There were some scary moments in the episode IMO, like when the whatever it was, was standing behind the Doctor, Clara and Rupert/Danny. But it wasn't one I'd have nightmares about.

I think the thing with this episode is that it left a lot either unexplained or up to your own imagination/decision, depending on the angle you're looking at it from. Do YOU want to believe that the monsters under your bed are real? It's up to you. And it's okay to be scared. It's the fear that makes you brave. Or something like that.

I mean, it's kinda typical of Moffat to leave a lot to the viewer's own interpretation (though, of course other show runners have done this as well before, for example RTD and the woman in The End of Time or only ever implying that Face of Boe was Jack, but never really confirming it). Some people like it, some don't.

It wasn't don't you see? The scene with the young doctor gave us the answer! There always Clara! When she jumped into the doctors time stream in 'time' saving the doctor was a side effect she was splintered in time and lurks under beds when not saving the doctor!

(Btw this Is a joke before anyone has a go.)

Well generally I have liked Moffatt's episodes over the years but this was just baffling. I really don't think Doctor Who should be aspiring to be a piece of art house cinema.

Lurching between the extremes of Robots of Sherwood (which was quite enjoyable but a bit too silly) and Listen does not an enjoyable family show make.

On the positive side it was nice to get a bit more of a sense of Capaldi's Doctor persona.

I have always been quite critical of nostalgia for Old Who but after these last four eps I would be delighted to have the Doctor making use of his own ingenuity to save a planet in which alien races are held in thrall by a sinister disembodied menace.

Well thought through post.

If we think of the second possibility we must also conclude the thing in the bed was subconsciously concocted by the doctor.

Doctor Who at it's best is about taking ideas and expanding on their premise.
The Listen episode was a perfect example of that.
There was a real sense of wonder about the first possibility you mentioned, yet it wasn't extinguished when the second possibility became known to us.

Peter Capaldi is how I imagine the Doctor to be. A great character actor who is able to set a scene and also bring it to life.

It is one of those episodes where if you think about it too hard, it will just fall to pieces. I enjoyed it for what it was but I am not going to pretend it was near the quality of episodes like Blink or Midnight.

How the hell did they get to Gallifrey? It is supposed to be frozen in time inside another (pocket) Universe. I know the safety of the Tardis was switched off but if it was easy to get to Gallifrey as that I don't know why he has been grumbling all these years about how he can't get back. Seems like weak writing to me.

Gallifrey was frozen in time at the point it would otherwise have been destroyed - not the whole history of Gallifrey. Separately, the Doctor has always said that he can't go back on his own timeline in Gallifrey (for example, quote 10, 'to save them'), not that he can't go back at all. So Clara stopped him from going outside to meet himself.

I think the ambiguity of the monster under the bed is deliberately to scare the kids. If it had been revealed as some kid playing a prank it will remove the fear. If it was a monster then it will remove the mystery of whether the Doctor has been imagining a shadow all his life when it was only as a result of the fear of the monster under his bed, i.e. Clara.

But now maybe some kids will be going to bed at night still scared of "something" under the bed and that "something" is left to their imagination.

As for Orson and Clara I certainly think they hinted strongly that he was her grandson or great grandson. In fact it left me wondering whether Clara had told a young Orson that one day when he grows up he will meet a young version of her and the Doctor.

Still doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The point at which it was going to be destroyed was basically throughout the whole of Gallifreys history which is when the war was taking place.

It seems to me that Moffat is just changing the rules again.

Moffat isn't changing things with a visit to the Doctor's childhood. The Time War did not impact the time of the Doctor's childhood.

Listen wasn't about the monsters under the bed. As te Docotr asked and was answered a race of being who are the perfect hidden people simply listen. The episode was about fear and possible responses.

Danny Pink we learn built 23 wells as a soldier, He didn't use the name Rupert - being a slang term for an officer - but we don't know his rank. We surmise from Orson Pink's remarks that Danny will have adventures in the TARDIS. The Doctor inadvertently sparked Danny's interest in becoming a soldier.

22nd century earth is investigating Time Travel and the Doctor advises humans to lay off it - a message Colonel Pink will be sure to pass on. The projection of Colonel Pink to the end of everything isn't likely to have been an accident. The Timelords are known to intervene.

The Doctor had a conversation with his hidden race - can't stay hidden if someone knows you're there -at the end of the Universe. Doubtless the race passed on to the next Universe as they had survived the end of previous universes.

We didn't see what the child Doctor was upset about. It is likely that it was immediately after he looked into Time and saw what he would do. Clara's point about fear making one kind is as much a hope as good advice. The Doctor knew something was under the bed and reached out and grabbed him. That accounted for his certainty that the hidden race existed. He may or may not know that Clara is the monster that was under his bed.

