazing payoff.
@28 ChristopherLBennett: It seems we were writing almost exactly the same thing at the same time:)
@34 Robotech Master: That is interesting. I’ve already heard the “it’s Doctor under the blanket” somewhere today, but this actually makes a lot of sense. Now I remember: Doctor had a cup of coffee in the hall – where did he leave it? (Did he meet his future self, future Doctor saying: “Hey, I remember this coffee being rather good. Question: Can I have it?” and him replying: “Yeah, sure.”)
I’d ask why would future Doctor come back for a coffee and to scare Clara and her probably-future-husband, but I know Moffat’s writing good enough not to bother:)
Still… not letting go of my crazy theory of little Silence kid under the blanket… yet.
@36: “I don’t know why Moffat leans so hard on relationships anyway.”
Well, we are talking about a guy whose biggest success before Who was a show called Coupling…
“River/Doctor and Rory/Amy were fine, but why does Clara need a boyfriend?”
Why does anyone need a boyfriend or girlfriend? Clara doesn’t strike me as the celibate type.
“She has a job and time with the Doctor. Where is all this extra time to go date coming from?”
The Doctor has a time machine. He can go off with her on an adventure for two weeks and then return her home two seconds after she left.
Besides, we’ve been shown all along that she doesn’t travel continuously with the Doctor; he shows up occasionally, takes her on an adventure, then lets her get back to her normal life for a while.
Oops, sorry about the cup-of-coffee theory in @37, I just checked – Doctor still has it in Rupert’s room. But he must have come at the same time as the under-blanket-whoever-that-was, and Clara and Rupert saying they heard no footsteps – how come they didn’t hear Doctor?
I expect the Doctor has learned to move soundlessly when he wants to over his umpteen thousand years of life.
@35: The critter under the blanket can’t be a kid Doctor. The whole thing that caused me to suspect a time loop in the first place was that split-second glimpse of a grey-haired blur that looks a lot like an out of focus Peter Capaldi.
@40: Seemed more like an out of focus Strax to me, but then again – maybe Doctor can move like a cat, but sontaran? It was smaller than Clara though, so… kneeling Doctor? Why?
Anyway, it’s actually nice it is so mysterious, at least we have so much to discuss. But for now – it may be 6-ish PM where you are writing, but it is after midnight here, (almost like a timetravelling!) so I’ll just check there’s really, really nothing under my bed and go to sleep.
A strong episode where all the elements came together. My favorite episode so far this season.
@25: The Doctor is not insulting Clara. He’s “taking the piss out of her,” and it’s hilarious. AND—she gives as good as she gets. The Doctor’s not her boyfriend, as he said. They’re best mates.
Did no one else notice. . .logically, Clara must be able to speak Gallifreyan? It’s the only language the little-boy Doctor would logically have known. I’ve suspected something is odd about this since she read the History of the Time War in “Journey To the Centre of the TARDIS”, but this really can’t be handwaved away. And it’s been established that Gallifreyan is the only language that can’t be handwaved away with “It’s the TARDIS translator”. . .
One other comment: do we absolutely have to assume that there was nothing on the Last Planet to scare Orson for six months and hit the Doctor on the head? Clara implanted her own interpretation in the proto-Doctor’s psyche, but can we be sure that was the first time he’d had that dream? Having something alive on a planet orbiting a white dwarf in a dead universe seems crazy, but my DH immediately said, “Nothing can live on the surface of Midnight. . .”. Would make a lot more sense of the blanket monster.
@44: I prefer the idea that there was really no monster of any kind, because there’s always a monster and it would be a nice change of pace for it to be just imaginary for once. Even in a universe where monsters really exist, there’d still have to be the occasional false alarm, right?
@44 – we’ll the hand waving of the tardis not translating gallifreyan can be hand waved away by noting River said it. She lies. She has to….yada yada yada
@46, I’m not sure that counts as a handwave. River says it. . .but Amy and Rory corraborate that it’s true.
There are some mounting anomalies about Clara. How did she survive riding on the OUTSIDE of the TARDIS in Christmas special and suffer nothing worse than being cold and scared? Why did the meta-Claras not appear to suffer anywhere near as severely as the Doctor expected from stepping into his time stream?
Plus. . .am I really the only person who has noticed that the current “Clara”, from Christmas special onward (the English teacher), is herself a meta-Clara, one whose life happens to overlap with the original? Clara 1.0 effectively died on Trenzalore. Plus, there is no realistic way that you can get from Clara 1.0, poorly educated and career stagnant in her mid-twenties, to the current Clara, well established in her teaching career and clearly several years out from the first traumatic day on the job, judging by the changed classroom behavior (that takes most teachers at least four years to achieve). Keep in mind that in England, teaching is a more demanding profession than in America in terms of what kind of education is necessary. Clara 1.0 had probably never been to college (surely orientation would have sorted her out on how to use wifi). Clara 2.0 rationally would have gone to one of England’s better universities and then done a one-year teacher training course afterward before that first day on the job. Even had Clara 1.o still been around, there just isn’t time.
Plus Clara 1.0 lived in a detached house somewhere probably close to either Heathrow or Gatwick airport as a nanny. Current Clara has no sign of contact with Angie and Archie, and she lives in a block of cement council flats which is probably much closer to central London. It’s a very big city; Clara 1.0 and Clara the Teacher could easily have never met during the time they co-existed.
Oh, one other comment. I agree that Clara’s comment about Danny’s Army background was extremely rude, but I didn’t find it implausibly out of character. It’s already been established that she’s very uncomfortable with being attracted to anyone ex-military. It clearly wasn’t an accident that, when she first met Danny, she was carrying a copy of The Guardian newspaper under her arm, which is visual shorthand for saying that her politics are far-left. The British left can go a LOT further to the left than is culturally acceptable in America, including having a knee-jerk dislike for the military that you don’t see in post-9/11 America. So, Clara is nervous, she may have been doing a little pre-gaming, she and Danny finally get onto a liberating conversational topic (admitting that you both want to kill a certain kid is very liberating for teachers if the kid is a real pill). . .and she takes the joke too far because of her politics and personal discomfort and instantly regrets it. No, it’s not remotely polite, but I don’t agree that it couldn’t happen. Just not in this country.
