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 . . . .”