Doctor Who 9x12 Hell Bent
Dec. 9th, 2015 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenSeen it now. Well. Um. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that. It does not compare to the previous one; that was sheer genius. It was also much better than the lame stuff that RTD tended to give us as the second part of two-parters (e.g. The End of Time). But between those extremes I'm not really sure where I stand on it.
I feel as if Moffat cleverly side-stepped a heck of a lot of stuff.
1. Who is the hybrid? We don't know and it doesn't really matter. There were three potential "hybrids" and they all stood in the ruins of Gallifrey because it was the end of time. I like that. Never trust prophecies.
2. Were we going to have a repeat of the Donna-fail? No, gladly not. I liked that. For several reasons. (a) That Clara said "no way" and the Doctor listened; (b) that it was poetic justice for the Doctor wiping Donna's mind; (c) it actually is a better solution for the Doctor's memory to be erased than Clara's, because he is the one one who risked messing up the universe to get Clara back.
I also like how the Doctor kind of remembers her but not. Beautiful and sad at the same time.
I am actually kind of annoyed that Clara isn't dead (or only mostly-dead) and wandering around the universe with Ashildir in a stolen TARDIS. Why? Because it basically negates all the good stuff which happened in "Face the Raven"; it makes Clara's bravery in the face of death a momentary aberration. And as for Ashildir and Clara wandering about it a TARDIS which looks like an American Diner... no. I don't like Ashildir, and I don't like Clara when she's being selfish and irresponsible. The two of them together is a recipe for disaster. Selfish and irresponsible? Yes, because if Clara being not-dead is going to destroy the universe, then surely wandering around the universe doing dangerous things which might prevent her from going back to her death, is risking a paradox which will destroy the universe. I consider that to be irresponsible.
I really really really hope we never see either of them again. PLEASE.
Okay... there was some good stuff apart from that.
A. The increasing status of all the people trying to get the Doctor to leave the barn.
B. Rassilon throwing a temper tantrum and being kicked off Gallifrey.
Some have remarked that it was a pity that Timothy Dalton couldn't come back, and that it would have been better if the actor playing Rassilon had been more of a charismatic megalomaniac, but I think it was done quite well to have him shown to be a has-been, puffed up with his own importance.
C. The bit where the Doctor was asking the General what they knew about the Hybrid, and not letting him get away with weasel-words.
D. The good 'ol General regenerating into a just-as-sensible woman. Go General!
And a woman of colour, no less. (And indeed, the population of Gallifrey seemed to be more racially diverse than we've ever seen it before, at least compared to Old Who).
E. The High Priestess of Karn was also one of the few sensible people, and she got a lot of good lines.
And some quotes...
"The first thing you will notice about the Doctor of War is he's unarmed. For many, it's also the last."
Cool, if inaccurate. If I recall correctly, the War Doctor was armed.
"Do you know what they did to me? A confession dial is a ritual act of purification. It allows a dying Time Lord to face his demons and make his peace, before his mind is uploaded to the Matrix. It was never intended as a torture chamber for the living."
Ah, that explains it.
Ashildir's theory that "the hybrid" is the Doctor and Clara together...
"And you're willing to risk all of Time and Space because you miss her. One wonders what the pair of you will get up to next."
...has a point. Considering that only last season, the Doctor was trying to defy death on Clara's behalf, that time to save Danny for her.
"Missy. The Master. The lover of chaos, who wants you to love it, too. She's quite the matchmaker."
And here I thought that Ten's obsession with Rose was bad...
Which gets back to the question of why they decided to torture the Doctor first, rather than just asking him politely. And they were all "it's your own fault you were tortured for four billion years, you just had to answer the question!" But, why, indeed, did they not just ask?
Ah.
Because Rassilon ordered him to be tortured. I wonder if Rassilon's "concern" about The Hybrid was just a ruse, that he wanted an excuse to get the Doctor where he wanted him, tortured (or dead) because the Doctor was a threat to his ego, being one of the few people left who dared to defy him (judging from what was going on in "The End of Time", at least). This makes a kind of sick sense. Huh. Exile is too good for him.
Now, in "Heaven Sent", I had assumed that the Doctor was not telling them because
(a) it really was a secret too dangerous to tell (depending on why his captors wanted to know)
(b) he certainly wasn't going to tell people he was pissed off at
But now we find, in "Hell Bent", that he was not telling them because
(a) he knew it was the Time Lords
(b) he wanted them over a barrel so that they would bring Clara back for him
I mean, it was only a valuable secret because the Time Lords thought it was valuable (or Rassilon had convinced them it was valuable), when it really turns out not to be dangerous after all. I mean, not dangerous in the sense of "standing in the ruins of Gallifrey" since anyone could have stood in the ruins of Gallifrey if they lived long enough, without having caused any of the ruin in question.
Though the danger lay in the Doctor risking the universe to bring Clara back.... which he wouldn't have if he hadn't figured that the Time Lords were behind it, since without their technology, he wouldn't have been able to cook up this hair-brained scheme in the first place.
I think it was compounded by the torture of the previous episode, because if he hadn't been reliving the first day of mourning for Clara -- and then remembering all the repeats of it at the last minute of each cycle -- then he might not have become quite so obsessed with saving her. I mean, it could have reinforced his grief, magnified it, with all the repetition. I prefer this theory, because it means that hopefully it's an aberration, and he won't ever do something like that again.
Can the new companion be someone who is not SO SPESHUL, please?
