Doctor Who: All Of Series 8 And Last Christmas Ranked
3. Listen
'Listen' is Series 8's 'Blink'. It's the best Moffat-penned episode of the year. It begins with a fantastic premise (people are never truly alone because there are creatures that have perfected hiding), continues well by adequately exploring that idea and then has a satisfying ending to boot. Along the way, fans get to glimpse the Doctor as a young boy. (It wasn't only Seb who got to shriek "Squee!" in 2014.) Honestly, there's hardly anything to fault in this episode. Well, the only niggle that might crop up in conversation is how viewers never got to see Orson Pink again or how the little soldier figure is still owned by grown-up Danny - but those are actually criticisms of other episodes and how they failed to deliver on the promise of Listen. If the only fault Listen has is that it showed up the relative lack of imagination in later episodes, then that's not a bad problem to have.
Mike has lived in the UK, Japan and the USA. Currently, he is based in Iowa with his wife and 2 young children. After working for many years as a writer and editor for a large corporation, he is now a freelancer. He has been fortunate enough to contribute to many books on Doctor Who over the last 20 years and is now concentrating on original sci-fi & fantasy short stories, with recent sales including Flame Tree, Uffda, and The Martian Wave. Also, look for his contribution on Blake's 7 to "You and Who Else", a charity anthology to be released later this year.
You can find him on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/culttvmike
