Doctor Who S34E4: "Listen" Spoilers

[Crazedwraith]

Episode review thread.

All I can say is... What the fuck was that? it was pointless meandering bullshit with delusions of depth as far as I could make out. Did they just random appear on Gallifrey's past? Isn't that impossible for all sorts of reasons?

[DaveJB]

It was the planet that the War Doctor was going to activate the Moment on. Which, from the fact that he didn't blow himself to shreds when he did so, I think we can safely assume wasn't Gallifrey.

As an aside, it was very considerate of Moffat to give an answer to that "Are all Gallifreyans Time Lords?" debate we had on this board a few weeks ago.

[Crazedwraith]

Yeah it did seem to support the idea that Time Lord was a profession you had to go to the academy for rather than the species. Which is weird from all the times he's referred to more as a species name.

[NecronLord]

As an aside, it was very considerate of Moffat to give an answer to that "Are all Gallifreyans Time Lords?" debate we had on this board a few weeks ago.

The Doctor is not Gallifreyan any more. He is a Time Lord who was actually raised on the barn planet (Gallifreyan is almost unattested in the actual series as a species name). The evidence suggests that all Gallifreyans are Time Lords, and the Army (!!) and some Time Lords are recruited from Barn Planet now.

What twaddle.

Yes, I know authorial intent was that Time Lords is an academic achievement now, but the thing is that in a shared-universe authorial intent holds little value. Mind you, this episode is pretty solid evidence for 'time lords as a class' (though the only other class we know of now is the army, which is presumably the Chancellery Guard) theory of course.

Shame it's shit.

[NecronLord]

Also, I'm lavishing this with an outright zero rating for showing us a 'monster' and then not actually following up at all but going to do some wannabe-sentimental crap.

[darth_timon]

It was at turns chilling (what the fuck was that creature under the blanket and what was banging hard on that door when nothing else was supposed to be there?) and baffling. The awkward thing between Clara and Pink was annoying. I did rather like the Doctor inadvertently creating a deep-rooted fear for himself by... Investigating a deep-rooted fear.

[xerex]

It was at turns chilling (what the fuck was that creature under the blanket and what was banging hard on that door when nothing else was supposed to be there?) and baffling. The awkward thing between Clara and Pink was annoying. I did rather like the Doctor inadvertently creating a deep-rooted fear for himself by... Investigating a deep-rooted fear.

The blanket monster was actually another orphan child and the knocking at the door was actually the temperature and atmospheric differences equalizing. I.e. the mundane explanations offered by the doctor.

[NecronLord]

It was at turns chilling (what the fuck was that creature under the blanket and what was banging hard on that door when nothing else was supposed to be there?) and baffling. The awkward thing between Clara and Pink was annoying. I did rather like the Doctor inadvertently creating a deep-rooted fear for himself by... Investigating a deep-rooted fear.

The blanket monster was actually another orphan child and the knocking at the door was actually the temperature and atmospheric differences equalizing. I.e. the mundane explanations offered by the doctor.

We saw the blanket monster with the blanket off at one point. It was out of focus but it was pale white, as I remember it.

And the door unscrewed itself.

Of course the best explanation for the children's home creature is a Silent. Maybe the last survivors, hiding in a children's home where the kids have not seen the moon landing yet?

And you can always imagine the things outside to be the Toclafane.

[mr friendly guy]

Meh. I remember reading this when the scripts were leaked and this was one of the ones I thought was crap. Turns out I was correct.

[InsaneTD]

It certainly reminded me of a silent. And this episode was a what the..? from start to finish.

And Clara calling the Doctor a sick insect was fun.

[madd0ct0r]

I really liked it. Clever idea that they didn't undermine the ambiguousness of. There's just enough evidence - the chalk, the blanket, the airlock that you can't quite dismiss the fear. If we knew it was a monster of the week it wouldn't be anywhere near as scary. Best episode I've seen in years. Up there with Blink and the Hollow Child

[B5B7]

My take on it is that the entities do not exist (and there is no place for them in the Whoverse - that ecological niche has already been taken by the Silence and the Vashna Nerada that were in the library where he met River Song).
It is another one of those closed time loops where the Doctor's own actions and Clara's intervention in his past (yet again) create the events of the story.

