Can You Hear Me?

Chapter The 191st, Doctor Who and the Talking Cure.

Plot:

Two powerful, immortal beings with unmemorable names amuse themselves through eternity by torturing people. The inhabitants of two planets they have set to war against each other stop fighting and team up, managing (somehow) to trap one of the immortals in an orb bubble between two colliding planets. The other immortal (somehow) cannot undo this. The Doctor drops off Yaz, Ryan and Graham in Sheffield for them to have a short break from time travelling. The immortal gives them and their friends nightmares and visions. The Doctor misses all this at first as she's followed an alert in the TARDIS to 14th century Aleppo where the immortal bloke has created creatures from a girl's nightmares. This was just for shits and giggles though, as it doesn't appear to have much to do with the main plot, which is for the immortal to make the Doctor think that the person trapped in the orb is good and is being tortured by being fed negative mental pictures, whereas she's actually bad and enjoying them. The Doctor frees her and the two beings go off to Earth to feed off everyone's nightmares leaving the Doctor and friends imprisoned. Luckily, they haven't reckoned with... the sonic screwdriver in the Doctor's pocket. She frees the others and they trap both immortals in the orb. Everyone reflects on their own concerns. Yaz was saved by a police officer when she'd been in a dark place three years earlier; Ryan's friend misses him when he's gone; Graham worries about his cancer coming back.

Context:

I watched the story from the Series 12 Blu-ray boxset. It was the steelbook version, actually - I've got a couple of these limited edition steelbooks; not because I collect them, but because they were the only version I could find online when I pre-ordered. This doesn't bother me with regard to shelf uniformity - each example of new series boxset packaging is different from every other anyway - but it is difficult to extract the media from the narrow steelbooks, which have multiple discs on one spindle. Getting the disc with Can You Hear Me? on it out of the box without snapping it in half was a challenging and anxious process. Some people might say that this was the only dramatic moment in the whole experience of watching Can You Hear Me? but I would never dream of being so cruel. Honest.

First Time Round:

As Covid meant nothing of note happened for a long time after March 2020 when Jodie Whittaker's second series completed, it is relatively easy to remember details of the context of watching these episodes for the first time. Each crumb of memory of activities from that previous era - getting out of the house, travelling on public transport, being in big crowds of people - was fallen upon and scoffed up by my subconscious in the dull, samey months thereafter. Coincidentally, I was very busy then. I'd travelled on packed trains to London, and then been on multiple packed underground trains around London, about half a dozen times during the course of series 12's broadcast in early 2020.  This is half a dozen times more than usual for me in a ten week period, with or without a pandemic going on. I went to and from the capital on each of the three days preceding the Sunday when Can You Hear Me? was shown. The Thursday and Friday (the 6th and 7th of February) I was attending a training course for the day job, commuting in and out on both days from my home on the South Coast. I remember talking to the tutor on the lunchtime of the second day, and him telling me his concerns about how this Coronavius that was in the news was going to have a big impact, how it seemed to be very contagious and took people a long time to shake off if they caught it. This was no good at all for my hypochondria. It didn't help that I had a terrible, terrible cold at the time. I wouldn't have necessarily dragged myself in had it not been for it being an expensive course that it was too late to cancel. I remember a lot of internal reassurance, telling myself that the cough I had was definitely a chesty cough, not a dry cough, so I probably wasn't going to die.

Neither the tutor's warnings nor my cold stopped me from travelling again to London on the following day, Saturday 8th February. I was meeting with a number of friends from work to see The Room at the Prince Charles cinema just off Leicester Square. Watching this 2003 film is like a cross between watching Plan 9 From Outer Space and The Rocky Horror Picture Show - it's considered to be one of the worst if not the worst film every made (like Plan 9) but it has become a cult event to go to midnight screenings, throw things around the theatre and shout call and response in-jokes at the screen (like Rocky Horror). I'd never got round to seeing the film before, but a colleague at work is crazy about it, and arranged this trip. The creative 'genius' behind the flick Tommy Wiseau did a live Q&A and sold merchandise (I have a signed The Room T-Shirt now that I will probably never wear!). I had a few drinks afterwards before taking my still ill self home on the train. Over those drinks, one of the party got talking to me about Doctor Who pointing out that Spyfall's conclusion didn't make any sense: what use is turning all of humanity into hard drives? To whom is Daniel Barton going to sell this cloud storage if everyone's enslaved? This had not occurred to me, and I admit has undermined the story for me since. Ah well. Between all this activity, and the start of a new series of a favourite in our house, Endeavour, later in the evening, Can You Hear Me? was a pleasant enough but slightly forgettable interlude.

