Doctor Who 9.11 Heaven Sent
Nov. 29th, 2015 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe one wherein the Moff shows he REALLY trusts his leading actor. A lot.
Seriously, if you are ready to do an entire episode in which there's just one character present, save for the last few seconds, you need a leading man or leading lady able to pull that off. Luckily, and not surprising for anyone who has seen him make scenes with just him talking to a box of glass into supertense character scenes in Children of Earth, Peter Capaldi can deliver.
Mind you: it's not one of those episodes you can rewatch a lot, though it doesn't just live from the mystery. (Cue yours truly smugly declaring she predicted the solution in the last episode review.) It's also an episode dealing with grief, the Doctor's grief for Clara, and since at least part of the audience grieving with him, I think it was wise of Moffat to provide a narrative that allows for this before moving on to the spectacle that usually makes a Doctor Who finale. The Doctor talks to Clara - the Clara in his head, the Clara he lost, all the Claras - throughout the episode, and the way he imagines her replies brings to mind last episode's Listen while also recalling Clara the teacher. "Always the teacher", as the Doctor says. By the end, billions of years later (literally) and yet just one day later (also literally), he's stopped with the bargaining stage of grief. We'll see where he's next week.
(Incidentally, I loved the show-off sequence where we get to see that the random acts of throwing petals and then the chair out of the window were in fact preparation for his escape (attempt).)
This was also one hardcore horror episode without any gore, though there are lots of skulls, the horror deriving from the situation, when Doctor and audience realise he's been living through the same day for thousands of years (with billions more to come), always culminating in his killing himself by burning himself alive so he can restart the cycle. (Death by burning alive: how Gallifrey went, the first time around. Also one of the Master's deaths. Ask Five.) And fairy tale loving Moffat only slightly makes it better by letting there be purpose to the torture/madness, i.e. the Doctor is actually using the bird versus stone method (and succeeds, after an unimaginable time).
At the end, he's home, not in the TARDIS, but Gallifrey. The long way around, as he said at the end of the Anniversary special. I guessed last week it would be the Time Lords as Ashildr's mysterious employers/blackmailers, and what happened through the episode made me even more sure, because the prison for one, the endless time loop, that's very them. (Ask Rassilon, who was hinted at as a nasty piece of work long before Timothy Dalton played him; The Five Doctors provide an Old Who example.) As to why they do this to the Doctor after he managed to NOT destroy Gallifrey but save it the second time around is anyone's guess, but presumably it's another timey wimey thing, i.e. they knew he'd go hybrid on them so they tried to prevent it so they caused it. (Sidenote: I'm still not sure the Doctor actually is the hybrid, though, though I'm sure he thinks he is and always was afraid he would be.) But like I said last week, I knew Moffat would pull something like this IF he brought back Gallifrey and the Time Lords, and that was on the table since the anniversary special. He had to, in order to make the Doctor an outcast/renegade again and depower him, going from the last Time Lord (but one) to on the run from a whole lot of other Time Lords, all more powerful (presumably) next season.
So the sight of those orange skies was no surprise to me, but it still had a strong emotional effect. And I can't wait to see the solution this sets up.
Seriously, if you are ready to do an entire episode in which there's just one character present, save for the last few seconds, you need a leading man or leading lady able to pull that off. Luckily, and not surprising for anyone who has seen him make scenes with just him talking to a box of glass into supertense character scenes in Children of Earth, Peter Capaldi can deliver.
Mind you: it's not one of those episodes you can rewatch a lot, though it doesn't just live from the mystery. (Cue yours truly smugly declaring she predicted the solution in the last episode review.) It's also an episode dealing with grief, the Doctor's grief for Clara, and since at least part of the audience grieving with him, I think it was wise of Moffat to provide a narrative that allows for this before moving on to the spectacle that usually makes a Doctor Who finale. The Doctor talks to Clara - the Clara in his head, the Clara he lost, all the Claras - throughout the episode, and the way he imagines her replies brings to mind last episode's Listen while also recalling Clara the teacher. "Always the teacher", as the Doctor says. By the end, billions of years later (literally) and yet just one day later (also literally), he's stopped with the bargaining stage of grief. We'll see where he's next week.
(Incidentally, I loved the show-off sequence where we get to see that the random acts of throwing petals and then the chair out of the window were in fact preparation for his escape (attempt).)
This was also one hardcore horror episode without any gore, though there are lots of skulls, the horror deriving from the situation, when Doctor and audience realise he's been living through the same day for thousands of years (with billions more to come), always culminating in his killing himself by burning himself alive so he can restart the cycle. (Death by burning alive: how Gallifrey went, the first time around. Also one of the Master's deaths. Ask Five.) And fairy tale loving Moffat only slightly makes it better by letting there be purpose to the torture/madness, i.e. the Doctor is actually using the bird versus stone method (and succeeds, after an unimaginable time).
At the end, he's home, not in the TARDIS, but Gallifrey. The long way around, as he said at the end of the Anniversary special. I guessed last week it would be the Time Lords as Ashildr's mysterious employers/blackmailers, and what happened through the episode made me even more sure, because the prison for one, the endless time loop, that's very them. (Ask Rassilon, who was hinted at as a nasty piece of work long before Timothy Dalton played him; The Five Doctors provide an Old Who example.) As to why they do this to the Doctor after he managed to NOT destroy Gallifrey but save it the second time around is anyone's guess, but presumably it's another timey wimey thing, i.e. they knew he'd go hybrid on them so they tried to prevent it so they caused it. (Sidenote: I'm still not sure the Doctor actually is the hybrid, though, though I'm sure he thinks he is and always was afraid he would be.) But like I said last week, I knew Moffat would pull something like this IF he brought back Gallifrey and the Time Lords, and that was on the table since the anniversary special. He had to, in order to make the Doctor an outcast/renegade again and depower him, going from the last Time Lord (but one) to on the run from a whole lot of other Time Lords, all more powerful (presumably) next season.
So the sight of those orange skies was no surprise to me, but it still had a strong emotional effect. And I can't wait to see the solution this sets up.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-29 01:46 pm (UTC)I think there is a chance that The Doctor isn't The Hybrid. There may well be a reason why Ashildar has been calling herself "Me" that is storyline related. I wouldn't be horribly shocked if she turns out the be the true Hybrid, and the statement isn't "The Hybrid is me" becomes "The Hybrid is Me (aka Ashildar)".
no subject
Date: 2015-11-29 01:57 pm (UTC)I'm not sure how she's supposed to take over Gallifrey, though...
no subject
Date: 2015-11-30 05:28 am (UTC)I was thinking, last week, that she was acting in a rather Doctorish way:
"Give us the [thing you really ought not to give us], or we will kill your friends!"
"No, no, don't kill my friends! [because I can save the world later]"
But it would also be Doctorish to pretend to be caught in the other side's trap in order to catch them in her own trap.
Also, having re-read the opening dialogue of The Witch's Familiar: