Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Listen

Dear Gary—
“So, is it possible we’ve just saved that kid from another kid in a bedspread?”
Yes—and that’s what makes Listen especially creepy—we never know for sure. There is no monster under the bed or at the end of the universe or in a lonely barn. It is all in the mind; it is all conjecture; and that is the scariest prospect of all. Listen is a ghost story told around a campfire, and just at its deepest, darkest moment, when all ears are strained, when each imagination is stirred, the teller leaps out at you with a great shout—‘You’ve got it!’ And every listener jumps out of their skin with their own very personal reaction.
Internalized fears are the most fearsome; Listen is about the Doctor’s internalized fears. Oh, he faces monsters on a daily basis; he confronts aliens as a matter of course. However when all alone, when the silence overtakes him, his mind reels with the possibilities and imaginary evils take hold. That is when the Doctor feels the breath on the back of his neck; that is when his hair stands on end.
When all alone and scared in the TARDIS, talking to himself and his mind gone mad with the silence, the Doctor reaches out for companionship.
“Fear makes companions of us all.”
The Doctor reaches out for Clara.
“I need you . . . for a thing.”
At this point I would like to point out, Gary, that if the Doctor would get himself a permanent companion he wouldn’t have this problem. And if Clara would commit to the TARDIS she wouldn’t have the relationship problems she has and poor Danny Pink wouldn’t suffer the consequences. It’s maddening that New Who keeps circling back to the same old themes. However Listen makes up for the retread with its overall excellence.
As a whole, the story falls apart. However it is held together by the Doctor’s imagination despite Clara’s hijacking of the narrative.
The Doctor is out to exorcise his own demon, but he hasn’t one coherent idea of what that is. Is it the monster under his bed or the unseen listener or the hidden prankster who steals his coffee cup when he’s not looking? He has no clue what he is chasing. So how does he know that the beings he encounters with Clara at the navigational wheel are those he seeks, much less are of the same type? For all he knows he is confronting a child under a bedspread and banging pipes. For all he knows he is confronting an ET type creature and the unknown entity from Midnight. The only thing linking them is the Doctor’s own fears that he is projecting onto them.
Meanwhile Clara is projecting her own insecurities into the mix and the two wind up hop scotching their way through poor Danny Pink’s ancestral line. The result is a series of poignant vignettes that lay bare some of the innermost workings of the Doctor and Clara.
I’ll take each of these in turn and I’ll start with the overarching one, and that is Clara’s “I am trying to have a date” storyline. To begin, she’s not very good at it. “I mouth off when I’m nervous and I’ve got a mouth on me,” she tells Danny by way of excuse for the disaster of a date they are having. Both are nervous and awkward and highly sensitive. By all rights these two should not get together; they have a sitcom level attraction for one another and that’s it. They have no depth of feeling or understanding between them, and the super high level of alert each is on throws up seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
This is where Clara’s flighty TARDIS life both helps and hinders. She shouldn’t be getting into any serious relationship at all since she has evident commitment issues. The fact that she is trying only points to a life ahead of secrets and lies and superficial romance. Already the interruptions by her alternate reality are disrupting her date and causing a series of social blunders and miscues that she clumsily tries to cover.  However, access to a time machine means she can go back and try to make amends (even though she really should leave well enough alone; or if she really wanted, she should do it honestly and up front and not by backdoor stealth and magic).
Poor Danny Pink. I can’t think of him in any other way.
But it is amusingly done, this romcom pairing that is setting up the Poor Danny Pink season arc. For this one story I can accept it for the casual entertainment it offers and for the effective tie in with the Doctor’s ghost story of a chase.
This leads us to the kid under the covers, “I think I got distracted” tale of Poor Danny Pink’s childhood (back when he was known as Rupert Pink). Clara has a much more natural rapport with young Rupert; perhaps it is her teacher instincts. Her use of the plastic army men to allay Rupert’s fears is clever and ties in nicely with Poor Danny Pink’s soldiering. I’m not sure why Clara can’t bring herself to tell the Doctor who Rupert is, except that it shows she is lying to both of the men in her life as well as not committing to either.
The Doctor, meantime, is so caught up in his own train of thought that he doesn’t pick up on Clara’s unease, nor does he come any closer to uncovering whatever it is he is hell bent on uncovering. He has vague notions about shared dreams and monsters under the bed and perfectly camouflaged creatures who listen in on private conversations. None of these are clearly defined or linked, and none of them have much to do with young Rupert’s lonely existence.
Rupert has had a dream about a hand from under the bed grabbing his foot, or at least that is what Clara presumes and feeds to his impressionable mind, thus perhaps bending and shaping what he had actually experienced in that darkened room. Her crawling under the bed to calm his nerves is an inspired move. The bed suddenly sagging as though a weight has been added is spine tingling. But I have to point out that if this were the Doctor’s camouflage creature who wants to remain hidden, this is not the way to go about it. Neither is sitting up underneath the covers for all to see that something is physically present. The Doctor speaks to it as though it really is someone who wants to go unnoticed, but that is ludicrous given its obvious presence.
This is not exactly a scientific investigation that the Doctor is conducting to prove his hypothesis that he has scribbled out on the TARDIS blackboards. But it makes for some spooky moments for one and all to enjoy.
Next we have the encounter with Poor Danny Pink’s supposed descendent Orson Pink at the end of the universe. The dream and monster under the bed angle has been abandoned here. We have only the imagined evils lurking in the dark and banging on the door. For all they know this is a Toclafane trying to get in. Or banging pipes. It’s the random assault of one’s psyche as he or she sits alone and scared in the silence of the night. Another effective and eerie sequence, but not proving anything and only connected to previous events through the Pink line.
Finally we come to the tiny Doctor, alone and frightened in a barn loft with Clara under his bed. Clara—the source of it all. Clara—whispering in the Doctor’s ear. Clara—a source of comfort for both of her dalliances in their youths. A series of poignant vignettes only loosely linked yet tightly bound. And only Clara knows the truth.
The Doctor hasn’t come to any conclusions, but I doubt he really was after any given the haphazard way he went about things. Instead we have Clara lying to, inspiring, and making a mockery of both the men in her life.
Poor Danny Pink should run when he has the chance. Clara has given him the gift of courage in the form of Dan the plastic soldier man, but now she ridicules his past even while keeping major secrets from him.
As for the Doctor, he has asked for her help only for her to sidetrack him into areas unrelated to his quest without informing him of the detour and then teasing him with: “What if there never was anything? Nothing under the bed; nothing at the door. What if the big bad Time Lord doesn’t want to admit he’s just afraid of the dark?” Along the way she inspires the nightmare that triggers this episode as well as the comfort of fear.
“This is just a dream,” she tells him. “But very clever people can hear dreams. So please, just listen. I know you’re afraid, but being afraid is all right. Because didn’t anybody ever tell you? Fear is a superpower. Fear can make you faster and cleverer and stronger.”
Loosely linked yet tightly bound. It all comes full circle, not just within the episode, not just within New Who, but within the series as a whole.
Clara triggers the dream that triggers the episode; she provides the words the Doctor will use to reassure young Rupert; she instills the fortitude the Warrior Doctor will need in his fateful hour at that long ago barn. And she leaves these parting words: “Fear makes companions of us all.” Words echoing all the way back to the First Doctor and the first adventure. “Fear makes companions of all of us,” Doctor One tells Barbara.
Loosely linked yet tightly bound. It’s a wonderful little episode, Gary.
 I’ll leave you with this: “Fear can bring you home . . . .”

Friday, December 4, 2015

Robot of Sherwood

Dear Gary—
Robot of Sherwood is nothing but pure fun. That’s one of the great things about the Doctor Who format; it accommodates a wide variety of styles. (At least the Doctor Who format as unencumbered by season arcs; but since Robot of Sherwood for the most part flies free of the arc I’m not going to mention it.) It begins with the Doctor asking Clara where she wants to go; “wherever, whenever, anywhere in time and space.”  No matter how outlandish or made up or old-fashioned; the Doctor is willing to comply. Gleefully she responds with, “Robin Hood.”  It is just such joyful adventures that keep companions on board.
And it is also what keeps me on board. Robot of Sherwood is pure delight. No Danny Pink; no Missy. Simply the Doctor and his companion on an adventure. Wonderful sets; great costumes (and really, the Doctor must keep a professional hair stylist on retainer for the use of his companions); excellent guest actors; witty script. Doctor Who at its best.
Landing in 1190 AD (ish) Sherwood Forest, I half expect to see the gang from The King’s Demons make an appearance. And then lo and behold, the Sheriff of Nottingham shows up looking for all the world like Anthony Ainley’s Master from that long ago serial. I can almost believe that the Doctor has crossed back into the Master’s time line and has run across him in disguise once again. It lends a deeper layer of appreciation in my viewing, not that Robot of Sherwood needs any aid.
