Inspirations: Listen

This story originated with a conversation between Steven Moffat and one of the producers, in which the writer said that he wanted to do something with sound effects, and the idea of a monster which you never actually got to see. He described the episode as a "chamber piece", with only a minimal guest cast, concentrating on character rather than spectacle.

Apart from the children's home supervisor, Reg, and little Rupert Pink, the episode is held together by only Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman and Samuel Anderson.

A chamber piece, using sound to its full advantage, and a monster you never get to see? Yes, this is Moffat's Midnight.

After the children's home section, it's the scenes on Orson's spaceship which mirror the earlier RTD story the most. We even have shots of the exterior in which we think that - just maybe - we glimpsed the monster.

After brief appearances, this episode also helps to establish Anderson / Danny Pink in his role as a series semi-regular, just like the various companion relatives / ex-boyfriends / fiancés who have populated the show since 2005.

As well as future time-traveller Orson Pink, we get the sequences between Clara and Danny in the restaurant.

A running theme through this season will be Clara's attempts to juggle her relationship with him and her TARDIS travels - which will lead to us learning that she is actually addicted to the latter, but wants the best of both worlds.

In the same way that Blink had originated in a story Moffat had contributed to a publication, so this owes its origins to Corner of the Eye, a short story he wrote for 2007 Doctor Who Storybook. In this the Tenth Doctor was involved with a creature known as a Floof, which was invisible and which latched onto individual and plagued their life.

Once again, Moffat wanted to play on things often associated with children's fears - especially the idea that there is something lurking under the bed. He had previously used this in The Girl and the Fireplace.

The TARDIS telepathic circuits come into play once again - first introduced in The Time Monster. Once a pair of discs on the console, they now take up a whole segment of the console and appear organic in nature. They can take the TARDIS to wherever, or whoever, the user is concentrating on - in this case a future relative of Danny's. He is stuck at the end of the Universe, and that's where the Doctor wants to go anyway as he believes that the ultimate in evolution should outlive every other creature, and he wants to see what it is like.

After the Doctor gets knocked out, the TARDIS takes Clara into his past - when he was an isolated child sleeping in a barn in outer Gallifrey. She then, inadvertently, becomes responsible for his own fear of the thing under the bed.

The barn is the one where the War Doctor took The Moment in The Day of the Doctor, and we get a glimpse of John Hurt from that story - thus explaining why he chose the location.

Commenting on the silence in Rupert's bedroom, the Doctor says "not a click nor a tick". He had previously used this term to describe the silent TARDIS in Death to the Daleks.

On waking up, the Doctor exclaims: "Sontarans! Perverting the course of human history!" - which is what the Fourth Doctor said moments after regenerating in Robot, and it refers to the events of The Time Warrior.

Putting the boy to sleep by simply touching his temples was a trick the Doctor first used in Survival.

Orson's spacesuit is specifically a Sanctuary Base 6 one, as it has the SB6 logo on it. The Doctor obtained one of these in The Impossible Planet.

Next time: Docs and Robbers...