[DaveJB]

We saw the blanket monster with the blanket off at one point. It was out of focus but it was pale white, as I remember it.

Only a small part of its head, though. That could have just been something as mundane as one of the other kids wearing a Michael Myers mask.

Admittedly though, it would have been nice if at the end of the episode, Danny had met up with one of his children's home friends who said "Say, remember that night when I tried to scare you, and then that Scottish bloke showed up and started blathering about how he promised never to look at me? I'm still trying to work out what the hell his deal was."

[Tribble]

Out of curiosity, what evidence is there that the barn is on a different planet? I assumed as much when I first saw "Day of the Doctor" but now I'm not so sure. Gallifrey may have deserts on it that we never saw before then, and the barn could have simply been in one of those deserts. The Doctor might have felt that the barn was sufficiently far away from the fighting in Arcadia and the Time Lord Capital to activate the Moment. Plus, as we now know, it had sentimental value, so it wasn't like he picked it at random.

Now that I think about it, although the Moment is a "galaxy eater" the Doctor would have activated it on Gallifrey rather than some random planet with a barn on it. He would have wanted to be absolutely certain that the Moment wiped out the Time Lords and the Daleks, so activating it on Gallifrey would have made the most sense. The Doctor wasn't planning on surviving (which is why the Moment decided that living would be his punishment), so there was no reason for him to go anywhere else.

Of course this means that Gallifrey's past can be travelled to again. Moffat has made it clear from day 1 that RTD's rules about time travel were thrown out the window, should by this point it should not come as a surprise. In-universe, I guess that the "time lock" only extended to events that occurred during the Time War. That could explain why in "The Name of the Doctor" Clara encountered every incarnation of the Doctor except for the War Doctor, which came as a complete surprise to her.

Anybody here surprised that Clara inspired the Doctor as a child? I remember commenting on some forum that the only way Clara could achieve even higher Mary Sue status after showing the first Doctor to his TARDIS was if we found out she was his nanny. While that didn't quite come to pass, it's sad that I predicted Clara being an important part of his childhood via sarcasm.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It was...moderate. I think that's about as kind as I can be. Some elements of it where genuinely quite freaky but the lack of a payoff is disappointing. Unless of course, whatever that thing was will reappear later on.

The whole bit with Danny and Clara was...meh. I get that Clara wants to have a normal life, but I don't watch Doctor Who for character having dinner dates (I could get that better in a soap opera), I watch it to see the Doctor exploring the universe and being awesome.

[PREDATOR490]

4/5

Time loop stuff - It kinda works if you dont think too hard about the implications of what they are showing. I do find it annoying the Doctor jumps through time everywhere except to Gallifrey even though it is apparently possible. Bonus annoyance for showing a hint at Gallifrey without acknowledging the Doctor seems to be doing fuck all to get his home back which is waiting for him to give them the okay.

End of the Universe - So... when the show eventually does decide to get around to bringing Gallifrey back it is going to be really hilarious trying to get around the idea the Doctor can travel from the start to the end and never learn Gallifrey returned or hear about it. Christ, all the major powers of the galaxy supposedly learned Gallifrey was sitting on the other side of the magic crack and went apeshit if the Doctor brought them back.
So... noone gives a shit now that the Doctor can potentially bring them back at any point ?

If I was a party that didnt want Gallifrey to return, I would be actively hunting the Doctor down to make sure it never happened but alas... we will just ignore our massive plot points until it suits us.

-1
Clara / Pink - I'm sorry but I really dislike this companion because of the way the plots seem to revolve around her awkward melodrama. I almost had hope when they started getting into the soldier aspect because it seems like a thread is forming about the Doctor vs. Soldiers. Incidentally, did Clara seriously leave a toy soldier for the Doctor ?
How amusing is that going to be when a young Doctor looks underneath and sees "Made in (Earth Country)"

Going to be glad when this companion leaves... bring on Rusty as a companion damnit, that would be a hilarious way to tie up the Doctor traveling with a soldier thread.

