8X04 "Listen" Grading/Discussion)(SPOILERS!

[DarthPipes]

The fuck off- Yeah, that bit at the end where Clara is responsible for the Doctor being the Doctor. Again, only further back. It's a insult to all the other creators, to say "no, my girl is the most important character ever, and the entire history of the show is down to her, and not in fact to the main character." Repeatedly. That said, it's actually done pretty well, and if viewed as totally standalone for new viewers it works in the context of the story. If Nu Who was a total reboot (like JJ Abrams's Star Trek) it'd work perfectly fine. But in the context of a long-running show, it smacks of arrogant self-importance. And, between those two extremes, I'm not sure whether to hate it or admire how it can work. Like the Blitzkrieg, it's probably both...

Seriously? Not only is it a major stretch to say that Clara was somehow single-handedly responsible for the Doctor becoming what he is. But the idea that Moffat is somehow motivated only by his ego and not a desire to simply tell good, surprising stories or to find new ways to explore the history and character of the Doctor, just seems a bit ridiculous to me. I mean as the showrunner and head writer, that's the kind of thing he should be doing. And given that the lead character is a time traveller, it would seem strange to me not to occasionally delve into the character's own history the way RTD or Moffat have, or to find new ways of looking at moments from his past.

And hell, nothing he's done so far has come even close to throwing the kind of monkey wrench into the show that the "half-human" thing in the TV movie did 20 years ago.

That's not implied in the episode, actually. She was just there to calm his fears one night when he was a kid - nothing more.

Agreed. The fact she might have been responsible for putting a fear of the dark in him as a kid doesn't mean everything else he did after that is a direct result of her. The Doctor is way too complicated a character for him to ever be motivated by just one single moment like that.

There's likely all kinds of strange things that motivated him to become what he is.

I think Moffat is more wrapped up in his over cleverness than he is in telling a good story.

I don't know why Clara stupidly concealed the fact that it was Danny's timeline they had entered. She made everything last night a lot more difficult than it should have been.

I want to see the adventures of Doctor Who, not the adventures of the Doctor's far less interesting companion who apparently influenced everything he ever did because she is the MOST IMPORTANT COMPANION EVER!!!

 

[Reverend]

I'm skeptical that the Doctor or any Time Lord can revisit Gallifrey's past. But that doesn't mean the TARDIS can't. Particularly through someone who has already been along the Doctor's timeline once before (and, therefore, had entered Gallifrey). And, obviously, the Doctor had the ability to revisit Gallifrey's past to return to the Moment (or, perhaps, the Moment had the ability to let the Doctor do that).

And if it's the same barn as the one we saw in "The Day of the Doctor," let's remember that Clara has already been there too, so it's just as much a part of her timeline as it is the Doctor's.

She's the Impossible Girl, after all. I'm fine with her being able to fly the TARDIS there. I also like the idea that The Moment allowed her to do it, seeing as it was connected to those events as well.

Agreed. I'm even willing to go along with idea that this event means that she's still inexorably tied up with his personal timeline.

Plus the idea that the entirety of Gallifrey's history has been timelocked doesn't make a whole lot of sense. For one thing, preventing all time travel to and from Gallifrey for all of time and space would be a gargantuan paradox since time travel has gone on for aeons prior to the Time War. Blocking all of that would inexorably alter Gallifrey's history, nullifying the very existence of the Time War and any timelock. So yeah, paradox.

As to whether that barn was on Gallifrey...I'm pretty sure it was fairly implicit the first time round with The Moment, but this time we heard those two adults (who may or may not be The Doctor's parents) talking about the unlikelihood of his going to the Academy and becoming a Time Lord. On what other planet could such a conversation conceivably take place?

I assume this was before he faced the untempered schism since IIRC that happens to novices for their initiation. It's fair to assume that one has to be accepted into the prior to this.

