Doctor Who is looking to bring the fear factor tonight with “Listen.” What’s under your bed?
Doctor Who is doing something that it is classically known for tonight: the “hiding behind the sofa” episode. Back in the classic Doctor Who era, the media often talked about how Doctor Who scared a generation on a regular basis by preying on fear, and that a whole generation of kids grew up hiding behind a sofa on Saturday afternoons.
Tonight’s episode, “Listen,” is penned by showrunner Steven Moffat. Moffat may have his ups and downs, but there is one thing at which he universally achieves: making the routine scary. Moffat is the person behind the Weeping Angels and the Vashta Nerada, rendering a new generation afraid of statues and shadowy dust. Tonight’s episode looks like it’s going to add a new one to the list. Kids everywhere are going to be checking under their beds before going to sleep wondering if anything is under there.
In the video below, you can see the Doctor scare Clara with the concept that we are never alone.
Another highlight of tonight’s episode is Samuel Anderson. He is back playing maths teacher Danny Pink. He was introduced in episode 2 as a new maths teacher at the school where Clara teaches, as well as a possible love interest for Clara. If thing weren’t complicated enough already, Anderson is also playing the character Orson Pink. We don’t yet know who Orson is. From photos and the video below, he seems to be quite a bit older than Danny. The question is how are they connected? Surely the similar appearance and names are not coincidental.
As to what we can expect between the Doctor and Danny Pink, Danny is going to be around awhile. Here’s what Anderson had to say in a recent interview, “At first their introduction is so kind of quick and so unexpected. They kind of get tangled up a little bit. They’re unsure of each other. That just boils down to the situations that they’re thrown in together. Obviously I don’t want to spoil any of it, but by the end you’ll see what they really think of each other. It becomes two guys with common interests who kind of go, ‘OK, we might have taken different routes to get here but you’re not so bad.'”
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Doctor Who airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. on BBC America.