Review: Doctor Who "Listen"

The episode, Listen, written by Steven Moffat, is probably the strongest episode of Peter Capaldi’s Doctor Who so far.  Well written and incredibly spooky, Listen shows us a new side of The Doctor we’ve never seen and explores the childhood nightmare of the thing under the bed. The whole episode deals with the idea of fear.

Listen begins with the Doctor asking the questions, “What is the perfect camouflage?” In traditional Doctor Who fashion he is manically talking, ranting, and discussing his ideas out loud. He lists the different types of camouflage then asks,

“Question – Why is there no such thing as perfect hiding? Answer – How would you know? Logically, if evolution were to perfect a creature whose primary skill were to hide from view, how could you know it existed? It could be with us every second and we would never know. How would you detect it? Even sense it? Except for those moments when for no clear reason you choose to speak aloud. What would such a creature want? What would it do? Well? What would you do?!”

This propels the episode forward with the Doctor trying to discover what this creature is. We come to understand that everyone has the same dream The Doctor did, a dream where you wake in the middle of the night, step off the bed, and something grabs your ankle. He asks Clara if she had it, and she did, and so has everyone else in the universe. In the meantime, however, Clara has a date with Danny Pink and things go sour. She leaves him at dinner, and takes off with The Doctor to discover the perfect hiding creature.

What follows is  probably one of the more haunting scenes in Doctor Who history.

Clara talks with a small orphan named Rupert. He fears something in his room. She tells him it’s nothing and there are no monsters under the bed. She crawls under the bed and invites Rupert to join her. As she talks with him and she convinces Rupert monsters aren’t real something sits on the bed. We never saw anything walk into the room. They crawl out to see something sitting in the center of the bed with a red blanket over it. All it does is sit, vaguely human in form. The Doctor rushes in and tells them not to look, to ignore it. The Doctor gives this advice with the creature on the bed behind them:

“Let me tell you about scared. Your heart is beating so hard I can feel it through your hands. There’s so much blood and oxygen pumping through your brain it’s like rocket fuel. Right now you could run faster and you can fight harder. You can jump higher than ever in your life and you are so alert it’s like you can slow down time.

What’s wrong with scared? Scared is a superpower! Your superpower! There is danger in this room. And guess what? It’s you. Do you feel it? Do you think he feels it? Do you think he’s scared? Nah. Loser!”

The creature then ends up standing behind them. Clara and Rupert turn to look. The Doctor tells them not to. Don’t look. It runs off. At the end of the episode we don’t know what it ever was. Disappointing, but not the point. The point of this episode is dealing with fear and we learn The Doctor is afraid of the dark. In a brilliant, full circle story, The Doctor has a real fear. It’s a must watch episode which is why the details here are vague. Time travel, The Doctor as a child, Danny as a child, Clara’s future revealed, etc. I know that scene haunted me for a few days after.

The episode was rewarding, developing The Doctor, Clara, and Danny Pink. We got to explore our deepest, darkest, fears, but also learn that they are a super-power. That is what fuels The Doctor, not fear itself, but the power that comes with fear. Clara leaves us with this thought:

“This is just a dream, but very clever people can hear dreams. So please, just listen. I know you’re afraid, but being afraid is alright. Because didn’t anybody ever tell you? Fear is a superpower. Fear can make you faster and cleverer and stronger. And one day you’re gonna come back to this barn and on that day you’re going to be very afraid indeed. But that’s okay, because if you’re very wise and very strong fear doesn’t have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you kind. It doesn’t matter if there’s nothing under the bed or in the dark so long as you know it’s okay to be afraid of it. So listen. If you listen to anything else, listen to this. You’re always gonna be afraid even if you learn to hide it. Fear is like a companion, a constant companion, always there. But that’s okay because fear can bring us together. Fear can bring you home. I’m gonna leave you something just so you’ll always remember. Fear makes companions of us all. <she leaves Dan the Soldier Man at his bedside>”