 

[All-Seeing I]

I liked it, very creepy in parts, and as some posters have already mentioned, Capaldi finally felt truly Doctorish in this one - still ascerbic, but a bit more likeable. Danny Pink is a good, realistic character - flawed, troubled, hurt, very human. I'm afraid I don't find Clara any less insufferable, but that's Moffat and his smarty-pants dialogue.

Just a point - did I miss the reason why Orson Pink borrowed the spacesuit the Doctor pinched from Sanctuary Base 6 in the 42nd century? It still had the SB6 shoulder patches on. Orson Pink was a time-traveller from the 21st century, so there's no way he would be wearing a similar suit; remember the Bowie Base crew members' reaction to the flimsiness of the design. But it did look like he was wearing it during his send-off on the TV news...

 

[diankra]

Seriously? Not only is it a major stretch to say that Clara was somehow single-handedly responsible for the Doctor becoming what he is. But the idea that Moffat is somehow motivated only by his ego and not a desire to simply tell good, surprising stories or to find new ways to explore the history and character of the Doctor, just seems a bit ridiculous to me.

Yes. This was not taking over Doctor Who and rewriting, it was about showing the Doctor on one bad day; he'll have many others, and many other people to get him through it.

 

[RoJoHen]

As to whether that barn was on Gallifrey...I'm pretty sure it was fairly implicit the first time round with The Moment, but this time we heard those two adults (who may or may not be The Doctor's parents) talking about the unlikelihood of his going to the Academy and becoming a Time Lord. On what other planet could such a conversation conceivably take place?

I mean, these are the Time Lords we're talking about. Masters of space and time. For all we know the barn was on another planet in the same system, which for us would be like the next town over.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

I think that the gist of the episode was simply that in order to be brave you must first be afraid. The point of having the Young Doctor at the end was probably to drive that home, rather than to aggrandise Clara.

Some thoughts:

• Twelve exists, so presumably the "grave" on Trenzalore never did and neither did Clara's "Impossible Girl" lives, nor the Great Intelligence's attempts to influence the Doctor's history in the first place.
• However, in order for the "Born on Gallifrey, dies on Trenzalore" version of the Doctor's life to have been valid, it should be pretty much impossible for events in the Doctor's post-Trenzalore life to be necessary in order for him to have left Gallifrey. Therefore it seems that he would have left Gallifrey without Clara's intervention.
• If this is Gallifrey, then it seems that the Doctor can, in principle, get back to present-day Gallifrey by just travelling forward in time. (Maybe that was what Twelve was at in The Day Of The Doctor.) Any time lock or banishment to another universe should be circumventable - in part, at least - if he materialises just before it takes effect.
• The TARDIS can find any companion the Doctor will ever have met. Rory and Amy will probably never hear about that, though, so I think the Doctor is safe.
• The Doctor apparently lies in this episode, and probably lies about more than one thing. It looks like either he's regaining an old skill or the supposed 800-year embargo on his telling of fibs wasn't quite that.
• It looks like Gallifreyans build barns to last, even if the War Doctor was really only 800 years old or so.

Great way to look at it. This helped settle my rustled jimmies about Moffat making Clara all things to the Doctor Who Mythos.

 

[davejames]

I think Moffat is more wrapped up in his over cleverness than he is in telling a good story.

I don't know why Clara stupidly concealed the fact that it was Danny's timeline they had entered. She made everything last night a lot more difficult than it should have been.

I want to see the adventures of Doctor Who, not the adventures of the Doctor's far less interesting companion who apparently influenced everything he ever did because she is the MOST IMPORTANT COMPANION EVER!!!

Even if making Clara super important really IS all Moffat was trying to do here, who freakin cares? We're not talking about someone painting over the Mona Lisa or Sistine Chapel here. It's just a fun little TV show that's at times has had characters chased around by giant ants, farting aliens, and evil robot Santas.

If a showrunner decides he wants to make one companion a bit more important and influential than the others, then so be it. I really don't see the major harm it's going to do to anything. And the show has certainly survived worse.

 

[Timewalker]

Or maybe Gallifrey's climate may have changed.

