"What's that in the mirror? Or 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 the bed."
Companions: The 12th Doctor and Clara Oswald.
Air Date: 13th September 2014.
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?
Listen is a bit of an unusual story as it isn't really an adventure in the traditional sense of the show. Despite first appearances there are no enemies or villains for the Doctor and Clara to defeat. Instead it is a mixture of showcasing Clara's growing relationship with Danny Pink and a strange jaunt through time with the Doctor having a rather overactive imagination one day.
It tries to be a horror story of sorts and although it doesn't actually play out that way, Listen is an amazingly well written and suspenseful episode. Definitely one of the best of recent years and of the 12th Doctor's era of the show. Very clever. However, even though I happily grant Listen a 5 star rating, it has it's issues. They just are not worthy enough to ruin the enjoyment of this episode. Primarily, as I say above, there is no real story to this episode. Our heroes bounce through time in search of whatever the Doctor thinks is lurking under the bed and it doesn't reveal anything other that a possible for future for the family of Clara and Danny. Also, we don't get any answers to anything put forward in this episode - what was at the door of Colonel Pink's time ship at the death of the universe? Who or what was under the bed sheet and what promoted this strange adventure in the first place? Listen is great but I prefer these sort of episodes to give us some sort of answers.
One very interesting scene in this episode was not expected at the time of viewing. The TARDIS takes the travellers back in time to Gallifrey to a certain barn we saw in The Day of the Doctor, which turns out to be the childhood home of the Doctor and we encounter him in his first incarnation as a small boy having nightmares about something under the bed. Clara has this nice little speech that I guess is meant to show her setting him up for his journeys and adventures. It doesn't add anything to the actual episode but it is a nice addition that fits in well with Clara being the Impossible Girl.
This is probably my favourite episode of the first 12th Doctor season. Well written, good dialogue and a perfect edge of your seat feeling that more episodes of Doctor Who should have.
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