by Ken Parker
Why do I watch Doctor Who?
Because of this episode. I know the show has potential to deliver
excellent stories and it has done so throughout its entire history.
I am not talking about the good episodes that were enjoyable, more
like the ones that totally blow you away. Is it possible that
“Listen” is one of those episodes?
I believe that horror is an important
element in Doctor Who. Having a monster marching around the
streets of London is not scary in my book. I am talking about unseen
monsters lurking in the sewers or the opening of a tomb on an alien
planet or a statue moving or people trapped by something and so on.
Doctor Who does horror really well and Steven Moffat is one of
the best at it. “Listen” is an episode that will be compared to
“Midnight”, “Blink” and “The Impossible Planet” and that
is incredible company to be linked to. Moffat has gone back to the
bare bones of what makes something scary and refrains from ruining it
with silly plot twists (well, he almost succeeds at this).
Spoilers
The story does appear to have a few
agendas going on with the character of Danny Pink as well as the
Doctor's question about a particular dream and his feelings about
fear. This is link together by Moffat but I have to wonder if two
separate stories might have worked better – one about the dream and
fears and the other about Danny Pink. Still, we see how well Doctor
Who handles suspense and horror with minimum effects or make-up.
We don't need to see aliens to be scared and many of the scariest
moments in Doctor Who have been what we don't see.
“Listen” takes the entire fear
thing literally with the Doctor trying to understand and track down
one of those perpetual fears, something under the bed. Moffat had
already touched upon this in “The Girl in the Fireplace” but goes
even further with it and delivers to us the most ambiguous possible
monsters of all, our selves. Is it possible that our imagination,
our dreams and our own fears generate these monsters?
Danny Pink – I am finding it hard to
find sympathy for this character and he does very little in this one
to change my mind. The story line seems to suggest that Clara and
him will go on to have some kind of connection for years to come. As
usual this may be a red herring that Moffat is so fond of throwing
around so often to shock audiences.
Something on the bed – a clever scene
where Clara and Rupert hide under the bed only to have something on
top of the bed. Peter Capaldi delivers his best performance so far
with this scene as he is funny and terrifying at the same time. He
is conquering fear not by facing it but by ignoring it. Make fear
your constant companion and use it for your benefit.
The end of time – this time we are
eliminating the possibility of another kid playing a trick on us. We
are where nothing else is alive and yet we are hearing noises and a
knocking. Is this imagination or something truly horrifying. The
best monsters ever are the ones in our imaginations. For those who
feel cheated not to see the monster in “Midnight” and “Listen”,
you missed the point. Nothing that would have been revealed to us
would have been as scary as what wasn't revealed.
The boy in the barn – Well, here
comes the twist in all this where Clara takes the part of the monster
accidentally and puts the fear into a young boy who is probably the
Doctor as a child. This manipulating the Doctor's timeline is a
hobby of Clara's as she continues to do it. Many fans did not like
this and while it was a clever little twist, was not needed in this
story. The twist that Clara seems to be more Doctor like than the
Doctor, especially in this scene and beyond is interesting but not
what people like to see all the time. Hopefully there will be less
look into the Doctor's past. Even the
connection to “The Day of the
Doctor” was not needed.
Will we ever know what was under the
covers? I hope not. For those hoping for an explanations in later
episodes or who believe a Sontaran was under the covers I feel bad
for you because the current production team has made you think this.
I will say that not everything needs to be connected to everything
else. We don't need the under the cover thing explained because if
it was then that would make the Doctor Who universe less mysterious
and much much smaller and boring. For once can we not have
characters related to one another and stories all connected. Please,
Moffat, don't give us the answers, no matter how badly we want them.
Don't turn around!
The Doctor – well, this was an
incredible episode for Peter Capaldi, his best yet. He has settled
in nicely as the Doctor. I like his eccentric manor as well as his
measured humor that has never been over the top as with the two
previous Doctors. His unpredictability, urge to find the answers and
vulnerability is all excellent and if he keeps this up he will be my
favorite Doctor of the new series!!
This episode was close to being one of
my favorites of all time. I think the falling back onto the Doctor's
own time-line was not needed in this story but hopefully this is a
stand alone episode in terms of the 'monsters' that were in it. The music and cinematography were top notch and everything worked well with each other.
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