@47: I think those “anomalies” are just the writing being inconsistent. RTD wrote Captain Jack’s jaunt outside the TARDIS, Moffat wrote Clara’s. So Moffat’s version was more fairy-tale. Or if you want an in-universe explanation, maybe the TARDIS likes Clara better and took more care to protect her. Or maybe it’s just because Trenzalore wasn’t as far away in space and time as the end of the universe, so it was a more survivable trip.
And I don’t think Clara died on Trenzalore. She went into the Doctor’s timestream, and the Doctor found her and led her back home, although we didn’t see it. As for her teaching job, it is at Coal Hill School, so it’s possible that the Doctor pulled some strings to get her the job; after all, the Chairman of the Governors is a certain Mr. I. Chesterton.
Also, is it clear that the present-day stories are happening in real time? Have there been date references in any of them? We’ve seen that a lot of time passes in Clara’s life between the Doctor’s visits; maybe from her perspective several years have passed.
@47 – in the x-mas special, the Doctor explains that the Tardis took hundreds of years to get back to him on Trenzalore because it extended life support outside to keep Clara alive…
I really hope that Clara gets to leave the show with a happy ending. For some odd reason, the modern Doctor Who really likes to send off its Companions with tragic twists so they can never ever ever come back again.
There is no reason to believe that Clara wasn’t also teaching while taking care of the Maitland children.
The Doctor initially calls her a governess or nanny. But she never accepts those titles. She’s simply helping out friends in a crisis.
And that help doesn’t have to conflict with her job. The family lives in London, which is also where she teaches. The children are school aged, and would be in school while she was teaching. They’re old enough to only need light supervision in the afternoons, before the father presumably returns from work, and perhaps for Clara to do a bit of housework or cooking, or supervise the children in learning/doing these tasks.
And Clara clearly compartmentalizes her life, keeping her real life away from the Doctor. Initially, the Maitlands weren’t allowed to know about the Doctor at all. Later, the Maitlands and her family both knew the Doctor as her ordinary human “boyfriend.”
Given her need for control, it makes sense for Clara to keep the Doctor (and with him, the viewers) away from her job as much as possible, until she’s ready to trust him to behave himself there. When she’s at work, she needs to be professional, and having the Doctor popping in and out would disrupt that.
Even now, once he (and we) know she’s a teacher, she first has him only call her at work and leave messages, and later has him hiding in a supply cupboard. She’s literally keeping her relationship with the Doctor in the closet.
The way that Clara interacts with others has been consistant, and it has been quite consistant with the idea that she’s a teacher, and been one all along. It shows in how she interacts with children – the Maitland children, Merry, and now Rupert. She’s calm, polite, comforting while keeping some distance, and not taking on the role of parent.
@47, I think I’ve also assumed that between Season 7’s finale and the 50th there was a time-jump for Clara. But I don’t think it’s been specified how long she’s known the Doctor or how long she’s been teaching.
-Andy
I was thinking the monster was the Tardis.
Some have brought up the Outsiders, and made a slight mistake of assuming they’re ordinary Gallifreyans. That’s only partly true.
The Outsiders were crazy nuts (according to the Time Lords) who eschewed the nice, safe civilization of the Time Lords and the bubble cities. Ordinary Gallifreyans live in the cities as well as Time Lords. That said, the Doctor’s third incarnation talked about leaving the city to hang out with K’anpo Rimpoche, who was a Time Lord who lived in a hermitage outside the city. So clearly some Gallifreyans (and Time Lords) live in more agrarian settings.
It’s all made more and more complicated by the refusal of the show to hew to a single continuity, but I think it’s safe to say that not all Gallifreyans live inside their whole lives. After all, we have the Amish; who’s to say Gallifrey doesn’t have something similar?
The costumes and the overly-Victorian atmosphere of the barn were weird, but I can live with that.
I AGREE WITH 34 . Its the doctor under the blanket . when the “monster” escapes the room , a light can be seen as the door shuts…. time wand ?…..
perhaps there is more relevance to when the doctor is unconcious than we realise ….
also when they are on the “last planet” the doctors says “listen” “nothing to here” “not a sliver” “this is the SILENCE at the end of time”…… comments pretty plz . ps love this doctor
PS this is a massive stretch , but maybe the doctors infinity with human kind is because , unknowingly to him , humans discover time travel for ourselves and we have all , at one time or another had to “hide under the bed from our past/future selves….
@45 ChristopherLBennett: I would like that, oh so very much, but somehow I don’t think Moffat is capable of that. Not an expert on his style of writing, but… no, there is a monster (or Doctor, or something).
@47 mutantalbinecrocodile: I don’t think so, but otherwise your analysis of Clara’s character is deep and interesting. On the “Clara 1.o and 2.0” I agree with @51 Ursula: thank you, that makes perfect sense. I was wondering about that and this is exactly the explanation I needed.
@56 JohnstonMR: As one of those who brought up the Outsiders – thanks for details and for mentioning the hermit, I completely forgot him. They were brought up just to illustrate not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords though, which I think is clear enough now. I like to think that all those fictional planets have civilizations at least as complex and full of differenet people – languages – cultures as Earth, and we see just a glimpses of that in the series, so I actually like we got some new look on Gallifrey in this episode.
@55 tony101: I think that the light as the door shuts is just a reflection of something. If it was the Doctor under blanket, do you have theory to explain why was he so small? (other than “it was the kid Doctor”, I don’t buy that).
The sentence about Silence at the end of time may actually support my crazy theory about who was the monster! :)
@57: But as I said, what’s neat about this story is that Moffat is using our expectations about his writing style as a red herring. He’s done so many monsters that were symbolic of universal fears… and now he’s just cut out the middleman and told a story in which, to coin a phrase, the only thing the characters have to fear is fear itself. He’s done so many twists by this point that we expect them, so he’s found a fresh twist by playing against his own normal writing style.
