The thing is, it was all in The Doctor’s mind all along. Everything that happened had a normal explanation that was given, but The Doctor convinced himself it was down to unseen creatures.
Who wrote “LISTEN” on the blackboard? Flashback at the end shows it was The Doctor.
Where did the cup of coffee go? The Doctor stole it.
The knocking on the door? The hull expanding in the heat, and contracting in the cold.
The thing under the blanket? Another child from the home.
Because he thought little Rupert was in danger? He wanted to confront the creature without putting a child at risk.
Yeah, but you would think if the Doctor is on a monster hunt and Rupert is involved it might be important to let the Doctor know. I guess she’s just trying to exclude him from her personal life.
And another thing, was was is so effing important that the Doctor not know that Clara was visiting him in his childhood, that she was the one under his bed giving him the supposed dream that everyone apparently has? I mean, I get he shouldn’t go out there and meet himself, and maybe it makes a weird sense somehow that she shouldn’t just admit she’s a stranger who snuck in and is under his bed accidentally, no monsters, sorry old chap, ha ha. But why not tell the 2000 year old version of the Doctor now?
I suppose it’s possible it was another child from the home wearing a monster mask. That would account for the shape of the head being weird. He was trying to scare Rupert, and got, not one, but two adults in the process. AWESOME! (Or should that be “BRILLIANT!”?)
We could see how the blanket draped over the head and shoulders of the whatsit and the ratio of head width to shoulder width was pretty similar to human. With a Sontaran, it would have been mostly head, with only little shoulder bumps.
There was something under the blanket, and it wasn’t a kid! They intentionally showed us a blurred view of it, they didn’t need to if we were to assume it was a kid.
Here is what I think, I think this episode is going to be referenced in either a future episode or possibly the season ender. And the thing was either the return of the Silents, or more likely linked to Missy.
I had as many complaints about this episode as I had about every other episode this season, and yet for some reason I liked it.
Moffat wanted to do a monster episode where you never see the monster. But he didn’t. As aired, it’s a monster episode in which it turns out there was no monster. That’s different.
I’m totally loving Capaldi now. And I enjoy the accidental insults to Clara. He’s not being mean. He doesn’t realize they’re insulting. He’s oblivious.
One thing: I haven’t seen a lot of the originals, but I was always under the impression that Time Lord was a race, not an occupation. Earth is populated by humans, and Gallifrey was populated by time lords. So how could the father say, “He’ll never become a time lord at this rate” (or whatever it was exactly)?
It is implied (in The Invasion of Time and The Deadly Assassin) that the terms “Gallifreyan” and “Time Lord” may not be synonymous, and that Time Lords are simply that subset of Gallifreyans who have achieved the status of Time Lord via achievement in the Gallifreyan collegiate system; in the episode “The Sound of Drums” The Doctor talks of ‘children of Gallifrey’ which implies that children are Gallifreyan before they are Time Lords. Although this is still unclear as in “Journey’s End” the Daleks call the Doctor “the last child of Gallifrey” and in The “End of Time” a Time Lord on the high council states that a prophecy referring to the Doctor and the Master “speaks of two children of Gallifrey”. Romana and the Doctor have also referred to “Time Tots”, or infant Time Lords,[44] and (in “Smith and Jones”) the Doctor refers his compatriots and he playing “with Röntgen bricks in the nursery”.[16] In “The Sound of Drums”, the Master is seen as a child, apparently at the age of 8.[29]
Actually a native of Gallifrey is a Gallifreyan. The show uses Time Lord as a synonym, but that’s not really the case. For example, one episode of old Who had the Outsiders who lived outside the capitol, rejected technology, and dressed in animal skins.