Review: Listen

1. Don't blink.
2. Stay out of the shadows.
3. Don't breathe.
4. Listen

Steve Moffat has sure given us a lot of survival tips over the series. It's effective, but I can't have been the only one who thought "oh, that again" at the promo. The delight of this episode is was emphatically not that again - it entirely mixed up the formula.

What this episode did so brilliantly was interweaving an emotional plot with a plot plot. This is the kind of episode I had assumed I wouldn't see from Moff again. It's a generalisation, of course, but there's a truth in there, and when I lost characters I could relate to, I lost interest in the series period.

Here the characters are perfect. I love the idea of the doc just going on an investigation mission because there's something he's curious about, and spending a decade looking at fish and meditating on top of the box. He is channeling professory this week (I love this new TARDIS, with the books everywhere and the chalk). Clara-as-teacher comes through a lot here, and this whole episode is so quiet, just observing her feels for a lot of the time, and I really like that. I love their relationship together. The Doctor waiting by the mirror like that's not weird at all, and Clara curled up on the bed after a failed date; both of them so clearly from different worlds.

We've seen timeywimey relationship messes before, but this episode is the first which really felt "right" to me. Clara is given time and space to process who Orson might be, and what that means, and it's beautiful. This is what I wanted and never got from Rory/Amy/River. And Listen doesn't exactly do anything special with it, except let the idea breathe.

Above all, the character elements made the story totally unexpected. This is what I want from Doctor Who. I want plot and character working together so subtley that I can't tell where the plot is going, but feel rewarded when we get there. The Doctor taking on a mysterious beast at end of the universe; a stranded time traveller; then surprise Gallifrey. And yet the emotional threads tie it all back together.

PLUS the direction is gorgeous. From that opening sequence, which escapes gimmickry because the camerawork is so lovely; to the first date sequence, with the subtle camerawork mapping out a whole evening in a few strokes. AND I love that he subverted the position of the "scary episode" in the season to talk about the strength of being afraid.

Such an easy 9/10.

Miscellany
I love the running trope of the TARDIS being parked in odd places (stock cupboard. The kitchen. Clara's bedroom, so she has to squeeze through.)

Not so sure about this meeting sexy-in-the-future characters as kids thing. That makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. I'm not sure, in Clara's position, I'd be all "yeahhhh I want to meet and mother this person I'm going to date in the future".

The only flaw was the music in Clara's final speech to the Doc, where it got ladled on way too heavy.

Telepathic circuits! Psychic paper!

Shouldn't Gallifrey be timelocked tho?

Clara/Danny's relationship is reminding me - in a bad way - of Sam and Lori on West Wing. Sam meets Lori at a party, but finds out the morning after that she is also a sex worker; Lori calls him on the shitty stuff he says to her about her job, but then mystifingly remains friends with him even though every scene of theirs is him making shitty comments. To me, that whole storyline doesn't work because I can't believe her staying in a relationship with someone who disrespects her like that. Similarly, Clara keeps making cutesy-awkward shitty comments about Danny's history as a soldier, and I really can't buy them staying together. They are an adorable couple, they have chemistry. But I feel like in that situation, you get to screw up once and then after that you do better, or you get dumped. Soldiers and sex workers are generally hard-as-nails; I can't buy either Danny or Lori staying in a relationship which requires enduring constant snide comments.