And preferably not a white woman from 21st Century Britain.
I need a Capaldi icon. Pretty please make me one?
I feel as if Moffat cleverly side-stepped a heck of a lot of stuff.
1. Who is the hybrid? We don't know and it doesn't really matter. There were three potential "hybrids" and they all stood in the ruins of Gallifrey because it was the end of time. I like that. Never trust prophecies.
2. Were we going to have a repeat of the Donna-fail? No, gladly not. I liked that. For several reasons. (a) That Clara said "no way" and the Doctor listened; (b) that it was poetic justice for the Doctor wiping Donna's mind; (c) it actually is a better solution for the Doctor's memory to be erased than Clara's, because he is the one one who risked messing up the universe to get Clara back.
I also like how the Doctor kind of remembers her but not. Beautiful and sad at the same time.
I am actually kind of annoyed that Clara isn't dead (or only mostly-dead) and wandering around the universe with Ashildir in a stolen TARDIS. Why? Because it basically negates all the good stuff which happened in "Face the Raven"; it makes Clara's bravery in the face of death a momentary aberration. And as for Ashildir and Clara wandering about it a TARDIS which looks like an American Diner... no. I don't like Ashildir, and I don't like Clara when she's being selfish and irresponsible. The two of them together is a recipe for disaster. Selfish and irresponsible? Yes, because if Clara being not-dead is going to destroy the universe, then surely wandering around the universe doing dangerous things which might prevent her from going back to her death, is risking a paradox which will destroy the universe. I consider that to be irresponsible.
I really really really hope we never see either of them again. PLEASE.
Okay... there was some good stuff apart from that.
A. The increasing status of all the people trying to get the Doctor to leave the barn.
B. Rassilon throwing a temper tantrum and being kicked off Gallifrey.
Some have remarked that it was a pity that Timothy Dalton couldn't come back, and that it would have been better if the actor playing Rassilon had been more of a charismatic megalomaniac, but I think it was done quite well to have him shown to be a has-been, puffed up with his own importance.
C. The bit where the Doctor was asking the General what they knew about the Hybrid, and not letting him get away with weasel-words.
D. The good 'ol General regenerating into a just-as-sensible woman. Go General!
And a woman of colour, no less. (And indeed, the population of Gallifrey seemed to be more racially diverse than we've ever seen it before, at least compared to Old Who).
E. The High Priestess of Karn was also one of the few sensible people, and she got a lot of good lines.
And some quotes...
"The first thing you will notice about the Doctor of War is he's unarmed. For many, it's also the last."
Cool, if inaccurate. If I recall correctly, the War Doctor was armed.
"Do you know what they did to me? A confession dial is a ritual act of purification. It allows a dying Time Lord to face his demons and make his peace, before his mind is uploaded to the Matrix. It was never intended as a torture chamber for the living."
Ah, that explains it.
Ashildir's theory that "the hybrid" is the Doctor and Clara together...
"And you're willing to risk all of Time and Space because you miss her. One wonders what the pair of you will get up to next."
...has a point. Considering that only last season, the Doctor was trying to defy death on Clara's behalf, that time to save Danny for her.
"Missy. The Master. The lover of chaos, who wants you to love it, too. She's quite the matchmaker."
And here I thought that Ten's obsession with Rose was bad...
GENERAL [OC]: We could talk to him.
RASSILON [OC]: Words are his weapons.
GENERAL [OC]: When did they stop being ours?
Which gets back to the question of why they decided to torture the Doctor first, rather than just asking him politely. And they were all "it's your own fault you were tortured for four billion years, you just had to answer the question!" But, why, indeed, did they not just ask?
Ah.
Because Rassilon ordered him to be tortured. I wonder if Rassilon's "concern" about The Hybrid was just a ruse, that he wanted an excuse to get the Doctor where he wanted him, tortured (or dead) because the Doctor was a threat to his ego, being one of the few people left who dared to defy him (judging from what was going on in "The End of Time", at least). This makes a kind of sick sense. Huh. Exile is too good for him.
Now, in "Heaven Sent", I had assumed that the Doctor was not telling them because
(a) it really was a secret too dangerous to tell (depending on why his captors wanted to know)
(b) he certainly wasn't going to tell people he was pissed off at
But now we find, in "Hell Bent", that he was not telling them because
(a) he knew it was the Time Lords
(b) he wanted them over a barrel so that they would bring Clara back for him
I mean, it was only a valuable secret because the Time Lords thought it was valuable (or Rassilon had convinced them it was valuable), when it really turns out not to be dangerous after all. I mean, not dangerous in the sense of "standing in the ruins of Gallifrey" since anyone could have stood in the ruins of Gallifrey if they lived long enough, without having caused any of the ruin in question.
Though the danger lay in the Doctor risking the universe to bring Clara back.... which he wouldn't have if he hadn't figured that the Time Lords were behind it, since without their technology, he wouldn't have been able to cook up this hair-brained scheme in the first place.
I think it was compounded by the torture of the previous episode, because if he hadn't been reliving the first day of mourning for Clara -- and then remembering all the repeats of it at the last minute of each cycle -- then he might not have become quite so obsessed with saving her. I mean, it could have reinforced his grief, magnified it, with all the repetition. I prefer this theory, because it means that hopefully it's an aberration, and he won't ever do something like that again.
Can the new companion be someone who is not SO SPESHUL, please?
And preferably not a white woman from 21st Century Britain.
I need a Capaldi icon. Pretty please make me one?