Some years back, I saw a charity special wherein members of Monty Python were re-enacting classic sketches, and there was a bit where Michael Palin was at a store counter and John Cleese came in to complain that the parrot they’d sold him was dead… and Palin took a look at it and said, “Quite right, sir, terribly sorry” and gave him a refund. And the audience went wild! The punch line was the total absence of the joke we expected. The routine had become so familiar that the most ingenious twist they could do was to skip the routine altogether, to play against the expectations they’d built up over the years. I think that’s basically what Moffat did here.
@57, the reason I still disagree with @51 and think that the current Clara is a meta-Clara is, again, that this is happening in England and not America. I’m going to have to get political to make a point here. While it’s certainly true that, in America, many teachers in fact have second jobs, this is much less common in Britain; salaries aren’t very high, but they are a living wage, and London schools have a mandatory cost-of-living increase. Also, compared to American teachers, British teachers have substantially more government paperwork (in addition to marking). It’s one of the most common job complaints. If Clara were working as a nanny AND as a teacher, she would realistically be bringing paperwork home, and probably whinging about it. It’s something that would resonate with UK viewers. Never doing any work while at the Maitland house isn’t compartmentalization; it’s career suicide. She’d be sacked.
In addition, I actually disagree that, in her interaction with Angie and Archie, we see similar skills as with Clara The Teacher. She is inattentive, believes Angie’s ridiculous story about seeing a friend when it should be obvious she’s running off to the cinema, etc.
Finally, there’s a geography problem. London is a big city. We know the Maitland house is in Outer London, near one of the major aiports judging from the low-flying plane in “Bells of St. John”. But Clara the Teacher lives in a more central block of flats, and as far as I can tell from Google Maps, Coal Hill School is in central London. Some Londoners do have crazy commutes to save money, but that is starting to strain credibility, especially as Teacher Clara really appears at Christmas to be living in the flat.
And finally–if Teacher Clara and Clara 1.0 really are the same person. . .who is the pretentious woman in the Christmas scene who insists on buying classy crackers? Clara 1.0’s mother died when she was 16.
@59: That woman, Linda, is apparently Clara’s stepmother, according to the official site.
@59
I don’t think that Clara “took a second job” with the Maitlands. They were her friends, she was visiting them at the beginning of her holiday. The mother died, she stayed to help out during their grief.
That’s not something you do as a job. It’s a gift, of friendship. Yes, she got to stay with them, presumably for free. It isn’t indicated whether she was paid or not. The way that the father talked openly about finding someone to take over for her, and the way that she reassured him that she’d be there as long as needed, suggests that neither saw their relationship as employer and employee.
The work with the Maitlands was not demanding. She wasn’t a nanny, caring for small children full time. Nor was she a governess, responsible for home-schooling the children. The kids were teenagers, able to physically care for themselves, although still needing a casual watchful eye from an adult. She supervised them after school and on weekends, and did a little housework. Probably less in both child care and housework than a mother working as a teacher would do.
Also, Clara wasn’t the one who was gullable about the kids going to the cinema. That was the Doctor, playing blind man’s bluff. The kids accepted Clara’s authority. In “Bells” Angie makes sure to call and tell Clara where she is, even while indulging in teenage complaints about over-worried adults.
When Clara was staying at the Maitland house, it was to care for friends, not for the sake of an easy commute or to save money. The location is determined by the place her friends need her. Later, when she’s no longer needed, she can choose a place based on distance of her commute and price. A crazy commute, for one year, to help her friends, is something she’ll do because she’s naturally a caretaker.
And Clara never addreses Linda, the woman who brings the fancy crackers, as her mother, nor does anyone else call Linda her mother. Linda is Linda, presumably Clara’s father’s second wife or girlfriend, or maybe an aunt.
@58: I got what you are saying for the first time, but I just don’t believe Moffat is outmoffating himself here, I think we’re going to find later that there was a monster – and what was it. I would love if your theory was right though, and if we meet in a discussion over last episode of this season, still not knowing if there was something under the blanket, I’d be happy to hear you say I told you so.
(If Moffat was in that scene, I think he would at least mumble: “It is an ex-parrot!” on his way out of the door.)
@59: I like the way you use the analysis of American/British educational system to prove your theory (living in a country with more of the British-like one, I really understand), but I still agree with @61 .
I’m with Christopher on the way our expectations were subverted. I think the story’s actually more interesting if there ISN’T a monster.
After all, whose word do we have to trust that there is one? Rupert, who’s scared as it is. Orson, who’s been utterly and completely alone for months and is being driven mad from isolation.
And the Doctor…well, it’s hinted from the get-go that being alone himself for a while has made him a little wonky. Plus, he’s got more than a little bias. He’s latched onto this theory because, subconsciously, he wants to prove to himself that he’s not irrationally afraid. So he convinces himself that this dream–which is grounded in primal, universal fears after all–is the result of something tangible when it’s not.
If you consider this interpretation, and that the so-called “monster” was nothing more than mundane things all along–a kid playing a prank, the natural noises of air settling–then it becomes a psychological study of what fear can do to you, rather than a monster-of-the-week story.
@63: Right. This is basically a story about the Doctor not wanting to admit his vulnerabilities. Which is in keeping with the characterization he has so far, the studied coldness and cynicism he’s built up around himself as a layer of emotional armor.
@63 and @64: Right, I’m not arguing, in fact I agree with you both – in case this story is what it seemes to be, it is brilliant and fantastic! But I fear that Moffat has yet some “long-story-arc-involving-monster-of-the-week-under-the-blanket ace in the hole” and that he’ll pull it before this season is over, disappointing all of us. (But hey – fear is superpower, right? :))
Take a look at that blurry visage that appears briefly over Clara’s shoulder. (It helps if you step back from the screen a ways.) I’m convinced it’s Capaldi. The light source is washing out part of the top of his head, so the face looks kind of funny, but what really convinces me is the eyes–those deep-set eyes that are so distinctive they were the only part of Capaldi’s face to make it into the opening credits.
Mark my words: some future episode of the show is going to revisit that exact shot, but instead of cutting away, it’ll rack-focus in to show what that blur is, and linger on it–and it’ll turn out to be The Doctor. I have a sneaking suspicion it might be used as an immediately pre-opening credits in media res surprise, perhaps as a capper to the end of a “Previously on Doctor Who” montage.
