Listen

What's that in the mirror; in the corner of your eye?
What's that footstep following, but never passing by?
Perhaps they're all just waiting. Perhaps when we're all dead,
Out they'll come a slithering from underneath your bed.

Listen is an episode that when you first watch it, you think, "That was ok. A bit scary and not bad." Then you watch it a second time and it's better because you catch more things. Then you watch it a third time and you start debating as to whether it's the best episode of Series Eight. I'm not sure it's above Mummy on the Orient Express for me, but it's definitely in the top three between that and Flatline.

Plot Summary

Clara returns from a date with Danny that did not go well. Each of them put their respective feet in their mouths and Clara walked out. Entering her bedroom, she finds the Doctor waiting for her. He talks her into doing an experiment where they research a dream everyone has of a creature reaching out from the bed to grab their leg. He plugs Clara into the TARDIS and asks her to focus on this dream.

Clara's phone rings, distracting her into thinking of Danny and the TARDIS materializes outside a children's home. The Doctor, still thinking it's Clara's childhood heads in. Clara talks though a window to a boy named Rupert Pink (Danny as a child) and sneaks into his room. Rupert has had the dream of something under the bed. Clara comforts him but as they are under the bed, it depresses. Someone is sitting on the bed under a blanket.

The Doctor enters the room and tells Rupert about fear. They turn their back to the thing on the bed and allow it to leave without looking at it. It removes the blanket and leaves the room with it. Still scared, Clara settles Rupert in with his toy soldiers to protect him. The Doctor then knocks him out, imbuing Rupert with a dream about Dan the soldier man.

At Clara's request, the Doctor drops her off at the restaurant just after she walked out and she tries again. However, Clara slips and calls Danny Rupert just as a figure in a space suit appears. Danny, offended that Clara is lying to him, walks out without seeing the figure. Clara follows it into the TARDIS where she discovers that it is not the Doctor, but Orson Pink, a time traveler from about 100 years in the future.

The three return to the end of the Universe where Orson had been marooned for six months. The Doctor makes up a story about the TARDIS needing to recharge to stay the night to further investigate the hidden creature idea. Orson goes into the TARDIS and as the ship goes into night mode, the Doctor prepares to open the door to see if something will come in. He orders Clara into the TARDIS before he does so.

When the Doctor opens the door, the air begins to rush out. Orson goes out of the TARDIS to rescue the Doctor before he is sucked out. Brought back in he is unconscious from a head wounds. Worried about something attacking the TARDIS, Clara taps in to the telepathic circuits again to take them away. The Doctor stirs as she does so and this distraction causes the TARDIS to land somewhere else.

With the scanner off-line, Clara goes out to investigate. A boy is lying in bed crying in a barn. She whispers to him (thinking him either Rupert or Orson as a boy) but has to duck under the bed when she hears the door open. Two adults enter inviting the boy into the house. As they walk away, the male notes that he'll never be a Time Lord and Clara realizes that the boy is the Doctor.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor wakes, shouting out. The noise carries and the boy gets up to investigate. Worried about the Doctor meeting himself, Clara unconsciously reaches out and grabs the boy's ankle. She whispers that this is a dream and he should get back into bed. As he gets back into bed, Clara whispers words of comfort to him and leaves the toy soldier Orson gave her after they rescued him. It is the same soldier (Dan the soldier man) she had pulled out for Rupert earlier.

She goes back into the TARDIS, urging the Doctor to never look and see where they have just been. The Doctor drops her off and she goes to reconcile with Danny and they both apologize for being idiots.

Analysis

This is a good episode. As stated above, I'm not going to put it above Mummy or Flatline, but it is definitely in my number three spot. The scenes in Rupert's room and at the end of the universe are genuinely creepy and provide real tension. I enjoy that we both never see what exactly is under the blanket or if anything is actually beyond the locked door in the time ship. That mystery with both simple and terrifying options being available ratchets things up and is more satisfying than if an actual answer is given.

The use of lens flares in Rupert's room is also oddly compelling, as opposed to annoying as in any J. J. Abrams production. It gives Rupert's room an ethereal feeling that is not necessarily there. There is a similar lighting change in the time ship that amps the mood, although the sound is what really gets you. I think we've all been there, especially the first time you are in a house alone and it just starts talking. I remember I barely slept the first time I was left on my own and there was nothing particularly spooky or interesting going on at the time.

The Doctor is quite enjoyable in this episode, even if most of the action and story actually revolves around Clara. He is entertaining in his own level of focus. The planting of the creep factor just so he can steal the caretaker's coffee is effective and also funny. Likewise is his obsession with finding out what is outside the time ship, to the point of doing something openly foolish due to the atmospheric breach. But it is also laced with the poignancy of his kindness in comforting and protecting Rupert and the respect he shows to Clara at the end. Even when they argue on the time ship and she storms off like a told off child, he agrees with her that he is being an idiot.

Clara is also good in this. Clara being arrogant or whiny as she does in later episodes annoys me, but there is a reasonable balance here. She counterbalances the Doctor when he is going too dark and is a great comforter to both Rupert and the young Doctor. She and Danny both make mistakes in their date and both come off like fools so that it doesn't devolve into the standard dating tropes.

Speaking of dating, that was one of the two things I have to downgrade the story for. The date scenes were fine, nothing wrong with them; but I thought they were a bit too drawn out from the rest of the story. It was like a built in lull that went a bit too long in the moments of tension. What's more, the date itself didn't have that much bearing on the overarching plot. It was just a detour for Clara as she tried to navigate her time with the Doctor.

The other point is the allusion with Orson Pink. If nothing had been said and the relationship between Orson and Clara had been left totally up in the air, I would have been fine. However, Orson throws in the lines about Clara looking vaguely familiar and later talking about time travel stories from his great-grandparents. There is nothing wrong with that in this episode in particular, but when weighed against the overall storyline of Series Eight, it is just so out of place.

Whether you go with the idea that Clara was originally going to leave at the end of Series Eight or not, Danny Pink still dies and stays dead in Dark Water/Death in Heaven. This means that Steven Moffat knew from the beginning that Danny and Clara would never have children so why tease the idea? It's just an unnecessary couple of lines that throws needless twisting into the story when you step back and look at it as a whole.

Still, this is an excellent story. Scary but with moments of poignancy and humor. It is an excellent story to start someone off on in a modern sense, especially if you want to get them in with real tension. As mentioned before, I've now seen this one three times and I anticipate that I'll be watching it again and enjoying it more.

Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5