Listen

"What if no one is ever really alone?"

Writer: Steven Moffat

Format: TV

Broadcast: 13 September 2014

Series: 8.04

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Clara

Synopsis 

The Doctor has been pondering a question: have people ever been truly alone? Does something lurk unseen beside us all? With Clara at his side, the Time Lord will find himself delving into familiar pasts and eerie futures. Just where does the answer to the old man's unanswerable question lie? Will he find the answers he's been searching for, or will his quest cost him his life this time?

Verdict

Listen was an excellent episode to serve as the latest watch-along organised by the brilliant Emily Cook! Now, lockdown has allowed me to get quite ahead with my blog entries so the date of post is obviously deceiving but I really enjoyed being able to take part in the #FearIsASuperpower watch-along. It was a great deal of fun and Steven Moffat was on top form. The episode is a brilliant one and seems to be a divisive one in my head as this is now the third time I have watched and blogged it, and now it has three different ratings! Regardless, it is definitely a very good episode and it is the first time I have ever watched a Twelfth Doctor story out of order which was a lot of fun from a personal perspective. I was delighted to be watching Clara again and whilst I wasn't a huge fan of her relationship with Danny Pink, I thought she was marvellous in this episode. The Doctor being in her bedroom in case her date went well was typical Doctor-ish humour and I liked reading that it was one of Moffat's favourite things to write for the Time Lord. Speaking of things Moffat writes, the little poem prelude that was released an hour or so before we were all to press play was very good and set the tone for what is a dark and intriguing episode. I had no idea when watching Series 8, or even in my re-watch, that this was considered to be the cheap one of the series. That's testament to how good the acting is from Capaldi and Coleman in particular, Moffat's writing and of course Douglas Mackinnon who was also magnificent with his tweets. I loved how he kept things simple and it was brilliant for him to point out that little blur under the blanket that is visible for just a second in Rupert's bedroom. Prior to the watch-along, Steven Moffat tweeted out an incredible photo of the gift he received from Peter Capaldi after they both departed the show and it included part of the script from this episode. It was beautiful. The concept of this story in trying to deal with the thing under your bed that you are scared of as a child is brilliant and perfect for Doctor Who. I was very intrigued to find that he didn't know where the episode would end when he started writing, but it's only right that we ended up under the Doctor's bed. That revelation takes the episode to an entirely different level and I love how it all comes full circle. It's extraordinary to see the Doctor as a child and I thought it was magnificent that Mackinnon based the boy Doctor's hair from a young photo of William Hartnell. That really is majestic. The Doctor's curiosity to answer the unanswerable is great and literally takes him to the end of the universe! Some elements I didn't enjoy with the episode was how Orson Pink is able to exist when Danny will die at the end of the series in Dark Water, and I also think it's quite poor for the Sanctuary Base 6 logo to be so obviously prominent on the spacesuit. It just doesn't make sense and isn't acknowledged! The way things circle back to fear makes companions of us all is wonderful though and a lovely throwback to An Unearthly Child and ties the Doctor's whole story together in a really neat and just fantastic way. Clara's speech when she realises where the TARDIS landed and what she had done to the Doctor as a child was terrific, but I'm not sure the Doctor would so easily agree to just departing. The links back to the barn and The Day of the Doctor with the War Doctor are brilliant as well. Overall, this is a brilliant episode and I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting it.

Rating: 9/10