Moffat loves his time loops. Ironically, he does it so much the cast even has a term for it. As the behind-the-scenes featurette for this episode reveals, they refer to the fact that Clara tells the Doctor the same words she heard the Doctor tell young Rupert earlier as a “Moffat loop.” Probably no surprise they’re setting up for an even bigger one.
Everything you see on the screen has to mean something–even a greyish blur only seen for a split second. Perhaps ESPECIALLY a greyish blur only seen for a split second. Make no mistake, Moffat’s teasing us. Chekhov’s Gun is loaded, and sooner or later Moffat’s going to flip the safety off.
@19 “Maybe the Doctor just assumed everyone had had that dream.” I don’t think so – he pointed to several historical accounts as well.
Why would the child Doctor sleep alone in a dark, empty, remote barn if he’s scared of the dark? Either that’s poor writing, or he was hiding and crying for social reasons we don’t yet fully understand (but can guess at (orphanage)). At any rate, his fear was unrelated to the creature in question, because the child Doctor hadn’t yet theorized on its existence, and hadn’t yet experienced Clara grasping his ankle – so Clara’s words of encouragement, while relevant to the modus operandi of the future Doctor, would seem irrelevant to the immediate situation. No?
I think that the creature was intended to be real (as always, Moffat loves recontextualizing routine cultural touchstones, in this case literaly the monster under the bed, so how could he have been doing anything else here), and that the Doctor might have seen it near the end of the episode, however, as the episode was simply a vehicle for establishing a large portion of off screen history between Clara and Danny, and the creature was a convenient method for tying strands together, it was ultimately nothing more than dressing, and I’d chalk its unresolved status up to laziness before I’d call it directorial choice – unless the creature is tied in to a future episode (@66 – but hopefully not what you’re thinking – that would probably play out as nonsensical drek in script and on screen).
I liked the dialogue, direction, performances, and general atmosphere of this episode, but it seemed a little prematurely developed. Given a little more time, it would’ve been more than just very good. I wanted to like that final reveal, but its less than deft delivery caused it to fall a little flat.
The Doctor used a limited number of historical accounts of some people having the dream, and jumped to the conclusion that everyone had that dream.
The Doctor may be scared of the dark, or may have been scared of the dark as a child. But he’s still the man who stole a TARDIS and ran away to see the universe. How could he stay confined with other children? The Doctor may be scared of being in the dark and alone, but that’s also what he ran to, when he ran away.
The Doctor is someone who runs towards whatever is scary.
@68 – I was looking to remind everyone of the fact that the Doctor had said something along the lines of “all throughout history, the same dream.” He didn’t give a number, or prepare a three fold science fair diorama on the subject, but I trust he’s somewhat more immune to mere wishful thinking than that. Plus, as I noted, “Moffat loves recontextualizing routine cultural touchstones, in this case literally the monster under the bed, so how could he have been doing anything else here?” If the intention really was to say “sometimes it’s all in your head, Doctor,” then this episode was further off the mark than I thought.
As for your thoughts on his sleeping in the barn – sure he’s a non conformist (as an adult), but applying that trait here seems like a psychoanalytical stretch – his behavior as a child establishes the fact that he had not yet conquered his fear, and that he needed this ‘boost’ from Clara to start on the path to being the man who “goes into dakness” just as Danny needed a boost.
@67: The dream: There is such a theory about this… I just remember it very vaguely… last time I came across it it was in some sort of esoteric text – something about everyone having the almost exactly same scary dream at one point of life, the dream being a sign that the soul is ready to open itself spiritually. (I don’t usually read this kind of literature, nor do I know how to talk about it). – Even if I may be sceptical to the theory, my point is, there are records of people having this dream. Maybe not every time so specific (grabbing the ankle), but lying in the bed, suddenly scared, and somebody/something being there when the door is locked and window closed and there’s no way it could got in…
So, that part of the story is actually based on real facts.
Now I came to think about this, I’ve had that dream.
But the rest of “Under the blanket” mystery… I’ll try to sort it out a bit analytically:
Question: 1) was there really something/someone or
2) was the blanket, blurry face, noices at the station just metaphorical manifestation of Doctor’s fear?
ad 1) a) Was that Doctor from the future?
If so, – why did he appear smaller than Clara?
– why did he came to scare the kid/Clara’s future husband?
b) was it little Silence kid? (sorry. my crazy theory, my preciouss)
c) was it sontaran?
d) was it some else, yet unknown creature?
– in that case, why was it there? Coincidence? Does it have to do something with Rupert being probably Clara’s future husband/grandparent of first human timetraveller?
e) or maybe not a monster, but someone (who? why?)
3) All of it has logicall explanation: it was some kid under the blanket, it was naturall sounds on the station etc.
And I just realized there’s no way to answer these questions and I’m writing this wall of text just to sort it in my head, but now I just don’t want to delete it, so here you go.
The nice thing is, we’ll probably know whether or not I’m right within a few weeks at most; they’re going to have to address it before Clara leaves the Tardis.
I’m just going to go stand in front of a mirror and practice saying “I told you so!” for a while… :)
@69:
Because he’s not a preprogrammed machine but a human being capable of self-analysis and growth? We tend to simplify other people in our minds, to expect them to behave in a certain predictable way, but people are more complex than that. As I’ve been saying, it seems to me that he chose to do something else specifically as a way of moving beyond his conventional pattern. A new Doctor calls for a new storytelling approach, and I believe Moffat is rising to the challenge, taking a look at the way he’s told stories in the past and consciously changing it.
So your argument that “He’s always done it this way before so that’s the only way he can ever do anything, period” doesn’t work for me. People can reinvent themselves. Look at comedy actors like Robin Williams and Jim Carrey who later proved themselves as dramatic actors — or, conversely, dramatic actors like Leslie Nielsen and Peter Graves who remade themselves as comic actors. Or musicians like Danny Elfman who started out in rock bands and then became acclaimed orchestral composers for films and television. Creators can choose to stretch themselves.