The one thing I absolutely loathe, though, is how the Doctor is always making mean digs at Clara's physical features, outright calling her old, fat, and ugly.

I think they get away with it because she is so very obviously, by most people's standards, none of the three.

I take your point, I suppose even good-looking people can lack confidence and be hurt by digs about their looks. But I think the joke is that the remarks are coming from a middle-aged austere-looking man to a beautiful young woman and we're laughing at him, not her.

I'm not laughing, period. Such mean digs, no matter what the target's physical traits, are not what a real friend does.

I thought it was amazing, as scary as Doctor Who can afford to be, as tense as last week's episode was funny. All the actors were very convincing - Danny Pink is already becoming a favorite. Clara was behaving like a 27 year-old, which is refreshing - grown-up women is not something we have seen that often in Doctor Who since Barbara.

And is it me or did Moffat manage to find a completely new way to start a Doctor Who story? Have we ever seen an episode that starts with the Doctor trying to test a hypothesis?

I liked the stuff with the blackboard.

As for hypotheses, the closest equivalent I can recall is in Logopolis, where the Doctor and Adric are measuring the TARDIS prior to going to Logopolis. Adric makes an exasperated comment, "But the TARDIS can't have... 47 dimensions!"

I don't understand why she decided not to tell the Doctor about Danny Pink -- and speaking of Danny, I don't like the side-trips to this tedious relationship. Maybe that puts me in the boat that doesn't like the aspect of dropping off of Clara so she can live her life all the time. Remember when the Doctor and his companion travelled the galaxy and saved planets and stuff all the time? Yeah, that was fun.

Yep. During Classic Who, the Companions sometimes left under happy circumstances, sometimes under sad, scary, or uncertain circumstances, and sometimes they died. It wasn't unusual for them to stay or be stranded on planets and in times far removed from anywhere/time they'd ever been familiar with. This "Clara gets picked up and dropped off from school/home all the time" takes a lot of suspense away from the story, not to mention a sense of wonder. How much wonder is there if you know you're going to be home every night?

But it does give the writers leeway to have the Doctor travel with some other companion in the meantime, or have companionless adventures where whole new stories or story arcs can be seamlessly inserted. That was a lot harder in the Classic Who years.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Doesn't the time lock only apply to the Time war itself ("The entire war is time locked"-Journey's End)-and the other universe thing is only after the time war? Presumabely one can still go into Gallifrey's past before the war, like Clara did in Name Of The Doctor when she helped the Doctor escape and pick the right TARDIS.

That doesn't make sense to me. If it were so, the Doctor could always visit Gallifrey just to experience his home.

Also, I'm skeptical of the idea that Time Lords have the ability to enter Gallifrey's past. If they did, the Master could just go back in time to a time when they were more vulnerable and he could achieve his plans that way. Same with the Daleks since they have time travel too.

Clara only got there by entering the Doctor's personal timeline (however that actually works), and the two Doctors only got there because The Moment let them.

No real explanation about how Dalek Caan "flew in", just that it drove him mad.

No normal way to go to Gallifrey.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I'm not sure how they got there this time qualifies as a normal way.

 

[RoJoHen]

This was a Gallifrey from a parallel universe that Clara was telepathically linked to after she entered the Doctor's timeline and split into a million different pieces. Or something.

 

[The Wormhole]

Not really impressed with this one. Moffat seems to be trying to outdo himself with the "creepiness" factor that makes some of his more popular episodes like Blink so memorable, but here it just doesn't catch. Also, it was way too drawn out and talky and in the end nothing was really accomplished. Or are we supposed to take away from this there is no mysterious entity that has perfected the ultimate hiding skills and its just an overactive imagination that makes us think that? We really spent an entire episode just to establish that? And what about the fact there already is a species that has developed the ultimate hiding ability, the Silence? Why aren't they mentioned at all? Oh well, yeah they can't be remembered when they aren't seen but come on.

