In the eleventh episode of the ninth series of\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>, we discover where the Doctor was sent by the teleportation bracelet. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>.<\/p>\n
I really don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how to talk about this episode because I feel like it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trite. Like, I actually feel\u00c2\u00a0silly<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0sitting here and saying things that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure many of you and many other critics have already said. I know I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m being repetitive. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a strange thing to feel, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all! I want to be entertaining and I want to be insightful. Yet I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m certain, more than I have been for all of series 9, that this is one of the very best episodes of\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0ever. Flat-out ever. Hyperbole intended.<\/p>\n
How do I quantify how much I love this? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a fan of surrealism in fiction. The weirder, the better. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a fan of metaphorical stories that have layers of meaning, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Heaven Sent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is packed to the brim with images and dialogue that are full of depth\u00c2\u00a0without<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0feeling ridiculous. And I love that this is such a non-traditional episode of the show, one that eschews a narrative we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re used to so that we can get a story that\u00c2\u00a0matters<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Heaven Sent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is inherently about grief. Yes, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a larger plot at work here concerning the Time Lords and the Hybrids, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get to that later. I think I have to accept that Clara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death was\u00c2\u00a0real<\/i>, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. This whole episode features an ingenious method that allows us to see inside the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind. On one level, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great because now I can imagine how he repeatedly gets out of hair-raising situations. But the Mind TARDIS also demonstrates how sad the Doctor is and how unwilling he is to truly let go of Clara. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the one at the chalkboard, feeding questions into his consciousness, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a sign of how much the Doctor had come to rely on Clara. But what happens now that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gone? How can he let her go?<\/p>\n
Unbeknownst to whomever set up the castle puzzle, the entire experience helps him to move on. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think the Time Lords anticipated or intended that. An examination of that place reveals cruelty. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no other way to describe it. The Confession Dial was created specifically to torment the Doctor with his worst fears in order to compel him to confess his secrets. If he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, that creepy THING would steal his regenerative power, and there was only one way to survive: give up his life to power the transporter, which would deposit another copy of the Doctor, fresh from Clara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, into the castle.<\/p>\n
Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.<\/p>\n
And that cycle is so treacherous and scary because the idea of getting to wash one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s self clean over and over again might have been appealing to the Doctor, who lost someone he loved, and he could still remember her. Could remember her voice, the way she smelled, the way she cracked a joke when things got tense. She was\u00c2\u00a0fresh<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0in his memory every single time. Indeed, that might have been the exact thing that kept him going. He would die and a new copy would awake, and Clara would be that much closer to him all over again.<\/p>\n
The Doctor repeats this cycle for billions of years worth of time, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all out of\u00c2\u00a0spite<\/i>. A man after my own heart, first of all. But the invocation of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Shepherd Boy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is appropriate because the Doctor willingly chooses to suffer for billions of years just so he can take the long way home to Gallifrey. He refuses to give the Time Lords what they want. (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still operating under the assumption that the Time Lords are behind this.) He chips away at the Azbantium wall for BILLIONS OF YEARS rather than let his willpower die.<\/p>\n
To say that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s empowering or emotional just feels like an understatement. Moffat commits so wholly to this premise and its violence, its horror, that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult to convey just how immense it felt. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a love letter to the tenacity of the Doctor, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a chance for the show to demonstrate just how important Clara was to this man. And now Clara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gone. Holy shit, I have to accept that now, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t I?<\/p>\n
Wow. Suffice to say, I adored this episode. It is perfectly filmed and edited, and Peter Capaldi manages to carry the action for over fifty minutes while almost entirely by himself. And now, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re back to Gallifrey, and the Doctor has revealed the true identity of the Hybrid: Me. Yeah, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the Doctor; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0got<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to be Ashildur. Right??? She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s immortal, has been slowly gaining power, and was responsible for the Doctor being trapped by the Confession Dial.<\/p>\n
LET\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SEE IF I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M RIGHT.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Heaven Sent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded\u00c2\u00a0here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – I am now on Patreon<\/a><\/b>!!! MANY SURPRISES ARE IN STORE FOR YOU IF YOU SUPPORT ME<\/a>. In the eleventh episode of the ninth series of\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who, we discover where the Doctor was sent by the teleportation bracelet. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-5629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-who","tag-mark-watches-doctor-who"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– I\u00c2\u00a0will be at numerous conventions in 2016! Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches will be Death Note<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0Neon Genesis Evangelion<\/em>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"