Doctor Who season 8, episode 4 makes sure that we all think twice about what’s under the bed.
Steven Moffat penned an episode that makes us think about fear, and perhaps leaves us with more questions than answers.
Danny and Clara
Danny and Clara have a date where each of them is guilty of excessive foot-in-mouth and touchy overreaction. Due to Clara being distracted about the bad date by her ringing phone, the TARDIS ends up landing in Danny’s early childhood timeline instead of Clara’s. Clara gives the young Danny a toy soldier as a talisman of sorts against the unknown things in the dark. By the end of the episode, the two have made up, and their relationship is possibly open to getting more serious.
The TARDIS and Clara
Supposedly the TARDIS is able to connect with Clara. It knows her birth and death. It wants to take her to things connected to her timeline if she touches its core. The question is, did the distraction really change the course of the TARDIS? Is Orson Pink her descendant, Danny’s, or both? It’s left off ambiguously as Orson doesn’t divulge if his ancestor who time traveled was a man or woman. He also doesn’t specifically state if the family heirloom of the plastic soldier was initially given by relative.
The only thing we have to fear…
The Doctor explores the age old question of “Is there something under my bed that I should be afraid of?” and with a little help from Clara, the Doctor almost gets an answer. Perhaps, more aptly, his subconscious gets the answer. As it turns out, it’s Clara who was under his bed when he was a child. She possibly triggers the dream that everyone in the world supposedly has as she tries to stop a young Doctor from meeting his older self. The child Doctor goes back to bed, perhaps even more afraid of the dark than when he started. The older Doctor wakes up wanting to know what happened, but is ordered to forget by Clara.
More questions
In the end there are lots of questions. How does Clara know about the barn? Did the Doctor tell her about his time as the War Doctor? Does Clara clearly remember the events from when she was The Impossible Girl? Are Danny and Clara the great grandparents of Orson? What or who stole the Doctor’s chalk, and what or who was under Danny’s covers if actually what’s under the bed is just a Clara-caused dream? What caused the hull breach and how did Orson rescue the Doctor?