When the script for this episode leaked over the summer, the Gallifrey scene pretty much overshadowed the episode with everyone crying outrage over it and predicting a great controversy when it aired, but I don't see the big deal. Although, if that barn is on Gallifrey, why isn't the sky red? And why did the Doctor's parents(?) have such old fashioned Earth clothing which looks nothing like what one would expect to see Gallifreyans to be wearing?

 

[YellowSubmarine]

I'm not sure about not catching. It is the most unnerving episode I've seen since Blink, at least the most unnerving that was interesting and had me emotionally invested in the story. As for catching, IMDBers seem to agree in hordes, it's now the third most popular one after Blink and TDOTD. But I'm not sure why would I cite someone who would place Vincent and the Doctor after The Time of the Doctor. The point is, if that's what Moffat is trying to do, he's doing it well because it's working for a lot of people.

Some of his previous attempts didn't work for me though.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Or are we supposed to take away from this there is no mysterious entity that has perfected the ultimate hiding skills and its just an overactive imagination that makes us think that?

That's what I took from it. That plus a little bit of time travel trickery thrown in for good measure. The Doctor's dream felt more real than anyone else who might have had that dream (and, given how memories work, it's easier to think you've had that dream once someone else suggests you have) because of events the Doctor himself set in motion (which he only set in motion because of how scary and real his dream felt). The episode's monster is just fear. That's something different. Had it just been the Silence or something like that, it would be more of the same.

 

[The Wormhole]

The episode's monster is just fear. That's something different. Had it just been the Silence or something like that, it would be more of the same.

That's one way of looking at it. On the other hand, it is rather anticlimactic that in the end the episode just reinforces that which we already know anyway.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The silents from season 6 were memory proof.

The Vashta Nerrada from season 5 proved that you should always be afraid of the Dark.

Last year we met Hila Tukurian in Hide from the 23rd century.

The Doctor recovered a space suit in the impossible planet which is 42nd century specific.

The end of the universe is occupied by Toclophane.

 

[MacLeod]

Well the episode leaves the answer open, was there something out there, or was it all just the figment of imagination. Sometimes it's best not to answer and leave it up the viewer decide.

 

[RoJoHen]

I really enjoyed the ambiguity in this episode. Every time there was a weird noise or something creepy, the Doctor would spout off "Oh, it's just the sound of the metal creaking" or "Maybe it's an alien...or maybe it's just a little brat hiding under a sheet." In any other Doctor Who episode, it would turn out to be the Silence or the Vashta Nerada eating chicken wings. There would be a big reveal, and the Doctor would have to fight them.

In this episode, it was just the opposite. It was a twist, and it provided insight into the Doctor's character, that even he, after all this time and after all he's seen and done, still has a very basic fear of the dark...of the unknown.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

The episode's monster is just fear. That's something different. Had it just been the Silence or something like that, it would be more of the same.

That's one way of looking at it. On the other hand, it is rather anticlimactic that in the end the episode just reinforces that which we already know anyway.

That's like suggesting The Edge of Destruction was a waste because Barbara and Ian weren't out to sabotage the ship. Since it's Doctor Who convention to have a monster, they set up that convention in order to break it.

 

[MacLeod]

I really enjoyed the ambiguity in this episode. Every time there was a weird noise or something creepy, the Doctor would spout off "Oh, it's just the sound of the metal creaking" or "Maybe it's an alien...or maybe it's just a little brat hiding under a sheet." In any other Doctor Who episode, it would turn out to be the Silence or the Vashta Nerada eating chicken wings. There would be a big reveal, and the Doctor would have to fight them.

In this episode, it was just the opposite. It was a twist, and it provided insight into the Doctor's character, that even he, after all this time and after all he's seen and done, still has a very basic fear of the dark...of the unknown.

And to a certain extent the Doctor himself is in unkown territory.

He was supposed to die on Trenzalore
He is in his 13th regeneration which might be unknown territory for a Time Lord.

Of course some of it might still be down to post-regnerative trauma.