Doctor Who Series 9 Reviews - Heaven Sent (E11)

WARNING: Due to the nature of this episode, this review will contain spoilers - I recommend reading it after you watch the episode if you do not wish to be spoiled from any of the major plotlines present in this episode.

Following the emotional trauma that the titular time traveller suffered thanks to his former companion's stupidity in the strongest episode of the season at that point (Face The Raven), we the audience were left with the Doctor being teleported away by former recurring acquaintance Ashildr/Me (Maisie Williams) under the employment of a hidden force after watching former friend Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) inadvertently sacrificed herself to the Doctor trap. So now, we're left with Peter Capaldi being left to his own devices in his mourning state. With another experimental episode and with the return of a creative duo who this time last year contributed to arguably the worst episode I've ever seen, we have on our hands an episode which can either really work or really fail...

Arriving via teleport in a weird interchanging castle in the middle of nowhere, the Doctor quickly realises that he's in some form of trap, with only himself, a swarm of flies, countless upon countless of decaying skulls and a mysterious veiled creature who the Doctor decrees as being a realisation of one of his first fears. So of course, he explores and fights for a way out, discovering that he can briefly stop and scare away his foe by telling the truth despite still getting into numerous situations where he needs to enter his version of the Mind Palace from Sherlock (also known as "Jenna Coleman still has episodes in her contract; quick, insert her to the episode for cheap emotional drive!"). The focus of this test? Finding out why the Doctor left Gallifrey to begin with...

The biggest thing of note with this episode is of course Capaldi being mostly alone, save for his confrontations with the Veiled Creature and discussions with both fake Clara and random child, and as per usual he's on fine form. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary for the actor really, but seeing him hard at work with very little to bounce off does make for engaging viewing, with the majority of his dialogue being good enough to warrant such a performance. Sadly, while the set-up does make for a strong episode initially, the third act comes along and causes a huge standstill on what was otherwise a good, if a tad unremarkable, episode that succeeded in its experimental nature than this season's earlier instalment Sleep No More. 

Firstly, the very idea that the Doctor would be so willing to withhold his 'secret' to the point that he would die before later deciding to reveal it to himself after, you know, dying god-knows how many times (side note: how did the whole thing start? Was there a version where there were no skulls in the water or not note in the ashes?) does seem rather far-fetched; especially after considering the whole affair being an amalgamation of his own fears which he remarked on quite early on. Plus, there was a shovel on hand. Surely much easier to break into the material "400 times harder than diamond" - which also should have reset often just like the other rooms – if only to provoke a long set of flashbacks through the episode with minute differences which lends itself to said cliffhanger. And of course I'm going to discuss that mammoth of a "twist" in detail.

So Gallifrey is back following a two-year hiatus (unless you count that moment when Clara inexplicably turned up in the barn from Day of the Doctor with a child version of the Doctor in last year's Listen, but we don't talk about Listen so nyeh) and looks as grand as the last time we saw it...except now it's at risk of destruction again because the Doctor is apparently a part-Dalek part-Time Lord hybrid who ran away because he was scared and had recently saved his home world from devastation is the one who will cause its destruction. I'm not making this up. I wish I were making this up. The statements about there being no such thing as a Dalek hybrid (so thanks for wiping Helen Raynor's introductory two-parter Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks, a serial that isn't great but at least had merits) appear to be bogus and the idea of such a cliffhanger became apparently midway through the episode. Does it lend to some excitement for next week? Yes, so well done in reaching the only target that was needed, and making the entirety of what preceded it feel less like a necessary episode and more like filler for 'the big one'. What it doesn't lend is something smart or even stimulating enough for fans old and new to grab onto. 

The best way to describe Heaven Sent is as being an uneven amalgamation of Name of the Doctor, A Good Man Goes To War and Dark Water. Focused mostly on a plot which has interesting elements on hand but slight uneasiness in its confidence, it then decides to focus on the big twist for the last 10-15 minutes just so that it can make the wait for the next instalment all the more captivating, despite the lack of legitimacy it has. No, it's not as awful as the Missy reveal, but it isn't as exciting as the John Hurt reveal; it's the River Song reveal of predictability with a blend of the "Oh no" of the Missy/Master twist. And with the standard Steven Moffat plot holes on hand too, it leads to something which undermines the opening and instead creates an episode known only as "the one where Gallifrey is back". 5/10.