@70: The thing about any “Everyone’s had the same dream” premise is this: We have about 4 to 6 REM cycles per night, every night, for our entire lives. A given REM cycle could be said to include several different dreams, since the subject matter of a dream can transform so abruptly, so we might dream about a dozen or more distinct topics or scenarios every night. Say, 10-12 dream topics per night, 365 nights a year, for 70-80 years… that’s nearly a third of a million dreams per person. So of course we’re all going to have nearly the same dream sooner or later in our lives. There are probably dozens or hundreds of different dream topics that nearly everyone happens across eventually.
@71: I don’t think it’s confirmed yet whether Clara is leaving or staying. Jenna Coleman has refused outright to confirm or deny the rumor of her departure, since she prefers for there to be some mystery about what’s coming.
@72 – It’s not impossible for Moffat to reinvent himself, but I don’t think this is an example of him having done so, and in fact, I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone else who thinks Listen was anything more than “Moffat at his best,” which it very nearly was.
If a writer establishes a pattern over the course of their career, it’s appropriate to anticipate that they will continue. The performers you list still maintained their respective styles, and more importantly – they didn’t actually write their performances. Alternatively, all of Kundera’s, Murakami’s, and Wodehouse’s books are pretty similar, and that’s just three outstanding examples off the top of my head. All writers have themes and tendencies, some of which they are slaves to. Listen was paint by the numbers Moffat, with minor twists.
@73: Uhh, I mentioned composers such as Danny Elfman. Composers do, by definition, write their own music.
And as I’ve been saying, we were supposed to think “Listen” was “paint by numbers Moffat,” as a way of misdirecting us from the revelation that there really was no monster this time. He fooled us and then he sprang the surprise on us. Yes, he’s still using the same themes, but he’s stepping outside of them and self-awarely using them in a different way. The episode is a metatextual commentary on his own tropes. He’s conceived so many monsters that were symbols of universal fears — and this time it was literally, in-story, a symbol conceived by the Doctor and representing his fears.
And really, it’s clear in other ways that Moffat has changed his writing style. This wasn’t the kind of big, frenetic, wild, goofy story we would’ve gotten in the Smith era. It was slow, deliberate, conversational. That opening monologue was unlike anything we’ve seen in the series before.
@74 – Music is a little different from narrative – regardless, I bet one could hear a signature Elfman melody in his earlier work.
Where you see clever “metatextual commentary,” I see the same developmental method of creating a new type of creature, only this turned out to be a half finished thought. I maintain that the monster was real – you don’t. If it was, this episode is not worthy of your praise. We’ll see in the coming weeks if it’s a stand alone episode creature wise.
How do you explain the writing that appeared on the chalkboard?
@74 – Also, the monologue was necessitated by the creature’s behavior (it listens when people speak to themselves) and was written to establish that idea more than it was as a stylistic choice.
The writing on the chalkboard was made by the time-looped other Doctor whose out-of-focus face we briefly saw under the bedspread.
Either that, or we were intended to believe what Clara did; he wrote it himself and then forgot. But the sequence was cut in such a way as to suggest someone or something else wrote it, and while Moffat might cheat from time to time with what he doesn’t show, he doesn’t tend to outright lie with what he does.
@@@@@ 77 – Agreed, he doesn’t lie outright. Another thing about the creature on the bed – it was paper thin before it rose up! No child can do that, and neither could the doctor, unless if by some psychic manipulation.
You know who else has the power of psychic manipulation? The Floof, from a 2007 Moffat penned short story, titled, “Corner of the Eye.” It’s a short bald creature who hides out of sight, breathes on your neck, and studies and copies its subjects (also explains the script on the chalkboard being same in the same handwriting). In fact, CONSIDER THIS MYSTERY SOLVED:
“What,” I begged, “please, for God’s sake, tell me, WHAT is a Floof?”
“Odd little creatures,” said the Doctor, settling back on to his chair. “No one really knows where they came from, because they’re pretty much impossible to study. But where there are humans, or humanoids, there are Floofs. Millions of them, usually. But no one ever knows a thing about them, because there’s an ability that evolution can throw up that no one, but no one, can ever learn anything about. The super-evolved ability to hide.”
“To Hide??”
“A Floof can stand in a bare room full of a hundred people, all looking in every direction, all searching for it – and find the one spot no one’s looking at. You can be alone in a room with a Floof, and spinning round and round trying to see it – and the Floof will just spin faster. However fast you turn to look, a Floof has moved away faster. Just a tiny movement in the corner of your eye. People get used to it, think it’s normal. They hear a creak, and they say it’s the house settling! What’s that mean, ‘house settling’? No such thing as ‘house settling’!”
@@@@@ 74 – “Metatextual commentary,” hah! It’s just another monster, the only difference is that saying out loud that it was called The Floof would’ve sucked all the fear right out of the episode! If you’re interested, I found the storybook in question online rather easily (it’s actually a fantastic little tale) – I guarantee it’ll put to sleep any doubts you had about it being a real monster, and, it probably foreshadows a development later in the season. Be seeing you!
Wrong, because that’s just one of the things I like about the episode. Indeed, the very ambiguity that leads us to have this debate is part of what I like, even if I have a clear opinion about how to resolve it.
Clara said outright that it’s in the Doctor’s handwriting. So either the Doctor wrote it and forgot it, or the “monster” is the Doctor himself from the future in another timey-wimey twist.
It was both. That’s what’s so impressive about it — that it was stylistically innovative while also making perfect sense within the narrative. I love it when writers do things that have dual or multiple meanings. It wouldn’t have impressed me at all if it had just been arbitrary stylization without an in-story justification, because then it would’ve just been gratuitous.
@@@@@ 80 – Sorry, the site dropped my previous comment (#79) a couple times, in case you didn’t read it, please do – it’s important! (Also, in my opinon, monologues have been around for some time and they’re not particularly impressive or challenging to write. To reiterate – I liked this episode, a lot, I just think it was a bit undercooked.)
Hope this wasn’t covered already–I skimmed the posts but didn’t read them in depth.
One thing I have noticed about this season is that each episode triggers the same inner monologue:
“They are doing THIS! THIS! I can’t STAND this! And haven’t we seen this about a million times? I understand visiting the classics, the seminal final season and whatnot, but these stories were shaky the first five times at best.”
