Doctor Who Series 8 Episode 4: Listen Recap With Spoilers

The episode opens with the Doctor alone in the TARDIS. He wonders, out loud, why evolution hasn’t created the perfect hiding creature yet, or how you would know if he did, besides your own choice to speak out loud when alone. He asks what a creature like that would want and what it might do. Something else writes “LISTEN” on his chalk board.

Clara meets Danny Pink for drinks. They talk and joke until Clara makes a comment about killing. Danny takes it personally and goes off about how many wells he dug as a soldier. They argue and Clara leaves.

Clara returns home to find the Doctor and the TARDIS in her bedroom. The Doctor recruits her for a “thing.” They go into the TARDIS and the Doctor begins espousing a theory that everyone actually has a secret, hidden, shadow creature that follows them, unseen, all of the time. He shows her his chalk board. He then goes on to explain his theory that everyone has the same nightmare at some point in their life, about another creature being in their bedroom, all throughout history.

The Doctor plugs Clara into the TARDIS’s psychic interface so that it can pinpoint the moment when she first had that dream, and hopefully see what’s “under her bed.” The Doctor tells her not to get distracted, and her phone rings. The Doctor silences it. They arrive at a point in Clara’s childhood.

The exact spot is the West Country’s Children’s Home in Glossator in the 1990s. Clara says she’s never been to Glossator or lived in a children’s home, but the Doctor believes they’re in the right place. The Doctor goes inside and leaves Clara behind so that she doesn’t meet herself. She sees a young boy named Rupert Pink who seems very much like Danny.

The Doctor enters the home under the auspices of performing an inspection. He questions the man at the desk, while Clara sneaks in behind him.

Clara goes upstairs to Rupert’s room. She asks why he isn’t sitting on his bed. He thinks there’s something under his bed. He’s had the dream about a hand grabbing his foot from under the bed. She tells him that dreams aren’t real and looks under his bed. She crawls underneath and invites him to follow. There’s nothing else. They here a noise. They come out from under the bed to find something sitting on it covered in Rupert’s blanket.

It slowly rises up until the light turns on and they see the Doctor sitting in a chair reading a “Where’s Wally?” book. The Doctor explains to Rupert that being scared is okay, a “superpower” that protects you from danger. The Doctor tell Rupert and Clara to turn their back on the thing on the bed. They admire the view from the window. The Doctor tells the thing on the bed to go in peace, and that they won’t look. The thing gets off the bed and comes closer to them. The Doctor tells Rupert and Clara not to look at it, because it must never be seen. It takes off the blanket and they all close their eyes and promise never to look. The door slams and they turn around to find the creature gone, with Rupert’s bedspread.

The Doctor fails to comfort Rupert, so Clara takes out some toy soldiers in the room and tells Rupert they’re his army. He points out one that is broken and has no gun. Clara says that mean he’s the boss, because he’s so brave he can save the world without a gun. Rupert says he calls him Danny Soldier Man. The Doctor puts the boy to sleep.

Back on the TARDIS, The Doctor wonders why they ended up with Rupert instead of in Clara’s past. The Doctor explains that he won’t remember any of their encounter, and that he’ll remember a dream of being Dan the Soldier Man. Clara asks for a favor.

The Doctor drops Clara off back at the restaurant right after she originally left Danny behind. She returns to their table and apologizes for going off and they talk. They talk about their names, with Danny saying he likes Clara’s last name, and Clara lets the name “Rupert Pink” slip out. Danny says he hasn’t used that name for years and wants to know how she knows. He also notices that her coat is gone. Someone in a containment suit enters the restaurant and motions for Clara to leave. When Clara refuses to be honest about how she knew the name, Danny leaves her in the restaurant.

Clara follows the person in the containment suit into the TARDIS. He takes off the helmet and reveals a man who is almost identical to Danny but older. The Doctor says he’s Orson Pink, from 100 years in her future. The Doctor uses the psychic information she left in the TARDIS to find him. He says she’ll never believe where he found Orson.

The Doctor takes Clara to the last planet in the universe. They take in the silence at the end of time. Orson was part of some of the earliest attempts at human time travel and ended up stranded at the end of time. Orson packs to return home to his family. The Doctor says they can’t leave immediately though, because the TARDIS needs to recharge. They’ll have to stay for one more night. Orson says that’s fine, but The Doctor calls out Orson for lying. The Doctor points out that the universe is dead, but Orson keeps the door to the outside locked anyway. Orson says there’s something out there.

Clara tells Orson he’ll be safe in the TARDIS while she and the Doctor waits outside. Clara stumbles onto Rupert’s toy soldier, “Danny Soldier Man,” which Orson says is a family heirloom for good luck. Clara tells him to stay away from time travel when he gets home, but Orson says it runs in his family, something to do with his great grandparents.

The Doctor and Clara are waiting. They notice a message that says “keep this door locked” above the door to Orson’s ship. The message only shows at night, meaning that Orson needed a reminder. They hear noises, like what you hear coming from pipes. The Doctor asks who Clara was having dinner with, but Clara plays coy. The noises grow louder, meaning the pressure is equalizing or something is coming. Clara asks why they’re even here, and the Doctor says he needs to know what these hidden creatures would do when there are no people left. They hear what sounds like something knocking. The door unlocks and begins to open. The Doctor tells Clara to get into the TARDIS. Clara resists, but the Doctor insists. The TARDIS is jolted. Orson says the air has been breached. He goes outside to pull in the Doctor.

Onboard the TARDIS, the Doctor is unconscious. More noises and the TARDIS shakes again. Clara tries to use the TARDIS’s telepathic circuits to pilot the ship. Clara tells Orson to stay on the ship and goes to investigate where the TARDIS has taken them. She finds a child crying in a bed in a barn. Two people come into the barn and encourages the boy to come inside with the other boys, saying that behaving like this isn’t good for joining the army. The other person says he doesn’t want to join the army, but the first person says he’ll never be a Time Lord.

Onboard the TARDIS, the Doctor wakes up confused and looking for Clara. In the barn, the boy wakes up and asks if anyone is around. He gets out of bed and Clara grabs his leg. She tells him everything will be okay if he just lies down and goes back to sleep. He gets back in bed. Clara gets out from under the bed and sits next to his bed, strokes his hair, and tells him something.

Clara returns to the TARDIS and says that the Doctor is just afraid of the dark. Clara tells the Doctor to leave and never look at where they went just then.

Clara told the boy that this was just a dream, that clever people can hear dreams. She gives him the same speech about fear being a superpower that the Doctor gave Rupert. She tells him that he will one day return to the barn, but not because he’s afraid, and we see a shot of John Hurt’s Doctor doing just that. She tells the Doctor that it’s okay to be afraid, that fear is like a constant companion. She leaves him Rupert’s soldier and says that fear makes companions of us all. Back on Earth, Danny and Clara apologize and make up.