Doctor Who: Listen - 7 Failures Which Destroy The Story

4. No Respect For Established Rules

This is not a problem unique to this script, but many recent Doctor Who stories have a major failing: They keep ignoring established rules. This was bad enough during Into The Dalek with the Doctor claiming there was no such thing as a "good" dalek, but Listen really takes the cake. A major point in the series established upon its return was the fact that certain areas of time were locked, with the TARDIS unable to visit them or travel to those locations. Others were immutable, they could not be changed and more ideas were established over time. One of the really big time-locks was placed upon Gallifrey and the time war as a whole, preventing the Doctor ever travelling back into its past. Even before then the Doctor had never done this, shooting all the way back into his homeworld's history, but now Listen just happens to do it because he suddenly can. We're given no real reason for this beyond a fleeting mention that the Doctor has turned the TARDIS' safeties off, and nothing else. It's a handwave at best and leave a massive amount of problems and big questions which are never addressed. Even without going into the bigger problems within the episode, many ideas and facts set up in Listen are either completely ignored or promptly abandoned in order to get to the final scene on Gallifrey. The entire sequence involving the various incarnations of Danny and his later identical ancestor? Ultimately meaningless and the questions, rules and ideas given there will lead to nothing save one possible object. The opening with the Doctor questioning where the creatures with perfect hiding capabilities are, establishing the idea behind their abilities and existence in history? Abandoned entirely and made meaningless in favour of something completely different. The fact everyone has the same nightmare, and that this is a key point the Doctor's whole theory hinges upon? Completely forgotten in favour of something entirely different. It's a bait and switch of the worst kind, and when the writers don't respect the very details they establish why should the audience do so.