Clara: “When did you stop believing in everything?”
Doctor: “When did you start believing in impossible heroes?”
The Doctor’s skepticism plays well against Clara’s unbridled enthusiasm. It is also a nice echo back to Into the Dalek in which the Doctor dared to hope he had found a good Dalek only to be perversely pleased when his world view was confirmed and the incontrovertibility of Daleks’ evilness affirmed. Now, confronted with the laughing countenance of an impossible hero, the Doctor sonics an apple as he searches for any scrap of evidence that the legend before him is not real.
I love how the story plays with the concepts of legend and reality as both of our Impossible Heroes (wish that word impossible wasn’t so used and abused by New Who) bicker their way through the larger than life historical.  It is a wonderful bit of hilarity as the Doctor examines this too perfect world while Robin and his Merry Men banter. (“That was bantering. I am totally against bantering.”) From one preposterous sandal sniffing test to another, the Doctor is determined to find the lie behind these men even while Clara elicits the grim truth of Sherwood’s “dark days.”
Feeding us images of the fable that is Robin Hood (complete with a fabulous shot of Patrick Troughton in the classic role) and paying homage to the swashbuckling tale with scenes such as the archery contest and Robin sliding down the banner with his knife, the episode lovingly encapsulates the myth while at the same time carving out a sincere characterization of the man. In doing so it highlights the Doctor’s similar dichotomy. Perhaps it is because Robin’s story hits so close to home that the Doctor is so driven to disprove the facts before him.
And the more the Doctor disbelieves, the more ornery and cantankerous he becomes, the more I love him. Last entry I compared him to Doctor Four; now I can only say that he holds up well to Doctor Number One. Characteristics of my top two Doctors rolled into one. Peter Capaldi is rapidly rising in my esteem.
Clara, too, is observing and assessing the Doctor. Building on her more realistic approach to their relationship that she has been forging since Deep Breath, Clara sees her Impossible Hero with all his flaws. No more star struck worship. Robot of Sherwood not only allows the Doctor to be fallible, it revels in his mistakes.
Doctor:  “Well, there is a bright side.”
Robin: “Which is?”
Doctor: “Clara didn’t see that.”
What she does see is enough. These two legendary, larger than life, heroic figures bickering and competing and in all ways acting petty and childish in a wonderfully comedic scene while their lives hang in the balance. Clara clearly is the grown-up in this scenario and the fact that the guard pegs her as the leader is amusing and fitting. After all, this is a story of Clara’s making. Sherwood was her choice. The Doctor and Robin Hood are her heroes; her impossible heroes. That they do not live up to their heroic legends does not lead to deep, dark angst and tragedy to which New Who has so often fallen victim. No; rather it leads to an amusing lark in which Clara becomes a hero in the Doctor’s and the Prince of Thieves’ name.
Doctor: “I’m not a hero.”
Robin: “Well, neither am I. But if we both keep pretending to be . . . Ha, ha! . . . Perhaps others will be heroes in our name.”
The golden arrow of an end is a bit of a stretch, but it is apt that it comes about as a result of cooperation between our three heroes and not one Superhero Moment. And I am especially glad it doesn’t come about as a result of the magic sonic. (One of the many highlights for me is this observation from Clara: “Can you explain your plan without using the word sonic screwdriver? Because you might have forgotten, the Sheriff of Nottingham has taken your sonic screwdriver; just saying. It’s always the screwdriver.”)
I just want to say one quick word about Marian. It is obvious from the start that this woman is Maid Marian, but it plays out subtly and without a lot of fanfare. She is quietly heroic in her own right, with a little inspiration from the Doctor. Her revelation at the end as the TARDIS dematerializes is a lovely way to conclude.
My final thought, however, comes courtesy of Robin Hood: “Fly among the stars,” he tells the Doctor, “fighting the good fight.” My initial reaction is personal and one you would appreciate, Gary. When I hear that line I immediately think of driving Up North, and as we pass through Bonduel I always remark that they should adopt the slogan ‘Fight the good fight’ for their fair village. Beyond that, however, as Robin takes his farewell of the Doctor I am reminded of the first Doctor going forward in his beliefs and seeking his own truth amongst the stars.
I hope this finds you some day, Gary, fighting the good fight as you seek truth amongst the stars . . .