As for crossing his own time line , the Doctor does that fairly often. He knows the potentially catastrophic consequences but has always had an insatiable curiosity coupled with near omnipotence and omniscience lets him take the risk. The key Whovian fact to remember is that although the Doctor does not give the impression that he knows what is going on, he does (and from 9 what may also happen).

The one thing we didn't see was any thing about Clara's childhood.

it was only that moment that galifreys frozen in time - otherwise how would the doctor ever have visited galifray

No, he's just establishing rules where they had never been properly set down in detail before. (We don't have to like the actual rules he's establishing, but it's good that he's clearing things up by doing it.)

For example, it was only your personal interpretation that the Time Lock and the moment Gallifrey was "going to be destroyed [were] basically throughout the whole of Gallifrey's history". That's not the impression I got from DOTD at all, and it goes against the whole established fanon of Gallifreyan Mean Time. And now Listen has made it clear.

It's a sci-fi conundrum/paradox that time travel shares with "generation ships" that may one day travel between planets.

If time travel is invented tomorrow and allows you to travel back in time, people from a thousand years in our future can land at your door and they will have far more advanced versions of your new technology. The obsolescence in time-machines is effectively instantaneous - and that's assuming that no-one decides to do the obvious and use time-travel to "invent time travel" before it was invented.

In generation ships, the theory is that a journey between planets is expected to last - say - a thousand years but technology advances rapidly on Earth with it's billions of minds so by the time your ship arrives at its destination, humans have actually been there for nine hundred years cos they invented warp-drive or teleporters a hundred years after you set off.

In both cases, the pace of technology and the definition of a "starting point" in that tech is almost a tripping-over point for the people involved - cos the effect of taking that step effectively makes itself instantly obsolete.

(It's not just theoretical. A major part of the reason why computer chips keep getting smaller is that each new design is used to create the machine that designs and creates a new machine that designs and creates microchips - which makes itself immediately obsolete by designing and building a better, smaller chip that is used to create a new machine that... etc.)

I agree this was odd and felt like rule changing - not so much the time war time lock thing but yes, I agree, I thought that time lords can only visit galifrey in the right order along their own timeline (and that a tardis would never allow anything of the sort). So this does feel like rule changing - unless the difference is that it was Clara alone, not the doctor (who was out cold).

I thought that Gallifrey had been moved - physically relocated - as well as frozen and even the Doctor wouldn't know where it was so it's location could never be obtained from him. I'm pretty sure that the plan was that Gallifrey would appear to have been destroyed in the Dalek's crossfire - which wouldn't work if it was still in the same place and merely "frozen". (To be honest, none of it made that much sense to me - not least the obvious question of why the Timelords didn't just move to another planet if they knew that Gallifrey was definitely going to be destroyed - or why they couldn't just hide in an Ark of the sort they used to store millions of Daleks - seriously - Timelord tech - bigger on the inside - they could have hidden the whole population in a shoebox )

I still feel like there is a lot of rule changing going on but lets face it, continuity in Doctor Who doesn't mean a whole lot.

I'm sure the Doctor would have explained it with a load of buzzwords and technobabble if Clara had told him where they were but Moffat took the easy way out.

Seriously?

lol, well I thought so. I guess I was kind of excited when I wrote the rest of that post, but I stand by it

Oh the Judge! Silly you! You posted an eloquent well thought out explanation of what you thought about the episode. This is not on. Try and stick to a couple of sentences maximum and if possible be as negative and sneering as possible. Constructive evaluation, criticism and explanation is terribly old fashioned. This is the internet! Keep it flippant. Keep it bitter. Keep it rude. Intelligence is for squares.

"Lets not forget who Clara was when the Doctor first met her, an enigma, an impossible girl, a control freak but just a human, with fears and so scared."


She was a dalek that flirted with Rory. Since then she has sometimes been a human and sometimes a super being.

No. Clara Oswald was just a human. Oswin Oswald was a dalek.

And Clara (Prime) has always only ever been a human.

The Doctor's been travelling on his own for a bit between Robots of Sherwood and Listen, and comes up with a wild theory about creatures who are born to hide themselves.

The whole episode is revolves around him trying to find evidence that his theory is correct, by seeing these creatures for himself.

It's a brilliant episode. So simple- the Doctor doing an experiment- and yet so complicated at the same time.

OMG, this post is well dench, Boom! Moffs' is a legend wannabe and I haves big Beef wiv im, innit.

My understanding was that Clara was an ancestor of Orson because he said the soldier was a family heirloom and then gave it to Clara. When she questioned it, the implication was that she is family, and therefore she can have it.

When I watched it I thought Moffat had gone a bit too far in terms of trying to mentally scar children for life. Maybe people are a lot tougher these days, but if I had watched this as a child it would have messed me up big time. That said, it was a fantastic episode.

That was my understanding - mainly cos nothing else makes sense in a war where both sides have time-travel as a weapon. It was also the only logical explanation for the "time lock" which was mainly to prevent anyone - including the Doctor himself - from travelling back into Gallifrey's past to save it..