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Dr Who 8.4 (245): "Listen" Letterbox Hybrid

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josephaw: Time to be done. These had a good run, but they are now being retired permanently....

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Hidden : 5/13/2015
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:


PLEASE NOTE: These caches were originally all letterboxes, with stamps that I personally painstakingly made. Unfortunately, they have proven quite popular, and with that comes muggling. Apparently a number of the stamps have gone missing, and as some have complained about this, and I haven't the time to go and check all 100+ of them on a regular basis, I will be converting them to Traditional caches as needed.

It pains me to make this decision, but it must be done. I recognize that with a powertrail, caches are bound to go missing (that is the nature of the beast), and I appreciate that many of you have helped out by bringing along spares. However, your average cacher does NOT carry around spare stamps, and even if you did, it wouldn't be the one that I originally and personally made for the cache.

So, I am asking for your help: please let me know in your logs which ones are indeed missing their stamps, and I will be changing them to Traditionals (the alternative is archival, unfortunately). Thanks for your assistance in this endeavor, and thanks for supporting this series. I am glad that I spent the many hours needed to create these. However, I cannot justify consistently having to make and then replace all the stamps, due to time constraints.

Sincerely, the CO, josephaw

9/27/15


First off, let me thank you for finding this geocache! I hope you enjoyed the experience of finding it as much as I enjoyed creating and hiding all of these letterbox caches.

This is just one of many such caches in my Dr Who Letterbox Series, made with the help and inspiration of friends. As a Letterbox cache, please leave the stamp for others to see and use, thanks! Each cache has a unique stamp, so bring an inkpad and collect them all! Have fun, and be safe!


"Listen" is the fourth episode of the eighth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, first broadcast on BBC One on 13 September 2014. It was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Douglas Mackinnon.

In the episode, alien time traveller the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) attempts to track down a creature with the perfected ability to hide, while his companion Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) struggles with her relationship with her boyfriend Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson).

"Listen" was originally watched by 4.81 million viewers in the UK and received critical acclaim for its script, direction and performances.

Plot

Clara Oswald meets with fellow Coal Hill teacher Danny Pink for their first date. However, things take a turn for the worse when the subject of his time serving in the army comes up, and they each unintentionally offend the other with their lack of understanding. On her return home, she discovers the Doctor waiting for her, needing her help. He has begun to question whether every living being has a constant companion, using the example of the 'dream' all people have - showing everyone from young children to an elderly woman - in which a hand grabs them from under the bed at night. Clara initially dismisses this, but agrees to return to her childhood so they can investigate. She uses the TARDIS' telepathic link to try and lock on to the event, but, when her mind strays to Danny, they end up in a children's home in Gloucester in the mid 1990s, where Clara is shocked to meet Rupert Pink; Danny, as a child, before he changed his name. The Doctor initially believed that Clara hadn't faulted with keeping focus, believing the place was a repressed memory from her childhood.

Clara tries to convince Rupert that there is nothing under his bed, as he sits away from it in fear. They crawl underneath, only for something to sit on the bed above them, despite Rupert claiming that no one else has entered the room while they have been talking. On emerging, they discover a figure underneath Rupert's blankets, and the Doctor, who suddenly appears, demands that they turn away from it and promise that they will not look at it. They do so, and it vanishes out of the door. The Doctor acknowledges the possibility that the figure could be another child playing a prank, but the alternative is that it's an unidentified entity that is not meant to be seen. He also encourages Rupert to see his fear as a "superpower," because adrenaline will empower him to overcome obstacles and foes. When Clara urges Rupert to place his toy soldiers underneath his bed as 'protection', she unintentionally inspires his later name, Danny, and his career choice, when Rupert names the lead soldier Dan. This is reinforced when, after the Doctor uses his telepathy to send Rupert to sleep, he reveals that he has wiped his memory of the events and left him only with a dream of being "Dan the soldier man"