And by the end of the espisode:
“Well, I’ll be (insert expletive). The Doctor actually made me like watching THIS.”
The Robin Hood episode specifically comes to mind. I despise Robin Hood. I think I gave myself a black eye from rolling them so hard when that episode began. But by the end, I found myself liking the episode.
Maybe Moffat is onto something. Maybe the structure of the stories themselves are meant to help us understand the final Doctor. Not in some precise, overly-intellectual way. I’m just saying that Moffat may be writing all or part of each episode from the Doctor’s rather idiosyncratic point of view.
Perhaps the stakes have changes for the viewer this season, giving rise to the mixed feelings mentioned in the main article. A huge reveal somehow isn’t. Is it because of the intensely personal nature of what we find out? I felt somehow like I already knew, like I deserved to know, and like knowing was a matter of something like survival. Was it? Are we the viewers no longer simply along for a ride in the TARDIS?
I am starting to get the feeling that, aside from what we already know is to come in the future of Doctor Who, there is at least one other very big surprise in store, and although Doc has two hearts, this one will be about counting his heads.
Thanks for the great review. Honest, well-written, and spot-on as always.
The Tardis has left and travelled back to Gallifrey dozens of times, just not during/after the time/war there yet. No problem with it travelling there before again.
@66: I took a look at the blurry thingy and I don’t thing it’s Capaldi. Doesn’t look much like a sontaran or silence either. I think it’s something new.
@79: So maybe it’s the Floof. That idea made me realize:
1) how much i liked the “there’s nothing” theory,
2) how much I hoped, if there is something, that it is something we already know,
3) how much I hate the idea of a new monster, similar to other Moffat’s monsters, and even more so, if he’s just reusing his own ideas.
@72: You make the dream thing sound so scientific. I’d like to believe there is something… mysterious about dreams.
@82: Isn’t that basically postmodernism in a nutshell? Taking something well-known, adding some clever idea to make it look deep and multi-layered? Oh, now I got why Robin Hood was too robinhoodey to be real. I was kind of hoping postmodernism is already old and boring, and looking forward to whatever literary -ism comes next.
@84: Mysteries are only cool because they can be solved. It’s finding the answers that’s satisfying. That’s certainly how the Doctor has always seen it.
@85 – Yes! Doctor Who is the original paranormal procedural drama! However, might I suggest that the correct scientific assesment of the dream in Listen does not involve the probability of shared experiences – rather it involves a humanoid’s subconscious alerting them to the fact that a Floof is “controlling and limiting your thoughts, so long as it stays close.”
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Corner_of_the_Eye_%28short_story%29
@85: Now that are two sentences I could write a whole essay of disagreeing on! :) (I like the way this discussion deepens, as the week ends an we realize we won’t crack the “blanket mystery” anyway).
1) I always thought that “magic” of mystery is in the fact that it is unsolved. Whether it can or cannot be solved is irrelevant. It is like a locked door – you don’t know what’s behind it and it can be an infinite number of things. When you open them, you know what’s in there, but unless you do, those infinite possibilities sort of hang in the air Schrodinger-cat-like.
2) I have a slight semantic problem with a word “cool” as it is, because, agreeing with Amy Pond, the Doctor is no way a “cool alien.” Cool – as I understand it – means being cold, distant, pretending not to care about anything and appear to be in control, powerful and somehow awesome. I thing Doctor is anything but cool – his awesomness is of a different sort, quite an opposite one (I don’t mean to say he’s hot – oh the strange strange english language).
3) Solving mysteries for his own satisfaction – that is very Spock (in a sense: it is modern way of thinking, the “if we try hard enough, we solve all the mysteries of universe and everything will make perfect sense,” which I think Spock may be sort of caricature of. But I believe Doctor has seen so much of the universe he knows well enough he will never get all the answers. He doesn’t try to understand the universe – he’s just enjoying it’s crazy unfathomability (did I just invent that word?).
Anyway, thanks for that thought-provoking comment.
@@@@@ 87:
“Most primary interests of an INTP are things which he cannot fully understand, usually because they are highly complex or have some exotic, mystical element that does not yield to analysis. This is the real reason why INTPs are drawn to complexity: anything simple is too quickly understood and cannot hold the fascination for long.”
@87: That is one definition of “cool,” but it’s been used for decades to mean swell, nifty, neat, keen, radical, awesome, illin’, you name it. Other slang terms for great or excellent have come and gone, but “cool” has persisted for over half a century.
And this whole episode is about the Doctor not wanting to settle for leaving a mystery unsolved. He’s actively seeking the answer.
And I’m sorry, but I can’t sympathize with the desire to leave questions unanswered. That’s just romanticizing ignorance. You can’t prove a negative, so you can’t say that something is truly unknowable — just that it isn’t known yet. And of course it’s never going to be known if people don’t bother to find out. That’s not attributable to cosmic wonder, just to human laziness.
I’ll start by admitting, I’m not much of a Whovian. I remember watching a handful of the “old” Doctor Who years back. Since the rebirth I’ve watched it on and off and I’ve probably seen half the episodes since Nine walked into Rose’s department store. I have caught all the most recent season so far, though.
I have to agree that this is probably the best episode so far this season. I really like Capaldi’s version of the Doctor but the episodes have been a bit… uneven. Deep Breath was okay, mainly due to Capaldi’s performance. Into the Dalek was a bit better, if somewhat derivative. Robot of Sherwood left a lot to be desired. Now, Listen I think has really upped the bar.
I still remain unimpressed by Clara. I think its a combination of her character being poorly written, and her lack of chemistry with the other actors. I just can’t warm to her.
@88: Do you think Doctor is INTP? Why? Cannot imagine anyone who deserves big fat E more than him.
@89: To the “cool” word: OK, it’s probably because english is not my maternal language and I’m not so used to it – I can’t stop seeing the original meaning. (It’s strange it lasts for so long, we don’t have anything like it in czech, just a long line of come and gone words of this meaning.)
