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Doctor Who: Listen, review: 'bravery and brio'
A funny and frightening Doctor Who showed that even the Time Lord is afraid of the dark
After last week’s thigh-slapping Robin Hood romp, it was about time Doctor Who drove the nation’s children back behind the sofa. This neck-pricklingly creepy story delivered so well that some grown-ups might have squeezed behind the soft furnishings too. It was the scariest episode involving a craggy Scotsman since Gordon Brown last tried to smile.
Aboard the Tardis, the Doctor (Peter Capaldi, now fully inhabiting the role) was talking to himself. Or was he? What if you’re never really alone? Meanwhile, companion Clara (Jenna Coleman, excellent again) was on a disastrous date with Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson, carving out a neat niche). Naturally these plot threads soon intertwined and the team were reunited to explore the idea that “everybody, at some point in their lives, has the exact same nightmare” – sitting up in bed at night and being grabbed by something hiding under the bed.
Their investigation involved a trip to the end of the universe and some whizzy time-hopping, meeting Danny’s younger self and great-grandson. There were knocks on doors (boo), clanking pipes (brrr) and a sinister lump under a bedspread (eek). More reassuring were a touching toy soldier motif and a lovely riff on fear being OK: “What’s wrong with scared? Scared is a superpower.”
A smart twist saw a rare visit to our hero’s home planet of Gallifrey and a glimpse of the young Doctor, sobbing scared in a barn that we’d seen somewhere before. Clara was forced to hide under the boy’s bed and grab his ankle. Yes, it was the Doctor’s own nightmare all along. The big bad Timelord was afraid of the dark.
Snipers will insist that writer Steven Moffat was recycling his own stories – this one recalled both “Blink” and “Silence in The Library”. Yet Moffat has always been more interested in the terrors of the everyday – things that go bump in the night, move in the corner of your eye or lurk in shadows – than CGI monsters or men in tinfoil suits.
He’s to be applauded for the bravery and brio of this episode, which was breath-holdingly tense at times and playfully witty at others. The dark mood was lightened by a running gag about Clara’s face, a Where’s Wally? mention and Capaldi being “a big grey stick insect” with a horror film voice: “You don’t need moody lighting, the accent’s enough.”
This was funny, frightening, utterly absorbing and enormously entertaining television. Three Scotsmen – Capaldi, Moffat and director Douglas Mackinnon – did well. An omen for Thursday’s Scottish independence vote? Don’t be daft, it’s just a story. Or is it? Sleep with the lights on tonight, just in case.