[HMS Sophia]

I... don't really get where they were going with this episode. The first half seemed really nicely paced, and then it just sort of... got distracted.

3/5. Wasn't awful but really wasn't that great.

[NecronLord]

Out of curiosity, what evidence is there that the barn is on a different planet? I assumed as much when I first saw "Day of the Doctor" but now I'm not so sure. Gallifrey may have deserts on it that we never saw before then, and the barn could have simply been in one of those deserts.

Gallifrey is mostly desert, however, the evidence in Day of the Doctor is pretty clear.

• It has a blue sky.
• Everyone talks about Gallifrey throughout that scene as if they're not on it ("The Dalek ships are surrounding Gallifrey, firing on it constantly.")
• No sign of the endless bombardment in the sky.
• If they pushed a button to trap Gallifrey beyond the universe, and they were on it, how were they able to have tea afterwards

But y'know what, fuck that noise, looking again at it, it's obviously a different barn. It is a purely one-level affair, and much smaller. So... yeah. The idea that the War Doctor came back to the exact same barn is surely a metaphor. Perhaps he chose it for the resemblance, but it can't be the same one (unless it's a Time Lord barn and they've changed the interior dimensions, snrk?) Never mind.

[NecronLord]

How amusing is that going to be when a young Doctor looks underneath and sees "Made in (Earth Country)"

Made in England.

That does explain a fair bit. Like how he was an expert on (IE educated himself on the topic of) Earth even before he started traveling, which I think was mentioned way back when.

[Starglider]

That was really quite bad. All the episodes in this series have been somewhat disjoined and awkward, but that was incoherent. Worse, even if you ignore the stupid premise and internal inconsistency, it just failed as suspense. Capaldi is doing ok, but Jenna Coleman only seems to have three emotions; 'bossy', 'snarky' and 'telling us she is scared but not selling it'. It got her through last season but it is really getting old now.

[Tribble]

But y'know what, fuck that noise, looking again at it, it's obviously a different barn. It is a purely one-level affair, and much smaller. So... yeah. The idea that the War Doctor came back to the exact same barn is surely a metaphor. Perhaps he chose it for the resemblance, but it can't be the same one (unless it's a Time Lord barn and they've changed the interior dimensions, snrk?) Never mind.

Well, I suppose that would be a good way to store food...

So, what do you think they will come up with next for Clara? It'll be hard to top "I was your childhood inspiration/horror who also picked your TARDIS, saved you in every adventure you ever had, convinced you to change the outcome of the universe's greatest war and was responsible for you getting a new set of regenerations" but I'm sure they'll find a way.

[FaxModem1]

So, is there really a creature out there under the blanket, or is it like the Dream Lord, and something created by the Doctor's subconscious?

[The Romulan Republic]

This episode has some good ideas that are interfered with by typical Moffat-style bullshit.

Their was stuff that could have been turned into a good episode by a better writer. Its sad.

[Hillary]

Best episode of the season by a country mile.

Loved the "is there or isn't there something out there" suspense which never completely got resolved.

Personally, I liked the "Doctor being visited by Clara as a child" time-loop. Sure, it isn't internally consistent but then Doctor Who never has been in its 50 years, so I doubt it will start now.

[Broomstick]

So... Clara is the Monster Under the Bed for the Monster that Other Monsters Fear?

Monsters are afraid of the Doctor, and the Doctor is afraid of Clara? (Without knowing it was Clara, of course).

I actually liked this episode. I liked the fact that there is time travel in a show that's supposed to be about time travel, there is mystery that isn't entirely resolved, and all the stuff in there about fear - because it's true, fear can make you stronger/faster/smarter if you stop being afraid of it and instead take what it gives you.

Although it probably would have been better if I hadn't watched it at 4 am after being woken up by a nightmare... (no, not about something under the bed).