To the “mystery”: your answer really made me think about it. I’ve had a conversation about modern/postmodern literature today and it probably affected (a bit) what I’ve written before. You do have a point. It just sounded like if Doctor was travelling through time and space only to solve it like a gigantic puzzle, and that just seemes wrong to me.
@91: In truth everyone’s behavior fluctuates somewhat, even that of extreme introverts/extroverts, but yes – throughout all incarnations, the Doctor is an INTP (aka: absent minded professor) at heart.
INTPs: have extremely few friends at any given time (companions) whom (once rigorously tested) they trust implicity, have spartan homes often filled with electronics (TARDIS), tend to dress in individualistic, more antiquated fashions which appear incongruent with the times, are unconcerned with other’s perception of their appearance, require time alone, are technically minded, analytical, scientific, creative, highly intuitive, big picture thinkers, prefer thought before action, have poorly developed social skills (rude, cold), stunted emotions, have a zany sense of humor, are detached, mysterious, and unlike many introverts are extremely talkative IF the subject at hand is in the realm of their interest (see: everything aside from feelings, because INTP’s hold breadth of cross-referenced and accurate knowledge above all else, and live to solve problems and provide clarity). INTPs tend to fluctuate between two main states – highly energized, and melancholic, and strongly dislike having their lives planned for them, or even by themselves too far in advance. They hold their beliefs very seriously, detest facades and see directly through them, have a biting and precise tongue, and will defend their morals with surprising fervor. Then again, they’re known devil’s advocates, because internalizing a differing point of view gives new perspectives on a situation. They’re very individualistic, rebelious, despise rigid educational systems, and are generally anti-bureaucratic. They often come across as arrogant, and may unintentionally insult others who are less intellectually gifted. Sound familiar?
I could go on and on, but yes, I’m certain the Doctor is an INTP – it’s a brilliant, vibrant, and seemingly erratic (but in reality highly internally regulated) personality type defined by the duality of its nature, and that’s him to a tee.
The phrase “off the rails” does not even begin to describe whatever this thing is. This thing is more animal than discussion thread.
First of all: I could not disagree more with this post modern nonsense. The Doctor Who series gives resolution to the plotlines, it uses sentiment and nostalgia without sarcasm, features the lack of irony, the belief in the goodness of mankind, and prior to a few moments in one episode, has not explored ideas such as sudden reversals, the self as enemy, simple things reveled as infinitely complex, subjective truths being the only truths, etc, etc, etc.
I’m not even sure if the majority have a problem with what they see as the typical subject matter of post modern work, or the fact that Doctor Who would slide into the genre for the final season. The latter group needs to just take a deep breath and calm down. If anything, this particular show would do something as undignified as kicking post modernism in the testicles before just giving to some grey void of boredom and ambiguity. That’s kind of what the show is about, after all; a person should not matter, based on facts. The Doctor doesn’t know why he needs another one around to keep him from falling apart. But he does. So we do matter.
Post modernism says we can’t prove that we matter, and it is our own fault that we have arrived here, at the point where we have disproven that it matters yet we can’t transcend what we are, so we are doomed to a sort of purgatory in life, with nothing awaiting us after death. Basically, we killed God, as Niche would say, and in doing so we risk losing hope.
That doesn’t sound the Doctor Who show I have been watching. So I’m not too worried the show is going to go that direction.
As for all you who just don’t like post modern works: it isn’t laziness, its confusion. Confusion is not pleasant to watch, read, listen to, or how ever else people try to work through it, but what else is to be done? I don’t like much of it, either, and my solution is to pick more carefully what I choose to listen/read/watch/view.
Please forgive me, but here is what I wrote the first time, minus anything extra. The extra stuff, which was just a little conversational humor, was apparently very post modern and I did not realize it:
Did I mention that I think the oddball writing style in episode three (and to a lesser extent one and two) is a clue that the Doctor is going to realize that our “world” exists inside of his mixed up head and ultimately will be liberated from his brain by the end of the season? Yeah, probably not, but its a heck of a lot more fun that talking about post modernism vs laziness vs blindly following trends to seem “deep.”
@93: It does sound familiar. It’s just… all the travelling to other planets and stuff… it takes a special kind of courage to be so open to new experiences, to the unknown… I thought that prooves Doctor to be an extrovert. But I googled “ENTP” and that just doesn’t suit him at all, so you’re right.
Although – he’s an alien. Why do we try to sort him by means of human psychology? Who knows anything about complexity of a Time Lord psyche? Maybe they have many more letters in their version of MBTI. :)
@96: Yeah, sack Moffat – let’s get a show runner from Gallifrey who isn’t hung up on human archetypes. Haha. It’s about being human more than anything else, if they tried to make him unrealistic, the show would lose its magic, and besides – it’s really tough (well, impossible) to create a character who doesn’t fit some archetype or personality classification. At any rate, ENTPs and INTPs are more alike than they are different, and everyone fluctuates somewhat. I side with I for the Doctor because of specifc social traits.
To sum up, half of the episode felt like a retread of last season’s “Hide.”
Some thoughts:
1. The “thing” under the blanket reminded me vividly of a somewhat similar moment in Jonathan Miller’s “Whistle and I’ll Come to You” (1968 TV version of an M.R James short story). I doubt this was an accidental reference.
2. When the Doctor persuades Clara to go into the TARDIS (after she has been curled up on her bed hoping for a call or a text) the TARDIS doors appeared to be painted a light pink on the inside.
3. I couldn’t help remembering Family Guy Season 6 Episode 5 in which Stewie revealed “I used to have a William Dafoe living under my bed”.
4. Bowie’s song “Scary Monsters” would have been a nice choice to have playing quietly in the restaurant.
@95 Elizabeth: I’m sorry, I surely didn’t mean to cause such rage, shouldn’t have opened that ugly Pandora’s box of postmodernism in a first place!
But before I close it again, let me just say I probably picture something completely else under that word (and perhaps I’m wrong). Of the few things I remember about it:
1) no one knows for sure what it really is
2) it’s the “-ism” that replaced modernism in 50’s and it is still “on,” so basically every book – film – architecture ever since is postmodern. The really really postmodern things you so well described are called “postmodernistic,” probably to recognize the difference between them and – well, the “just” postmodern, but since most people mistake those two terms, it does a bad job indeed.
