Please Note: Here be spoilers. BIG ones, if you haven’t seen the episode.

I love a good old spooky story- always have. Horror movies, ghost stories, Gothic literature, you name it. It’s always exciting, then, when my love of all things creepy melds with my love of Doctor Who, and Steven Moffatt’s ‘Listen’ is no exception. I have so much to say about this episode, and so many (overwhelmingly positive) thoughts about it, that I feel I’d better dive straight in!

‘Listen’ is, in many ways, the polar antithesis of last week’s ‘Robin of Sherwood’. Whilst the latter was a straightforward, chronologically linear historical romp, the former is psychological, somewhat meandering and unpredictable, filled with Moffatt’s beloved time loops and with one hell of a twist in the tail. It’s essentially a meditation on dreams and on the nature of fear, opening with the Doctor proposing a theory to the audience; namely, what if we are never really alone, and there is a being who feeds off the energy we produce when we talk to ourselves? It’s a very Moffatt concept, that of the mundane made creepy. The business with the blackboard gives off a lovely professorial vibe, and it seems that 12 may finally have a catchphrase- “Question!”. It was also fun to get a sense of what the Doctor does when he’s alone, when he’s been travelling without a companion for a little too long and has perhaps turned a little paranoid.

Peter Capaldi, of course, gets better and better with every appearance, and ‘Listen’s focus on the psychology of the Doctor makes his portrayal even more compelling. From his mad grin when proposing his theory, through to his delight in discovery, his palpable fear in the orphanage scene, his stealing of the coffee and his sternness with Clara, he is totally alien, lovable and deeply complex. It was also a relief to me that Clara’s characterisation was back on form in this episode. She somehow felt like a much more clearly defined individual here than in ‘Robot of Sherwood’, and the rapport between her and the Doctor is still highly enjoyable, not to mention refreshingly different from series 7. The moment when we realise that she is, in fact, at the root of his childhood nightmare, and the horror and realisation that plays out across Coleman’s face, is brilliantly executed.

Apart from the scenes in the Tardis and Danny and Clara’s date, the episode really centres around three distinct set pieces- young Rupert Pink’s room in the orphanage, Orson Pink and his apocalyptic isolation, and the young Doctor’s place of refuge in the barn on Gallifrey. To address the final one first, I regret so much that I actively sought out spoilers for this episode a few weeks back. The scene in the barn was hugely effective and I would have loved to have been totally surprised by that twist, rather than being slightly distracted by the fact that I was waiting for it all the way through. That’s totally my own fault though, and I’m kicking myself for it. The other two set pieces have an uncanny narrative familiarity about them but still somehow manage to feel wonderfully fresh and creepy. Take, for example, the ‘thing’ under the blanket in the orphanage. That trope has been revisited what feels like countless times in horror movies and ghost stories (personally, it reminded me of M.R James’ Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You My Lad) but even that fact and the possibility that it was purely a prank didn’t diminish how viscerally frightening and unnerving it was. Similarly, the events in Orson’s spaceship closely parallel and most likely deliberately reference the opening lines of Frederic Brown’s ‘Knock’- “The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door”- but it’s still incredibly spooky. Both phenomena rely heavily on ambiguity and the fear of the unknown in a very similar way to series 4’s ‘Midnight’. We never see the ‘monster’ or find out whether it’s simply in the minds of the protagonists, and frankly it’s better that way. There are no pat explanations here, which is what makes ‘Listen’ so memorable.

I have a few last, miscellaneous thoughts before I wrap up this review and give my final verdict on ‘Listen’. First of all, I very much enjoyed the fact that we learn what made Danny want to be a soldier, and how that parallels the Doctor’s journey (tied together with the looped journey of the gunless toy soldier). Danny has only appeared in two episodes but already we have plunged straight into his back story and begun exploring his psychology, and I love that kind of no-holds-barred approach to getting to know a new character. On a slightly less positive note, the reappearance of Moffatt’s beloved ‘creepy nursery rhyme’ trope grated on me a little and felt forced, but you have to give him credit for being able to poke fun at it in the script: “have we come to the end of the universe for a nursery rhyme?”.

It’s very rare that I give anything a perfect score, or even a 9/10, but I really cannot find any major faults with this episode. It’s literary and thematically complex, with some striking visual imagery, but manages not to get bogged down, retaining the essential thrills and fun of an archetypal creepy Doctor Who episode. Douglas MacKinnon’s brilliant direction lends it an intimate, claustrophobic atmosphere that perfectly ties in with the themes of fear and loneliness. Furthermore, it’s really fascinating, once in a while, to leave questions unanswered, and to explore the possibility that sometimes, the Doctor does just get it wrong. Just as Wally isn’t to be found in every book, the monster isn’t always under the bed, at least not in the ways we expect.

Final Verdict: 10/10