New Who Review for Heaven Sent
Posted By Kathleen David on November 30, 2015
This is a bottle episode but it is probably one the cleverest bottle episodes in the history of Doctor Who.
The Doctor has lost just about everything that is important to him. Why not take it a step further and lose himself in the process?
The fact that Peter Capaldi is NOT going to be nominated for an Emmy for this performance is beyond a crying shame. I knew he was a good actor but I didn’t know until this episode how splendidly good he was. Wow.
The writing helped a lot. This was Moffat on his game and bringing that wonder that only he can bring to the table. This is the sort of writing that he excels at and it sang in this episode. Not a word wasted. Not an image out of place.
And kudos to Rachel Talany, it looked beautiful. I did a count of the sets and the redressing of the sets. They didn’t give her much to work with but she used every inch of what she had.
I was very impressed with it all. My few niggling concerns are behind the cut because they do spoil certain things that I loved finding out during the show.
Capaldi did go up the favorite Doctor Ladder a rung or so.
I am grateful for all the love and care along with blood, sweat, and tears that went into this episode.
They used Capaldi’s life mask to make the skulls that the Doctor found. So each skull was based on the actor’s actual skull. I hope, sort of, that he got to take one home.
My comment on facebook after seeing the episode was
You got Sherlock in my Doctor Who! You got Doctor Who in my Sherlock! I think someone might have forgotten which show he was writing. Either way, loved the ending although we did figure some things out early. No spoilers for those who will be watching later.
And I was not the only one to comment in this way. Using the TARDIS as the equivalent of the mind palace took me out of the show for a moment especially after the Doctor commented on it. But it sucked me back in.
We did figure out the end game pretty early on and that he was stuck in a loop that was going to repeat until something changed. Trapping the Doctor in a time loop would probably be the only way to keep him out of events for a while but it is not permanent.
Again I have to give lots of props to Capaldi for an acting job that was mesmerizing and amazing to watch.
I also liked how we started on day one and when through the events that were repeated and then it sped up until all that time had passed. Also clever that he could tell that time had passed because of the stars.
So did he kill himself all those times to solve the problem knowing that the next time he would not remember any of it. The only thing that would not reset is the glass wall that showed his progress.
I do remember the folk tale that Moffat referred to.
I am not sure if I am happy he is back on Gallifrey but I knew we were going there eventually and, considering what happened to Clara, it is probably the best place for him to go.
Looking forward to the next episode, which is the last one until the Christmas Special.
The Doctor dying each time he goes through the loop reminds me of Richard Burton’s use of the “suicide express” 777 times in the Riverworld novels. Burton deliberately killed himself so he would be reborn further along the river. I guess walking was too much effort for him. 🙂 The Doctor, on the other hand, let himself be killed knowing his next iteration would make slightly more progress through the diamond-like wall.
In “The Day of the Doctor”, we see all the Doctors, including Capaldi’s, come together to help save Gallifrey. This must have already happened from the Twelfth Doctor’s POV, because given that the Time Lords must have had some involvement in this trap which indirectly caused Clara’s death (Riggsy’s predicament being the bait), he’s not likely to give them any help in the future. It’s not just Ashildr who shouldn’t make the Doctor angry; the Time Lords shouldn’t, either. They should know best of all that they won’t like the Doctor when he’s angry.
I suppose it’s possible the Time Lords are innocent. Maybe the Sontarans finally succeeded in their plan to invade Gallifrey. 🙂
When the Doctor first arrived at the “castle”, the stars would have looked normal for the present day and he would have seen no skulls in the lake. So what prompted him to crawl back up to the teleport room and activate the re-set teleporter? Did he realize the only way to break through the diamond-like substance (short of “confessing” the truth about the Hybrid) was to create a time loop of sorts? Probably.
The last thing the Doctor did was to scrawl “bird” in the dirt before his body turned to ash, so it may be that he thought of the bird story at that final moment and hoped that later iterations, upon seeing it, would figure out the significance. Only they would tell (at least part of) the story to the shrouded figure before being killed. Then they’d scrawl the word as a prompt to the next iteration, who would realize the significance while punching at the diamond-like substance, etc.
In one “TARDIS” scene, “Clara” insists that the Doctor has to win, when he’s asking why he can’t lose for once. I think, in retrospect, the Doctor has figured out at this point (or strongly suspects) that he’s in a loop of sorts.
With regard to the loop, the only things we can be sure of is the Doctor discovers the skulls in the lake; notices the stars are right for X number of years in the future (and that he didn’t time travel); punches at the diamond-like substance; crawls up to the teleport room; resets the system and scrawls the word “bird” in the dirt. Everything else he does could be different with each iteration. Maybe he goes right down a corridor in some iterations and left in others. Since he doesn’t actually remember going through these loops (just figures it out from the skulls and stars), he’d have no way of knowing.
I must have missed the “mind palace” reference. When I first saw the Doctor in the TARDIS, I thought everything we’d seen up to that point might have been flashback, but it soon became apparent that wasn’t the case. Instead, it seemed to me that the “TARDIS” scenes represented the Doctor’s thought processes; an internal monologue.
In fact, even if the Doctor himself did use the phrase “mind palace”, his actions in the “TARDIS” don’t match what one does in a mind palace (at least as I understand it from watching Sherlock. As I understand it, someone “goes into” a “mind palace” to retrieve some specific piece of information “filed away” in his or her memory. The Doctor wasn’t doing that (unless I missed something). He was trying to figure out what it all means and what to do next. Thus his interior monologue represented by “Clara” writing statements on the blackboard, either in response to his questions or to prompt him to draw a conclusion.
This is definitely an episode that calls for repeat viewings.
Rick.
Indeed, Peter Capaldi deserves an award for that episode. I don’t know why he can’t receive an Emmy, but surely, a BAFTA wouldn’t be too much to ask.
Theory about the Clara portrait : the Doctor painted it himself. Not the first time he did that (“Bells of St. John”, anyone ?).
There’s also a nice line that changes on rewatching. During the time when he says “Can’t I just lose?” he also says (modulo my memory) “I remember every time.”
Interesting story, but too many holes (why does the painting age? why doesn’t the diamond wall reset, etc.) Still, better than anything Davies ever wrote.