Cut off my nose and call me terrible, Whoovers, but I thought that was a rather rip-roaringly fun, sweet and spooky little Doctor Who adventure.

It was a typical Moffat number: take an ordinary little niggle (loneliness and the sense there's something under your bed) and proceed to scare the bejesus out of all viewers under (and more than likely over) the age of 10. The difference this time was the embracing of that fear; using it as a motivator, as a superpower.

Peter Capaldi's Doctor is starting to breathe now; the opening shot of him meditating atop a floating Tardis could also be read as him taking a moment to find his true inner Doctor.

His subsequent call to action also seemed rather appropriate in the light of reports some Americans have found the new Doctor's Glaswegian brogue a tad difficult to understand. How to fix that? Why, LISTEN of course.

Season 8, Episode 4: Listen

As a chronic talker-when-I'm-alone, I found the Doctor's rambling theorising about the evolution of hiding delightful, and can only hope I sound equally charming while composing to-do lists and rehearsing my Oscar acceptance speech.

The Doctor is convinced we are surrounded by mystery beings that avoid our sight yet manifest themselves in dreams and nightmares - so he decides to crash Clara's place and raid her time stream to prove it.

Trouble is, Clara's been out on a disastrous date with Hot Pink, making a welcome return in a suitably salmon-coloured shirt. The last thing she wants is be hauled away from her misery and three-panelled mirror, but Dozen insists (and a big hello to the chap who keeps commenting on how much he hates that nickname and how I should stop using it; didn't anybody ever teach you what happens when you demand people stop using a nickname? There's a reason my Dad still calls me "Bert").

The Doctor gets her to lend a hand - or two, actually - plunging both extremities into the console in a sort of gross, sort of sexy Tardis mind-meld. At a crucial moment, however, Clara is distracted by her ringing phone and thinks instead of Hot Pink, sending them back to his childhood home instead of hers.

As the Doctor goes off exploring, Clara realises the young lad waving from a window is none other than Rupert "Baby" Pink, Hot Pink's younger, more scaredy-cat self. Clara sneaks inside to find out what's scaring him out of his bed; he replies that there's something under it.

Clara is unflappable - it's just noise from the house and that sense of feeling someone behind you. She encourages Baby Pink to join her under the bed to see that there's no reason to be scared.

Then the bed sags into their faces and it's brown trousers time.

I thought the creature under the red blanket was the Doctor, particularly as this incarnation seems quite expert in "ghosting", that practice of buggering off super quietly while your interlocutor's attention is momentarily distracted. Don't bother inviting Dozen to your birthday party, is what I'm saying. Dude will be out of there long before you get to the cake.

Turns out the Doctor did ghost in, but only to sit in a corner looking for Wally in every book. However, there's no time to question exactly why he was reading in the dark (bad for your eyesight, my Mum always said), because the red blanket monster must be defeated.

This is where the Doctor delivers his lovely speech declaring Baby Pink's fear a superpower, one that helps all humans survive. Closing his eyes, Baby Pink promises not to look, allowing the red blanket monster to escape the room. The great sting in the tail is the Doctor's admission to Clara that yes, they may have just defeated a small child pretending to be a blanket monster. It is never revealed one way or another, which was a nice touch.

To ensure Baby Pink can sleep soundly, Clara sets up a guard of toy soldiers under his bed, including a Colonel without a gun that Baby Pink dubs "Dan the Soldier Man", foreshadowing his future as both a "Dan" and a "Soldier Man".

At this point, the episode shifts into a distinct second half, which begins with Clara going back to try to salvage her date, only to blub the name "Rupert" and freak Hot Pink right out. It then introduces his lookalike, Colonel Orson Pink, a spaceman from 100 years in the future who is somehow linked to Clara (oh gee, I wonder how, no really I've got no idea).

I was a little confused by the last-planet-at-the-end-of-the-universe business, mostly because it was another place the Tardis wasn't supposed to go to. Recent years indicate that the Tardis goes to a lot of places it shouldn't. In fact, surely the whole premise of Doctor Who is the Tardis going to places it shouldn't? But I suppose, fine, they needed a place where all the ghosts/shadows/villains would congregate.

Space Pink is there as an early time traveller, something that apparently runs in the family (I wonder what that means, hmmm). He's been alone for a long time, and isn't particularly keen to stick around for another night while the Doctor finds out once and for all what the monsters actually are (apart from Hide & Seek Universal Champions). Space Pink has even gone so far as to write "Don't Open the Door" on the airlock to remind himself that no matter how lonely he gets, opening it is just letting in trouble.

The Doctor, however, is a man possessed with encountering trouble. Ordering Clara into the Tardis for safety, he unlocks the door and seemingly confronts the villains. From all that's been described, they seem to be a mix of The Silents and the creepy invisible mimic monster from the claustrophobic Midnight, to which this episode is indebted. But thanks to a conveniently dodgy CCTV screen, all Clara can see is the Doctor struggling against the atmosphere pulling him outside.

After handing Clara his family's lucky charm of a soldier with no gun (oh gee where did that come from, blahhh), Space Pink pulls the Doctor back inside the Tardis. He's out cold, so it's up to Clara to pilot them out of there. But her mind-meld goes a bit skewiff, and she winds up in a barn in the 1750s.

Except it's not a barn in the 1750s, it's actually the highly advanced planet Gallifrey. Where people live in barns. No wonder they're constantly weeping.

Clara goes to get a closer look, but is forced under the bed when some adults come creeping in to tell the boy that he is both a) way too much of a crybaby and b) welcome inside with the other boys. They leave muttering that "he'll never be a Time Lord" and we all GASPED. It's the Doctor! As a little boy! A weepy, sensitive little boy! This explains so much! Oh, how his heart must ache from all the caring!

Some Whoovers have pointed out that technically the Tardis should not have been able to materialise on Gallifrey as it was time-locked during the events of The Day of the Doctor. Others have reassuredly said that it is only the Time War-era Gallifrey that is time-locked, feasibly allowing a passage through to The Doctor's childhood. I suggest we all get into our best cosplay and reconvene at the pub.

Anyway, as the groggy Junior Doctor goes to get out of bed, Clara grabs his leg and asks him to go back to sleep. She then delivers a powerful monologue about using fear as a superpower, a complete rip-off of the Doctor's earlier speech… oh wait, now I get it. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey. She even leaves the little toy soldier for luck ... oh wait, now I get it. Soldier without a gun. Not needing weapons to protect the universe. Flashback to John Hurt coming back to the same barn in The Day of the Doctor. It turns out Clara gave the Doctor his powers. Does that make her the yellow sun?

Now having lived with a chronic insomniac who has been known to throw pillows at invisible monsters in the room (I doubt he'll sleep ever again after this episode), I can't imagine anyone happily drifting back off to sleep after having your ankle grabbed like that. But then I think of my own capacity to sleep through storms/alarm clocks/hanky panky (a proud moment) and realise perhaps it is possible.

Mission done, the Tardis drops Colonel Pink back to his time stream then returns to allow Clara one last crack at patching things up with Hot Pink. It ends with a lip-lock, and we're all happy to see these two firmly in the pink.

Highlights

Capaldi had all the great lines, riffing on Clara's mirror ("Why don't you just turn your head?"), her make-up skills, her wide face and propensity to hug ("I'm against the hugging!"). There was also that lovely moment when he sent Baby Pink to sleep with one point of a finger on his forehead and boasted "Dad skills". Would love Dads out there to try that one and report back.

Also, the groundwork is definitely being laid for an adventure back to meet Hot Pink when he was a soldier. He carries guilt and heavy memories, and they're being referenced too often to not be explained down the track (he built 23 wells, you understand?). And we know what the Doctor thinks about guns.

Lowlights

There was a certain level of cheesiness about the resolution of the bad guys as the evolutionary product of our imagination. OK, perhaps not a Roquefort but certainly a mature cheddar. Also, was Baby Pink in an actual orphanage? The Doctor said the timeline was in the 90s, and surely state-run orphans' homes in western countries had been replaced with foster care by that point in history? Next to Bane's ridiculous mouth-breathing, the home for boys was the the stupidest thing about The Dark Knight Rises. Sorry, Bruce, but not even Gotham would have an orphanage any more.