3) the postmodern way of thinking is a bit pessimistic compared to modern, who pictured humanity on it’s way to pretty much StarTrek-y future, when we’ll know and understand everything an everything is getting better all the time. Now we know: no, we won’t and no, it’s not, and there is nothing new under the sun – so we tell the old stories over and over, trying to add some depth to them, but that depth is kind of artificial since no one is really believing in anything.
4) OK, that is just depressing, can anyone invent a new -ism so we can be done with this one, pretty please?
(I seem to have lost a point somewhere on the road… oh yes: just because I called the plot a bit postmodernistic I didn’t mean to accuse my favorite series of being postmodernistic all over.)
@97 : Ha, that would be a challenge! I mean – to write someone, well, not unrealistic, but unhuman. It would take someone with good knowledge of psychology and vast imagination, but I think it is possible. And it would be fantastic, because it would make us viewers realize what really means to be human – by showing us someone who is not…
I changed channels at about the end of the opening monolgue and then again (twice) during what appeared to be an interminable and strange dinner scene. Oh, and then I never went back.
I’m glad I don’t know much about “post-modernism.” Whenever it comes up, it seems to make people get cranky and cause lots of arguments. So in this case at least, it seems that ignorance is bliss…
@104: you’re absolutely right – next time I’ll talk about that thing, I use those exact words :)
@103: why coming here and telling us, then?
Even if the episode was so bad (I actually like it), it led to this rather long discussion, which I quite enjoy – it made me think about gallifreyan society, Doctor’s psychology, and so much more…
The dinner scene though… I think it was meant to be so terrible and awkward. When Clara left that restaurant, she was thinking: no way, this was definitely not going to work, and now we’re gonna meet every day at school, oh no… and then she meets living proof that she is gonna marry that guy! (if she didn’t meet their great-grandson, would she though? Looks like yet another timeloop to me).
Something else is bugging me: when Clara said Rupert’s name in the restaurant, everything just went quiet and there was a sound of broken glass. Was that a sound effect, sort of metaphorical, like the “piano drops” in Deep breath (I hated that), or did somebody in there drop the glass?
I can’t hear “post-modernism” anymore without thinking about this brilliantly incoherent piece of spam I once received.
A couple of random thoughts after re-watching the episode last night:
1) Did anyone else think that the cutout shapes on Clara’s dress resembled the ears and eyes of a cat? It basically made her whole upper torso suggest a cat’s head. I’m not sure whether it’s more neat if that was by design or by accident.
2) Now that there’s been a television episode called “Listen,” Big Finish should really do a companion audio drama called “Watch.”
I really liked this episode. I don’t have any more argument to add than what’s already been added here. I liked Clara + Danny and their grandson, I love the new Doctor, I really liked this story and wish there were more like it (“brainy” versus “fun” like Robin Hood).
The more I read about this season and “Moffet’s reign,” I feel like some people are just over the show and maybe shouldn’t watch anymore? I’m not meaning that to be sarcastic, truly. I just sense your unhappiness and it’s bringing me down, man.
I coveted that cutout dress so much that I googled it and found it online somewhere. It’s a designer dress (on sale for $432 US).
http://wornontv.net/36836/
I’m going to be using a very esoteric ontology (Sanderson fans, you’ll recognize this) to explain my hypothesis.
There was a monster, but not a literal one.
The way I see it, there are 3 realms of existence-Physical, Cognitive, Spiritual.
Every human-or humanoid, in the DW universe-has afear of something hiding under their bed, or watching them, of following.
This led to the birth of the monster in the Cognitive Realm, made of human fear and unbidden thoughts in the night.
The Doctor’s extreme psychic prowess and heightened mind lend these Cognitive creatures Physical manifestations. Because of these creatures’ attributes (being made of the fear of something unseen) and foreign to our realm, they want to hide and remain unknown. The thing under the sheet went away because the Doctor-who had summoned it originally-willed it to go away.
This really only works with my ontology, but it does make a bridge between the “there was a monster” and “there wasn’t a monster” arguments. I hope you all will consider it.
I haven’t even read the rest of the article, nor the comments. Just saw this Ep. last night. This is exactly how I felt when the episode was over.
@94: Cool, I’m the Doctor!
Not cool, at the same time. Duality sucks.
@95:
You have discribed post-modern thought, but not nessesarily the post-modern art that it created. Art is routinely re-used and reimagined, because its “cool”, while remaining divorced from the thought that gave it birth.
I just caught up on this episode on my local PBS station. I have to agree that the intent of the episode was that there was no monster, that it was Clara and the Doctor’s fear of being alone manifesting in his subconscious. But, that give me a problems with the scene in Rupert’s bedroom. Yes, there could have been another child on the bed playing a prank, and maybe that child has gotten punished before, and maybe realized he was in over his head when someone who is clearly a teacher and someone who is clearly something else show up, and was looking for a quick out. But, the figure under the blanket didn’t just stand up on the bed, it got right behind the other three, then took the blanket when it left. It would have been more ambiguous had there been, for example, a shape on the bed that collapsed, that could have been explained as static electricity or the fabric having a memory of the shape it usually takes. I think the intent was that there was no monster, but that scene gets in the way. (I just don’t like the idea of the Doctor closing the loop by being the thing under the blanket. It would be better if he never knew. Although, he did get a bit wide-eyed when he finally shut up and watched Clara with the lead soldiers.)
I haven’t seen anyone else raise the possibility that the Doctor as a child was also being raised in an orphanage or barracks/dormitory of some kind. He sleeps out so the “other boys” won’t see him being afraid? What other boys? Would that be how a mother talks about several sons? Hmm…
And last but not least, given what happens to Danny at the end of the season, how can Orson have had a great-grandparent who told him time-traveling stories involving a scotsman and a perky brunette? Either Listen was written before Moffat had decided on the finale, or some part of the long game is yet to play out.
@113/StrongDreams: Think Harry Potter. There’s a long British tradition of sending kids to boarding school. Presumably the other boys were the ones he went to school with.
And time can be rewritten. Maybe Orson was from a possible future that has since been effaced.