Reaction:

I remember a few years back when covering The Power of Three for the blog (see here) I went easy on its abrupt and perfunctory ending as I'd read that the production was beset with difficulties such that a workable plot could only be salvaged by an effort of editing. Since then, I've found out more about just how difficult it got (a key guest star refusing to give any kind of performance on the day, for example). I don't know of anything similar happening in the making of Can You Hear Me? but if I found out that it did, I wouldn't be surprised. The story is somewhat fragmentary and only coherent in terms of mood or - very loosely - its underlying theme. Without knowing anything about the circumstances in which the 2020 story was made, I'm going to have to assume that how it ended up on screen was what was intended by the writers, so am going to have to be critical. It's a bit of a mess. Clearly, this is a message story, and the message is important, so my being critical is going to seem like I'm kicking a puppy. Like another new series story which I didn't like that much Vincent and the Doctor it is one of a very small subset (unless I'm mistaken, only these two) of Doctor Who stories to be followed by a helpline number on screen with a voiceover informing anyone affected by what they'd seen to contact said number.

Tackling the complex subject matter of mental health for a family adventure series audience means that the script is somewhat tentative. This was true of the earlier story too. This will no doubt prove to be an unpopular view as Vincent and the Doctor is very well-loved generally within fandom and this Jodie Whittaker story not so much, but I think Can You Hear Me? handles things better. Yaz's suicidal ideation three years before the main events of the story is clear from the flashback sequence without having to be spelled out, and the sci-fi plot doesn't distract as much from the theme as it does in the Matt Smith story. Should it need to be this way, though? Does a Doctor Who story have to have a sci-fi plot at all if it risks distracting? Why can't the script be more explicit about its theme? I'll take those points in order, the first one being probably the most difficult to answer. I can't conceive of a version of Can You Hear Me? without the villainous eternal beings or the Chagaska monsters, even though they don't really take up much time or space in the plot. It could work as something like Listen, where there are hints of a monster that turns out to be in everyone's collective subconscious. But Listen's already been done, and the series would just be repeating itself. So, we're stuck with those elements, for better or worse.

Where they are better is in creating the mood early on. Ian Gelder as Zellin is very effective at looming in people's rooms to create dread. He and partner Rakaya are visually strong (they remind me of an older and skin colour swapped version of Marvel's Cloak and Dagger). The script goes to great lengths to position the pair within the pantheon of Doctor Who baddies, namechecking similar foes like the Eternals and the Toymaker. The grisly image of fingers detaching and sticking in people's ears, though it could have seemed risible, works too. The problem, though, is that Zellin's presence confuses things related to the main theme - how much is he creating their nightmares rather than just amplifying them? The narrative is structured in such a way that we don't spend any time with the characters before immortal interference, so we can't be shown this, and instead we have to be told. There's a monologue from Zellin about humans and "the cruelty of their own minds directed towards themselves; the doubt, the fear, the endless voices telling themselves that they're incapable and unworthy. Such an exquisite animal - built-in pain." It's great dialogue but it is still tell not show. And this problem is endemic: about sixteen minutes in after everyone's had individual visions, there's a scene where they are reunited and tell each other about the events we've already witnessed. Why do we need to see this? Cut it, and start the scene later. The backstory of Rakaya being imprisoned is presented as a bit of animation; it's nice, but this kind of tarting up can't hide that the material is still just exposition.

To the second question: should the writers tie themselves in knots avoiding being too explicit? The word suicide isn't ever used in the script, and the term mental health is used only once in relation to how it was treated in 14th century Syria, obviously safe at such a distance. The script talks talks talks about every other aspect of its plot, but the main theme is left coyly unspoken. Nobody wants to traumatise children, but given that the main thrust of the message in this message story is that talking about your problems can help, not talking about them directly in the narrative has got to damage that. The one character that is down to earth and specifically asks to talk about his issues is Graham at the end, worried about his cancer returning and the loss of his partner Grace, but the script bungles that moment by having the Doctor - our hero - not being able to think of anything to say. Of course, we are all sometimes socially awkward and don't know the right thing to say, and it's okay to put that on screen for people to empathise with, but maybe not by using the Doctor who is supposed to be better than that.

Beyond all these criticisms, there's a major flaw in the story, but I think it could have provided the opportunity to fix some of the issues above, maybe not everything but enough perhaps to have improved the show sufficiently overall that the other issues wouldn't matter. At a point roughly two-thirds of the way through the story, our heroes are at their lowest ebb. The Doctor and all her friends have been fooled, shackled and fed fears by Zellin. They're all plugged into this nightmare-scape by the accusing fingers of torment, and they might never escape to stop the two immortal baddies as they attack everyone on Earth street by street. It's a standard point in the drama plot structure, the point at which the hero has to find a last vestige of hope and rise up even though everything seems lost. But how? Well, this is a story the theme of which is that communicating with others to share one's fears can help. And everyone's connected to one another's mind - do you see? The nightmares of humans have been personified for the character of Tahira as terrifying monsters, and she's going to have to literally face them down and overcome them. It writes itself. The sci-fi subplot acts as a metaphor for what everyone needs to do in real life. Connected together, everyone isn't on their own with their nightmares; the Doctor's mental power can bring all their minds together so they aren't alone. This could be where we get flashbacks to their pain - imagine how energetic Yaz's three years earlier scenes would be if they preceded the climax defeat of the bad guys rather than followed it.

