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Saturday 13 September 2014

Doctor Who 8.4 "Listen" Review

                                                                                       This ep begins with the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) talking to himself and making theorizations about what happens when we talk to ourselves and why do we do it.  Meaning there really must be someone or something else out there that is listening to us, using that chalkboard again.  Clara (Jenna Coleman) on a date with Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson) messes up cos she makes a remark about him being a soldier and how he saved a village full of people, also asking if he knows a pupil at the school, who tells Clara she's got a "wide face."  Speaking of wide faces, that was mentioned enough times with reference to Clara and the Doctor did most of the mentioning too.  When he tells her to stop looking at Orson Pink with her eyes and to put them back.   Then mentioning she needs three mirrors to look at her wide face.

She leaves, gets home and the Doctor is waiting for her in her bedroom in his TARDIS.  Now if this had been Doctor Eleven (Matt Smith oh how we still miss thee!) there'd have been plenty made of that since obviously we all know Clara was in awe with him, as was Amy Pond, well not just cos of his face of course.  Okay, maybe exactly cos of his face being so young (looking) who was also in Amy's bedroom when she kissed him before her wedding day.  Although it didn't seem appropriate for the Doctor to be in Clara's bedroom, it was cos he thought if she brought her date home, then she wouldn't come up there.  Showing he's not big on dating in the modern world, since most people do and would exactly end up in the bedroom, first date or not!

He wants her to come with him cos he needs her, but she doesn't want to go.  He didn't ask her about her date cos she's upset and she's taken off her makeup he tells her, which she hasn't.  She goes reluctantly and he asks her about the dreams of being in bed, seeing something there, opening the light and no one's there.  Then you put your feet down and something grabs your leg.  That maybe everyone's had that dream at once in their lives, er, no! (Got nothing but shoes and shoes and shoes under my bed!! ha.  Plus it's too low for hiding under!)  He makes her place her hands into the squelchy stuff  which will see her memories/thoughts, so she mustn't think of anything dirty.  Also helping the TARDIS to fly.

It lands at a place, a home, where he says she must have been at once, but she had parents didn't she, didn't they bring her up?  Clearly the emphasis is on Clara and her story, who she really is.  He tells her not to go in cos she might see herself and that would be bad.  He goes in and talks with the caretaker, again asking him about anything strange that's happened. The Doctor's a school inspector, inspecting at 2am, "the best time."  Yes, you could say that, by investigating what exactly spooky goings on when children etc are half asleep already.  The caretaker's noticed the TV goes off by itself and also his coffee is missing sometimes.  This time it disappears, cos the Doctor takes it.

Clara sees a boy in the window who turns out to be Danny Pink, here known by Rupert (Remi Gooding) his first name.  He's afraid and he's not in bed cos he had a dream.  She lies under his bed and tells him there's nothing there.  The Doctor reads books, or looks through them, looking for Wally, who isn't in every book Rupert tells him.  They then see the bedspread over someone's head and body and he tells them to turn away, to not look at it, cos it wants that.  It eventually leaves the room.  Clara wondering if that was really a child trying to scare.

This time the TARDIS brigs them to the end of the world,  Or rather the end of time.  Where they find a soldier, Orson Pink who appears to have been stuck out there by himself for six months at least.  So gets lonely and needs companions, a blatant reference to the Doctor and his needing companions if ever there was one.  He wants to get back home, he's a time traveller and he asks the Doctor if he'll take him back straightaway cos he doesn't want to spend another night here.  But the TARDIS needs recharging so they can't leave.  He stays here and Clara and the Doctor stay outside the TARDIS.  The airlock is locked and soon there's knocking coming from outside.  Clara is sent into the TARDIS and the Doctor has to see what that is.  He unlocks the airlock with his sonic and the TARDIS screen malfunctions.  Eventually finding he's holding on, Orson brings him back.

The Doctor's passed out, so Clara must fly the TARDIS once again.  This time she ends up at a barn with a child crying and a man and woman saying he should come into the house.  That he doesn't want to be a soldier.  Giving us also a flashback to the Doctor, (John Hurt's War Doctor version) walking to the barn, which was shown in the Day of the Doctor episode.

Clara must hide under the bed and the Doctor awakes and is searching for her, as does the boy who sits up and puts his feet on the ground.  She grabs his leg and makes him go back to bed.  Reassuring him that there's nothing there and talking about his fear.  So the twist being that she was the one who started the dreams about there being things under the bed.  Well that was put to bed, so to speak, ha.

The Doctor asks her about Orson since she was connected to him as her timeline took her to him, he's someone from her future.  So we assume he's her grandson or great grandson, getting together with Danny Pink.  But she doesn't tell him about her date or his name.  Though she bangs her head on the table, just as Danny did.  She returns back to her date and watches herself leave, asking if that's how she looks from the back, she looks good.  Returning to the date, she tells him it's her mouth which runs away.  Then calls him Rupert, he's curious as to how she knows and thinks she's making fun of him.  He gives up and leaves, but Clara goes after him and they share a kiss.

Guess this shows how dreams, hypnotic suggestions, can manipulate peoples' lives.  The Doctor planting the suggestion of Dan the soldierman into Danny's head and he grows up to become exactly that, a soldier.  There was also a harkback to things/themes already done in the show, such as The Eleventh Hour, with the Eleventh Doctor and the things we see from the corner of our eyes!  As well as holding one's breath.

That appears to be some sort of a home for children as the couple are not his parents, which is kind of similar to Clara, who also appears to have been in a home.  Just thought, did she only arrive here via the TARDIS squelch cos she was meant to meet Rupert/Danny and this connection was already in her timeline and is why she was led here, rather than actually being here as the Doctor tells her.  Was the Doctor mistaken when he says she's here, since her timeline is bringing her to Rupert/Danny.  This wasn't about her at this point.  It seems this way.

But the Doctor doesn't want to be a soldier, yet all of his comments have been allusions to soldiers, going back to the very first ep in which he says he doesn't take orders.  The biggest clue to him being the Doctor is that he won't go to the academy and won't be a Time Lord.  But soldiers have been in the Doctor's timeline, recall the Tenth Doctor (David Tennent) and John Smith, who was a soldier during the First World War, for starters.  Whereas Clara's destiny seems to be leading her right slap bang towards a soldier.  A family of soldiers, as that's what Rupert says when Clara leaves the toy soldiers to guard his bed.  The colonel doesn't have a gun and as she explains, he's the boss so he doesn't need one.  Another allusion to the Doctor and how he doesn't need guns.

There's also that line from the Doctor where he says, "the silence at the end of the world" or something along those lines.  Again it seems to be going back to the Silence, all through most of the Eleventh Doctor's early time.   Silence also when you are asleep, or by yourself, so you begin to talk to yourself.  This ep really did have you thinking about the Doctor's questions at the beginning, and nicely showed you the fear that lurks within us all, but was toned down when it's Clara who was really under the bed and put all those notions into the Doctor's head as a boy.  It's as though the TARDIS led her there to show her she was a big influence in the Doctor's life as a boy and that she was destined to meet him again, but she's also forgotten that she did this, if you know what I'm getting at.  After also hinting that the Doctor is the one who doesn't remember everything.

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