Previous episode reviews:
Episode 3: Robot of Sherwood
Episode 2: Into the Dalek
Episode 1: Deep Breath
Summary:
The Doctor has a pressing question on his mind: Why do people talk aloud when they are alone? Throughout history he has witnessed creatures that are perfect at hunting, protecting, and surviving. But is there such a being that is perfect at hiding? Being perfectly invisible? And if such a creature does exist, how does one know where to find it? Is it the kind that always follows you, preys on the fact that you are never truly alone? Or is it in any way related to the nightmare that everyone has: The one where you wake in the middle of the night with something creeping under your bed? All The Doctor can do is Listen...
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My Doctor Who Series 8/Season 34 recap/reviews continue with what is so far regarded by many as the best episode of the season and one of the best episodes of the show in a very long time: The episode with the simplistic, yet oddly chilling, title of "Listen".
No, not THAT kind of Listen!
After the lighthearted romp of "Robot of Sherwood" we return to an episode with a larger sense of gravitas, in which we see the characters go up against a threat, where the threat is not all that it seems. The Doctor and Clara are both changed by this episode, an episode full of symbolism and connections to overarching themes of the season with a general feeling of uneasiness and foreboding.
Episodes like these are the typical style of Steven Moffat. Moffat is the current showrunner of Doctor Who, having taken over during Series 5/Season 31. Stories penned by Moffat tended to be on the semi-nightmarish side of things where we see creepy (By Doctor Who standards), psychological and terrifying constructs in this episode. Moffat also seemingly takes a leaf out of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, where episodes penned by him feature everyday normal things that can actually be scary, like a ticking clock, a shadow, and mirrors. In this episode, Moffat does it again by making silence itself scary. And yet, unlike some horror movies, Moffat-written episodes manage to be scary yet have no actual character deaths. In a way it is rather unsettling.
I am inclined to agree with the sentiment of this being the best episode of the season so far. With a good amount of character interaction, delving into character psyche, exploration into the past, foreshadowing to the future, and a big twist at the end, this episode is just so good. I can't really think of any flaws in this one..
After a great opening stinger of the Doctor and his ponderous thoughts inside the TARDIS, we catch up with Clara and Danny Pink, the math teacher introduced in "Into the Dalek". As expected by the end of that episode, the two have gotten into a relationship, though as seen here it still needs some work. As was established, Danny is an ex-soldier and is still suffering from post-war stress. As such, it's to be expected that he would fly off the handle when Clara accidentally makes an insensitive comment about Danny's former life. Clara in turn is offended when Danny presumes to know how she lives. All the miscommunication makes their date end in disaster, and both are clearly torn by it.
I really liked this moment as it continues to build the Clara and Danny relationship, and their interactions are totally believable. This is especially good for Clara because of what her character used to be like when she was first introduced. She became a companion to the 11th Doctor in the preceding season, but mostly existed as a love interest to The Doctor and as a character plot point in that season. She did not have much of a personality or a life of her own beyond that of being The Doctor's companion. This season though started to take various strides into making the character her own, from her having troubles teaching in school, to her love life, and her coming to terms with The Doctor no long being the man she once loved. To make things better we continue to see Danny becoming more of a strong secondary character, still being socially awkward but really trying his hardest to come out of his shell and being torn about messing up relationships. This is especially poignant considering one of the characters that will appear later in this episode.
It is then that The Doctor appears to Clara in her apartment and drags her along for another adventure, whether she wants to or not. This is again good as it shows how complicated The Doctor's relationships with the companions can get. In this case, Clara is required to be a guinea pig in The Doctor's quest to find the silent entity that is perfect at hiding. Using the TARDIS, he uses Clara's thoughts and memories to go back to a time of her childhood. The Doctor uses the nightmare theory of someone grabbing you from under the bed to try and find this creature. Because Clara's mind is distracted, they end up somewhere else entirely: Not to the childhood of Clara, but the childhood of Danny.
Young Danny is also experiencing the nightmare, and Clara and The Doctor get to the bottom of it. This again builds upon Clara's character as she sees what her possible boyfriend was. Things take a turn for the creepy when something appears on young Danny's bed:
Another child in the children's home or a real monster?
The Doctor urges Clara and young Danny not to turn around, and the blanket thing leaves, making everyone and the audience unsure if it was just simply a childish prank or a personification of fear. Through a series of events, The Doctor and Clara head back to present day to find a strange man in an orange spacesuit following them around. Using Clara and the TARDIS again, they discover the man to be Orson Pink, a time-traveler from the future and a splitting (older image of Danny). With Clara being involved in finding Orson, it is implied that Orson may not also be a descendant of Danny, but Clara as well. It's a nice mystery that can continue to pay off as the show progresses and we see Clara's and Danny's relationship grow.
Traveling to Oroson's originating time, the end of the universe, they find Orson to be totally alone in a spaceship on a desolate planet. Yet they find that Orson wrote on the doors of his ship to never open them. The Doctor finds this curious as there shouldn't be anybody left in the universe, but this left moot when they hear noises. The Doctor orders Clara and Orson inside the TARDIS while he battles the things alone. A few minutes of ominous sounds later, the Doctor is unconscious and Clara at a loss of what to do because of his possible-life threatening injury.
It is here that the story takes a huge twist. With no other choice and no place to get to safety, Clara uses the TARDIS to mind-meld or something with The Doctor and bring them out of harm's way. They end up in a barn where Clara finds a young boy crying himself to sleep. Hiding under the boy's bed, Clara hears some people conversing about the boy joining the army, and we assume they're talking about Danny or Orson. But when one of them says that the boy "Will never become a Time Lord" the truth is clear. Clara has, in fact, gone back to The Doctor's childhood. The adult, now-conscious Doctor back in the TARDIS asks Orson where they are and angrily protests when Orson won't answer, prompting the younger, child Doctor to wake up. Instinctively, Clara grab's Young Doctor's legs, and she realizes that she is re-enacting the nightmare they're trying to discover. Clara then gives some choice words to the younger Doctor, all the while remaining unseen.
In the end, Clara confronts The Doctor again and they come to the conclusion that The Doctor did not fight any specific creature at all, and that The Doctor just simply has been fearing the unseen this entire time. The episode ends with a montage of The Doctor satisfyingly putting his mystery to a close, Orson being brought back to his proper timeline Clara and Danny rekindling their relationship, and young Doctor remembering Clara's words:
The Doctor and his fearful moment
Final thoughts:
With a major emphasis on character, equal balance and focus on everyone important in the episode, legitimately creepy moments, and big twists that connect the past, present and future in true Doctor Who fashion, Listen was an excellent episode. There are episodes or installments of a certain franchise that make it go beyond what some people think they are. For Doctor Who, this is one of the episodes that can fall under that category, the kind of episode that goes beyond it being a science-fiction show. It's really a show that is meant to be watched by everyone, and episodes like these help immensely with that. All in all, it truly deserves being the best episode of the season so far.
My score: 5/5
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