All the flashbacks to everybody's pain as they share it with the mind-melded group would culminate with Tahira facing the creature created from her own dark imagination, and - with everyone's help, facilitated by the Doctor - she would reach out and touch the creature and realise it was part of her, her ally not her damnation. Cut to: our heroes turning the tables on the baddies, helped by this collective experience almost exactly as it is in the story as transmitted. But what saved everyone in the transmitted version? Not a meeting of minds, just that the Doctor's sonic screwdriver happened to still be in her pocket. She waves the magic wand and all is well. It's not just a cop-out - it's the exact opposite of the message the story is supposed to be conveying. Tahira does face her fears, but in a scene off camera, and it just gets relayed afterwards. Pardon my loose language just this one time, but that is madness.

Connectivity: 

Both Can You Hear Me? and Planet of Giants feature a TARDIS team of the Doctor plus three companions. In both, there is at least one character that's finding it difficult to talk about how they're not feeling so great (Barbara keeps from everyone that she's been in contact with the deadly insecticide. and almost every character in this story is holding back about aspects of their mental health).

Deeper Thoughts:

Who and the history of the Blues. Doctor Who doesn't have a great history of its treatment of mental health issues. Many times during its history, particularly in the 20th century stories, characters are referred to as crazy or insane without too much reflection of the true meaning and impact of those words. The worst sin of the series is probably the use of a vague diagnosis of insanity by an unqualified character in the narrative to explain away a total lack of logic and motivation in the actions of the bad guy. This happens often; an example in a story recently covered by the blog is Sir George in The Awakening who behaves in an incoherent way but it's fine because he's doolally. The story has ample opportunity to blame this on the affect of mind control by the monster of the week, but - uncomfortably - the writer decides to go in a different direction, explicitly confirming that Sir George was "deranged" before the alien menace came on the scene. Of course, this means that Sir George is just as much a victim as any of the other characters in the piece, but he's not really treated as such.  This pattern reoccurs in many episodes. It's of course not unique to Doctor Who and is a staple of a certain type of genre fare of the time, but it's nonetheless a bit lazy.

The other main cliché that leads to a somewhat problematical position looking back is the "mad scientist" trope. Generally, though, I think Doctor Who of all eras manages this a bit better on the whole. "Mad scientists" in Doctor Who are generally not portrayed as suffering from any mental health problems but instead are making dubious but controlled choices as they are blinkered by some extreme passion or other (Stahlman desperate to get his mine gas from the Earth, Lazarus desperate to regain his youth, even - from last time's blog post - Smithers desperate to save the world from famine). This overzealous motivation isn't limited to scientists of course; any number of blinkered administrators, directors, CEOs and Colonel Blimps have featured over the years. In an interesting reversal of the 'blame it on their mental health' approach, Alan Barnes in the current issue of Doctor Who Magazine posits that the rigid, cosmically xenophobic General Carrington of The Ambassadors of Death - who is painted as a villain in the story - might actually be suffering from PTSD and more of a victim after all.

Another cliché that Doctor Who avoids is the autistic savant that has an superhuman ability of some kind. This is a bit patronising and insensitive; I quote Abed from the TV show Community's withering summary (in the 5th season episode Basic Intergluteal Numismatics) in full as I think it's informative: "I see a man using a social disorder as a procedural device. Wait, wait, wait, I see another man. Mildly autistic super-detectives everywhere… basic cable, broadcast networks… pain, painful writing. It hurts." While Steven Moffat may have indulged in a little of this in Sherlock, I think he was more restrained in Doctor Who, and this luckily is something that other eras have not stooped to either. The nearest is probably Tommy in Planet of the Spiders, who has learning difficulties and this stops him from being controlled by the forces of evil. Tommy's probably more like the equally clichéd holy fool archetype, though, and anyway Tommy's plot is - at least in my opinion - carefully and respectfully done, and one of the best and most affecting subplots of the era, so I'm giving it a free pass. In general, as it always turns out to be, truth is more subdued but more interesting than fiction. The motivations for people in the real world to spread misery seem to be quite mundane compared to the extravagant excesses of some fictions. If awareness of this stops mental health issues being used in a rather tasteless way then it can only be a good thing.

In Summary:

I can hear you, but you ain't that great. Thanks for asking, though.