Doctor Who - The Television Stories

Doctor Who - The Stories

QuickNav to a Season:

QuickNav to a Story:

Can You Hear Me?

The Previous Story
(Praxeus)

The Next Story
(The Haunting of Villa Diodati)

Season
Details

Synopsis

General
Information

The
Episodes

Audience
Appreciation

Archives

Notes

First and Last

Story Images

Quote of
the Story

Release
Information

In Print

Photo
Gallery

Synopsis

The Immortal Gods

From ancient Syria to present day Sheffield, and out into the wilds of space, something is stalking The Doctor and her friends.

As Graham, Yaz and Ryan return home to see friends and family, they find themselves haunted by very different experiences.

Who is the figure calling from beyond the stars for help, and why? And what are the fearsome Chagaskas terrorising Aleppo in 1380?

To find the answers, Team TARDIS embark on a mission that forces them to face their darkest fears.

Source: BBC Website

General Information

Season:

Thirty Eight (New Series 12)

Production Code:

12-7

Story Number:

293 (New Series: 137)

Episode Number:

858 (New Series: 162)

Number of Episodes:

Percentage of Episodes Held:

100%

Working Titles:

"Fingers" and "The Girl in the Orb"

Production Dates:

July - October 2019

Broadcast Date:

09 February 2020

Colour Status:

HD Colour

Studio:

BBC Wales (Roath Lock Studios, Cardiff)

Location:

Cardiff (including Pomeroy Street; Smithies Avenue, Penarth; Hoel Adam, Gelligaer Common; Spencer Street, Cathays and Vale College).

Writers:

Charlene James and Chris Chibnall

Director:

Emma Sullivan

Series Producer:

Nikki Wilson

Producer:

Alex Mercer

Executive Producers:

Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens

Executive Producer for the BBC:

Ben Irving

Assistant Directors:

Christian Jeffcoat, Jennifer Day and Lauren Pate

Script Supervisor:

Alana Marmion-Warr

Script Editors:

Fiona McAllister and Caroline Buckley (Assistant)

Series Script Editor:

Sheena Bucktowonsing

Editors:

Agnieszka Liggett, David S J Davies (Assistant), Hayley Williams (Assistant), Alastair Gray (Assistant VFX), Rebecca Trotman (Series) and Georgina Careless (VFX)

Colourist:

Jateen Patel

Head of Production:

Jacquie Glanville and Radford Neville

Production Executive:

Tracie Simpson

Production Manager:

Delmi Thomas

Production Assistant:

Ariana Scott

Post Production Producer:

Ceres Doyle

Location Manager:

Gareth Roberts

Supervising Location Manager:

Iwan Roberts

Production Designer:

Dafydd Shurmer

Director of Photography:

Ed Moore

Casting Director:

Andy Pryor CDG

Line Producer:

Steffan Morris

Costume Designer:

Ray Holman

Make-Up Designer:

Claire Pritchard-Jones

Cameramen:

Dan Patounas (Assistant), Evangeline Davies (Assistant), Gwilym Jenner (Assistant), Scott Waller (Assistant) and Mark McQuoid (Operator)

Visual Effects:

DNEG

Additional VFX:

BBC Wales Graphics, Ben Pickles and The 2D Workshop

Special Effects:

Real SFX

Prosthetics:

Suzi Battersby (Maker)

Prosthetics Designer:

Ray Holman

Incidental Music:

Segun Akinola

Sound Designer:

Harry Barnes

Sound Recordist:

Deian Llyr Humphreys

Dubbing Mixers:

Howard Bargroff and Kiran Marshall

Music Recorded By:

Olga Fitzroy

Music Mixed By:

Goetz Botzenhardt

Title Sequence:

Ben Pickles

Title Music:

Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Arranged by Segun Akinola

Number of Doctors:

The Doctor:

Jodie Whittaker (The Thirteenth Doctor)

Number of Companions:

The Companions:

Bradley Walsh (Graham O'Brien), Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair) and Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan)

Guest Cast:

Sharon D Clarke (Grace O'Brien)

Additional Cast:

Ian Gelder (Zellin), Buom Tihngang (Tibo), Clare-Hope Ashitey (Rakaya), Bhavnisha Parmar (Sonya Khan), Aruhan Galieva (Tahira), Sirine Saba (Maryam), Nasreen Hussain (Anita Patel), Everal A Walsh (Gabriel), Michael Keane (Fred), Amanda Liberman (Mum), Willie Jonah (Old Tibo), Anthony Taylor (Andrew)

Setting:

Aleppo, Syria (1380); Sheffield (2020); Zellin's spaceship (far future)

Villains:

Rakaya and Zellin

The Episodes

No.	Episodes	Broadcast (UK)	Duration	Viewers (Millions)	In Archive
858	Can You Hear Me?	09 February 2020	49'15"	4.9	Yes

Total Duration

49 Minutes

Audience Appreciation

Average Viewers (Millions)

4.9

Doctor Who Magazine Poll (2023)

Position = 17 out of 24

Archives

This story exists and is held in the BBC's Film and Videotape Library.