After this encounter with the young Danny, Clara has the Doctor bring her to the restaurant, moments after her former self left. She bonds with Danny, but he becomes suspicious when she accidentally calls him Rupert; he questions how she knows his former name, and accuses her of deliberately mocking him. He storms out as a figure in a spacesuit beckons Clara back into the TARDIS. Clara thinks it's the Doctor, but he removes his helmet to reveal a man strongly resembling Danny; the Doctor identifies this man as Orson Pink, one of Earth's first time travellers, having originally come from 100 years in Clara's future. The Doctor has picked him up from the end of the universe, where he had become stranded during his travels. It is revealed that one of Orson's great grandparents told him stories about time travel and that Orson possesses the lead soldier Clara gave young Rupert earlier in the episode; he returns it to her, indicating that she is an appropriate recipient for this 'family heirloom'.

The Doctor takes Clara and Orson back to Orson's ship at the end of time, and it is revealed that Orson feared he was not alone there; the Doctor believes that the companion entity is trying to gain access to the ship because it contains the only remaining life in existence, although Orson and the Doctor are also able to offer mundane alternative explanations for the unusual phenomena the group experience. The Doctor orders Clara and Orson back into the TARDIS and attempts to confront the entity, but has to be rescued by Orson when the ship's air containment is breached. As the Doctor is unconscious and it seems that the entity is trying to enter the TARDIS, the Cloister Bell starts to ring and Clara uses the telepathic circuit to trigger the TARDIS' departure.

Exiting the TARDIS, which is in an unknown location, Clara finds herself in an old barn, where a child is in bed, crying under the covers. Clara approaches the child, but is forced to hide under the bed when two people enter and try and coax the child out of the room. Overhearing their conversation, she realises that the child is in fact the Doctor, and his guardians believe he'll have to become a soldier as he lacks the potential of a true Time Lord. Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor wakes up and notices that Clara is gone and calls out for her, causing his younger self to ask who's out there. Clara accidentally grabs the Doctor's leg when he tries to get out of bed, and she realises she is the monster under the Doctor's bed. After convincing the young Doctor that he is dreaming, she comforts him and identifies his fear as a constant companion that can bring out the good in him. She also reveals that one day he will return to the barn (as seen in "The Day of the Doctor") in his time of greatest fear. Clara then returns to the TARDIS and makes the Doctor promise to leave without seeing where they have just been, leaving him unaware of what she has done.

After returning Clara to Earth and Orson to his original time period, the Doctor seemingly rejects the notion of the entity's existence. Clara, meanwhile, goes to Danny's home, where they mutually apologise and share a kiss.

Continuity

Samuel Anderson makes his second appearance as Danny Pink, a troubled war veteran turned maths teacher and Clara's love interest. He also portrays his descendant, Orson Pink, the first Earth time traveller. Danny's birth name is revealed to be Rupert, and his reasons for becoming a soldier are explored.

The reason for the War Doctor choosing an abandoned barn for his activation of 'The Moment' in 2013's "The Day of the Doctor" is revealed, as the barn is shown to be the Doctor's childhood home on Gallifrey.[1] Archive footage of John Hurt from the fiftieth anniversary special shows the War Doctor approaching the barn.

The Twelfth Doctor, upon awaking in the TARDIS, mentions "Sontarans perverting the course of human history" to Orson Pink, repeating his first words as the Fourth Doctor in Robot.[2] The line itself is a nod to the Third Doctorserial The Time Warrior.[3] There are similar nods to previous stories within the dialogue. The Twelfth Doctor states there is nothing to hear, "not a click or a tick" - a Third Doctor line from Death to the Daleks. The episode's final line, whispered by Clara to the young Doctor, is "Fear makes companions of us all" - a line originally spoken by the First Doctor in the third episode of the very first Doctor Who serial, An Unearthly Child.[2]

www.wikipedia.org

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Uvag: fntr / srapr; Fgnzc: gur svther ba gur orq

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)