I didn't really have any issue with the Tennant victory lap, though some of the goodbyes were a bit odd... like the Doctor wanting to get Jack laid, just one last time. :lol But I especially loved his last scene with Rose. Like with Moffat and The Moment, it was a clever way of revisiting Rose without reopening her story at all.
Anyway - on to finishing S9 of my Capaldi marathon. Been moving at this more slowly than I expected; it's gonna be a race to get through my S10 picks between now and Christmas.
16. Heaven Sent
Everyone loves this episode, and its been analyzed to death, so I don't have much to say here other than to join the chorus of: it is a really good episode, and one of Capaldi's finest performances in the show (something I've said maybe at least a half-dozen times already this month!). A clever puzzle of a story that ends with an utterly triumphant final 10 minutes. The editing and Rachel Talalay's direction in this final sequence deserve special attention for how they escalate the rapid pace of the Doctor's eternal struggle -- the quickening pace of "60,000 years into the future", "nearly a million years into the future," "Over 2 billion years into the future" -- intercut with Capaldi's hand smashing against the wall, new fragments of the story being told, death and rebirth over and over again, and the music crescendos as the glass breaks, the veil dies, and Capaldi turns around with what has to be one of his most iconic lines of his run as the Doctor: "Personally, I think that's one hell of a bird."
Just a really strong effort all around, from Capaldi to Moffat to Talalay to Gold. And as an aside, the medieval production design of the castle and its rooms looks great, and instantly brought to mind memories of ICO.
17. Hell Bent
So while everyone loves Heaven Sent, the general opinion on its follow-up is a lot more negative. I think I was pretty lukewarm on it when it first aired, and while I don't feel *totally* enthusiastic about it now, I do enjoy it more -- particularly when seen as a grand finale to the Doctor and Clara's destructive relationship, a two-year dynamic that I hadn't really fully appreciated until my second go-around with these episodes this month.
I love the framing device of Clara's diner in this episode. I remember thinking when I first saw this that the Doctor had simply, deliberately, come across another stray fragment of Clara, as a way of seeing his dead friend again. Even knowing the twist this time, the reveal at the end with Clara and Me's TARDIS is still damn good; in fact, knowing the twist allows you to recontextualize all of Clara's dialogue in the diner, and enjoy her role in a new way: as humoring the Doctor's story the whole time they're talking.
The episode as a whole is definitely uneven. There's a lot of unnecessary Time Lord/Gallifrey fluff, particularly the Doctor staring down Rassilon and the soldiers from the barn. I don't know, they're not bad scenes and I like the symbolism of the Doctor making his stand against Gallifrey's leaders from the place where he once almost destroyed Gallifrey. It just feels superfluous to the overall plot. And then there's a lot of nonsense going on in the Matrix that feels like more padding to justify what Moffat ultimately wants out of this story: for the Doctor to find a way to save Clara, threatening the universe as a result, and then flying so far away he hopes to escape that problem just to give his friend a pulse again.
This is where the episode's strongest stuff comes in: the scenes at the end of the universe, with first the Doctor and Me, then the Doctor and Clara. The reveal that the hybrid isn't one half-human, half-Time Lord person but actually a pairing -- of one human and one Time Lord -- and that that pairing is the Doctor and Clara fits so well. Throughout Series 8, the Doctor and Clara have this toxic relationship where they seem to love and hate each other in equal measure, trying to one-up the other, lie to each other, do and say harmful things in a weird, warped show of mutual affection. By the end of Death in Heaven, the Doctor and Clara both lie about their own happiness for what they think is the other one's happiness. But they're both unhappy, really, and are desperate to travel together again by the end of Last Christmas.
In Series 9, their relationship is much more upbeat, because they're just genuinely excited to be friends and traveling buddies, without the self-inflicted harm of their S8 interactions. But Clara's side of the relationship is driven by a recklessness born out of grief over Danny's death, something that the Doctor seems to notice but doesn't make an effort to change -- he just begged Clara to come travel with him again, why would he want to discourage her from doing that very thing now? He can't be alone. That makes his grief and anger over her death in Face the Raven all the more potent: because he
could have stopped her from going this far, but just didn't.
CLARA: Well, if Danny Pink can do it, so can I.
DOCTOR: Do what?
CLARA: Die right. Die like I mean it. Face the raven.
DOCTOR: No. This, this isn't happening. This can't be happening.
CLARA: Maybe this is what I wanted. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is why I kept running. Maybe this is why I kept taking all those stupid risks. Kept pushing it.
DOCTOR: This is my fault.
CLARA: This is my choice.
DOCTOR: I let you get reckless.
CLARA: Why? Why shouldn't I be so reckless? You're reckless all the bloody time. Why can't I be like you?
DOCTOR: Clara, there's nothing special about me. I am nothing, but I'm less breakable than you. I should have taken care of you.
CLARA: I never asked you to.
DOCTOR: You shouldn't have to ask!
So now just as Clara pushed herself to destruction for the sake of being the Doctor's friend, the Doctor is threatening to push the universe into destruction for the sake of bringing his friend back. And there's your hybrid: two impossibly determined people who will do absolutely anything for the sake of the other one, damn the consequences, to either themselves or anyone -- literally everyone -- else.
When I first saw Hell Bent, the 'hybrid' struck me as another of those "the Doctor is actually evil in the eyes of other people" prophecies, that we saw with Eleven and the Pandorica or Ten and his Time War reputation; a redundant plot point, and not one that felt especially earned. Rewatching this now, it feels so much more powerful to me, though, as a metaphor of this entire Doctor-companion relationship that had been at the heart of S8 and 9. And as uneven, sluggish, and even sometimes dull that Hell Bent could be, the reveal of the Doctor and Clara as this space-and-time-ending hybrid creature -- where the only way to resolve it, the only way to stop them from harming each other and everyone else, the only way to make this relationship stop, was for one to completely forget the other -- works as a brilliant way to cap off their relationship.
Moffat had given Clara other 'outs' before, and I know some people think that they dragged it on too long by keeping her with the Doctor past Death in Heaven, then Last Christmas, then Face the Raven. But I think this is the strongest ending to Twelve and Clara, and it partly works as well as it does because we've seen all these other times where the Doctor and Clara fought against fate and themselves to stay together. But after moving heaven and earth for Clara one last time, they both realize they've finally gone too far and that this has to stop.
And so it finally did.