Notes

"Can You Hear Me?" is the sixth story of Season Thirty Eight (New Series 12) and was written by Charlene James and Chris Chibnall, and directed by Emma Sullivan. This is Charlene James' first Doctor Who story.

The first draft of co-writer Charlene James’ scripts bears the twin titles "Fingers" and "The Girl in the Orb" - both covered the same themes of nightmares and depression as the finished "Can You Hear Me?".

Co-writer and Executive Producer Chris Chibnall has revealed that this story ‘Has a deliberately different tone, pace, atmosphere and purpose to the other episodes this series. It’s a chance to check in, in greater depth, with where Ryan, Yaz and Graham are in their journeys with The Doctor’.

This story sees The Doctor and her three travelling companions travelling from ancient Syria to Sheffield and to the far reaches of the universe. It has the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) and her companions Graham O'Brien (Bradley Walsh), Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole), and Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) being stalked by a strange being who forces them to confront their worst fears.

Charlene James is an award-winning writer whose television work includes A Discovery of Witches and Snatches: Moments from Women's Lives (both screened in 2018). This is her first Doctor Who script.

Emma Sullivan directed the fourth recording block containing this story and the next story, "The Haunting of Villa Diodati". This is her first Doctor Who story. Her directing credits include BBC drama favourites such as Call the Midwife, Silent Witness and Holby City.

Ian Gelder portrays Zellin in this story. He previously played the part of Dekker in the Torchwood story "Children of Earth". He also voiced the Remnants in "The Ghost Monument".

Sharon D. Clarke reprises her role as Graham's late wife, Grace - appearing in his nightmare scene.

The Doctor’s nightmare is shown to be another vision of The Timeless Child, last mentioned in "Spyfall" - the opening story of this season.

The Dregs, from "Orphan 55", made a cameo appearance during Ryan's dream sequence. Ryan also witnesses Earth surrounded by flames in his nightmare. Yasmin’s nightmare sees a younger version of herself having run off and on a lonely road. While Graham’s nightmare has him waking up in a hospital where he sees his late wife, Grace, as a nurse who tells him that his cancer has returned.

Graham’s late wife, ‘Grace’, was last seen in "It Takes You Away" when she is heard telling Graham that his cancer has returned. In "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" Graham tells The Doctor about being in remission from cancer, and how Grace was his nurse.

Zellin and Rakaya identify themselves as immortals and gods. Zellin alludes to The Eternals and The Guardians of Time, and specifically references The Celestial Toymaker (from the 1966 First Doctor story "The Celestial Toymaker"). The Guardians were seen or referenced in multiple stories, in the Fourth Doctor's and the Fifth Doctor eras, and the Eternals (from the 1983 Fifth Doctor story "Enlightenment"). The Seventh Doctor also previously met two immortals who enjoyed playing with people in the Virgin Books' The New Adventures novel "Falls the Shadow" written by Daniel O'Mahony.

The gods refer to human lives as ‘ephemeral’ (see "Enlightenment").

Zellin is capable of detaching his fingers, which can work separately. The Doctor treats the finger she takes over as a dog.

Zellin's hand effect was achieved via a combination of a fingerless prosthetic hand and digital effects.

The lighting in the TARDIS turns off and the glassy hexagon roundels turn red when it is in danger.

The TARDIS cannot register the fur strands, from the creature that terrorises Tahira that The Doctor tries to analyse, because they are not in the database nor can it see them as they do not exist nor will ever exist.

To locate the planet, that Graham had a vision of, The Doctor hooks Graham up to the telepathic circuits, which is now a head-piece connected to the console.

Graham's vision leads the TARDIS into deep space in the distant future, half a galaxy past the Geskon Straits. Graham notices the two planets from his vision in the process of an extinction event.

Graham jokes that The Doctor could just give him an ‘A to Z of the universe’, and he would know where they should travel, before saying he has no idea.

Yasmin is heard telling Sonya that she has been to California ("Spyfall"), Gloucester ("Fugitive of the Judoon"), Madagascar and Hong Kong ("Praxeus").

Sonya recalls hearing about the recent events in Gloucester, and that her dad thought that the Russians were responsible ("Fugitive of the Judoon").

This story extended on the ongoing story arc of The Timeless Child a bit further.

This marks the first Doctor Who television story to have a question mark in its title.

This story has a pre-title sequence - the first for this season since the two-part opening story "Spyfall".

This story features an animated segment during Rakaya's tale of her and Zellin's coming-to-be up until her imprisonment. It was created by Nina Chakrabarti and DNEG. This is the first story to include in-story animation since the 2006 Tenth Doctor story "Fear Her".

At the end of this story we witness a flashback to three years earlier when a younger Yasmin was persuaded by a police officer to return home. She was getting bullied and had low grades at the time. The pair made a deal about owing the other 50 pounds or 50 pence.

In the TARDIS we see Ryan talking to Yasmin about being unsure about continuing travelling with The Doctor, worrying about missing bits of his friends' lives and not being there for them.

It has been reported that fans were impressed by this story’s way of tackling mental health issues, however voiced disdain towards The Doctor's dismissal of Graham's fears about his cancer returning, saying it was out of character. The BBC Complaints department later addressed this by saying that the scene's intention was to show The Doctor struggling to deal with the subject matter properly, thus not being able to find the right words.

First and Last

The Firsts:

The first Doctor Who story to be written by Charlene James.

The first Doctor Who story to be directed by Emma Sullivan.

The first Doctor Who television story to have a question mark in its title.

The first story to include in-story animation since the 2006 Tenth Doctor story "Fear Her".

Story Images

Show Text

Tahira

The Doctor

Yasmin

The Doctor is Attacked

Graham and The Doctor

Zellin

Rakaya

Grace

Earth is Threatened

The Doctor

The Immortal Gods are Defeated

Helping a Young Yasmin

Quote of the Story

'Two creatures from another realm descended onto a universe, where they were worshipped as gods. They saw two planets and laid a wager. Which of them could bring a planet to destruction first? The gods set to their game, sowing chaos through the populations. Wars began, between species, then between the planets themselves. The gods delighted in the carnage. It passed the time. But slowly, the inhabitants of the world grew wise, realised what these creatures had done to them. They unified and fought back against their so-called gods. They set their own planets into a collision course and at the heart of the collision, they laid a prison. They trapped one creature between the planets for eternity. The other fled, vowing to return to release his eternal partner.'

Rakaya

Release Information

Format	Title	Release Date (UK)	Code Number	Cover Art	Remarks
DVD	The Complete Twelfth Series Box Set	April 2020	BBCDVD 4418	Photo-montage	DVD boxed set containing 8 stories from New Series 12 along with the 2019 New Year Special "Resolution" which originally had a separate release from New Series 11
Blu-Ray	The Complete Twelfth Series Box Set	April 2020	BBCBD 0495	Photo-montage	Blu-Ray boxed set containing 8 stories from New Series 12 along with the 2019 New Year Special "Resolution" which originally had a separate release from New Series 11
Blu-Ray	The Complete Twelfth Series Box Set (Limited Edition Steelbook)	April 2020	BBCBD 0498	Photo-montage	Limited Edition Blu-Ray Steelbook boxed set containing 8 stories from New Series 12 along with the 2019 New Year Special "Resolution" which originally had a separate release from New Series 11
CD	Original Television Soundtrack - Series 12	April 2020		Photo-montage	Music by Segun Akinola

In Print

No Book Release

Doctor Who Magazine - Preview	Issue 548 (Released: March 2020)
Doctor Who Magazine - After Image	Issue 550 (Released: May 2020)

Photo Gallery

The Doctor and Companions

The Thirteenth Doctor

Graham O'Brien

Ryan Sinclair

Yasmin Khan

On Release

Complete Series DVD Box Set

VIDEO

Complete Series Blu-Ray Box Set

VIDEO

Complete Series Blu-Ray Limited Edition Steelbook

VIDEO

Original Television Soundtrack Cover

AUDIO

Magazines

Doctor Who Magazine - Preview: Issue 548

Doctor Who Magazine - After Image: Issue 550

Who's Who

Who Me

Episodes of the
Thirteenth Doctor

Season 38 (New Series 12)

References

Doctor Who is the copyright of the British Broadcasting Corporation. No infringements intended. This site is not endorsed by the BBC or any representatives thereof.