So here we are. At the end of another series of Doctor Who. Series 9 has been fantastic so far, though some episodes were better than others. So is "Hell Bent" the epic conclusion to Series 9 that "Heaven Sent" set up?
Sorta.
Now, don't get me wrong. "Hell Bent" is still a fine episode, and is a satisfying ending to this series, but it tries to do too many things at once and revisits events that didn't really need revisiting.
"Hell Bent" begins with a rather good cold open. The Doctor's in Nevada and drives up to a diner in the middle of nowhere. Inside is Clara, who is the waitress, and she doesn't seem to recognize or have any memory of the Doctor. As he begins playing a song which he believes is called "Clara," she asks him to tell her the story behind it. This scene is returned to throughout the episode and ends up having a great payoff (which we'll get to).
The episode then goes back to some time after the Doctor returned to Gallifrey, and, boy, are those scenes stellar! The next 15 minutes has a real Western vibe about them. The Doctor doesn't speak a word as the Time Lords "welcome" him home. Capaldi, of course, nails it, telling us everything the Doctor's thinking without one line, just his expressions. And when he does speak, telling Rassilon to "get off my planet," Capaldi does it with subtle fury. Peter Capaldi is the Doctor, and Series 9 proved that even more than Series 8 did.
From that awesome first 20 minutes or so, things go a bit downhill as more and more plot points come back into play. Now Lord President, the Doctor uses an extractor chamber to remove Clara from the time just before her death, pretending that she has information on the Hybrid, which the Time Lords are terrified of. However, Clara isn't exactly "safe." Her physical processes have been frozen, and the General plans to return her to her death once they've finished talking to her. The Doctor swiftly turns on his fellow Time Lords and even shoots the General! What?!
There are two BIG things wrong with this picture. One, Clara didn't need to be "saved." She died a tragic, yet noble, death. Her presence here is kind of ruins that emotional scene from "Face the Raven." That was her last goodbye, and it was a good one! Why take away from it? That being said, Jenna Coleman gave an emotional performance in this episode, and her conversations with the Doctor about his 4 billion year "interrogation" and her fate were moving.
Second, the Doctor shot someone! Yes, the General did regenerate, but the Doctor shot him in cold blood all the same. And it's never addressed again, except for when the Doctor says shooting him was okay because "death is the Time Lord word for 'man flu'"or something. Doctor Who has made it clear in the past that the Doctor, especially the Twelfth, is completely against using guns. Remember how resistant and uneasy the Tenth Doctor was about using Wilf's gun in "The End of Time?" Where'd that Doctor go?
As the Doctor and Clara escape through the Matrix, the Doctor reveals he doesn't know much about the Hybrid, except that it definitely isn't Dalek/Time Lord. He pretended to in order to convince the Time Lords to save Clara. There's a great bit of writing that is not only a subtle twist, but also very Doctor-like. The two make blast off from Gallifrey by stealing another TARDIS.
And that ends the Gallifrey portion of the finale. Already. As I mentioned at the beginning of my review, my biggest gripe with "Hell Bent" is that it tries to do too many things at once. I was looking forward to an episode focusing on the Doctor's return to Gallifrey, but that only turned out to be a small portion of the episode, which was really disappointing to me. You'd think something as big as Gallifrey making a comeback would deserve all the attention in an episode, since the Doctor's guilt over "destroying"his people has played such an integral part over the course of the entire series. Maybe we'll see more in Series 10?
To escape the Time Lords, the Doctor travels to the end of the universe and finds Ashildr. The two have a long chat about who the Hybrid really is. Turns out, when the Doctor said, "The hybrid is me," he meant Ashildr (aka "Me.") Ashildr objects and says the Doctor could be the Hybrid. He is "half-human" after all. Ashildr also thinks the hybrid could be The Doctor AND Clara. Neither can live without the other and both have adapted bits of each other's personalities. The Doctor acknowledges he went too far saving Clara and plans to wipe her memory of him so that she'll be safe, but won't go looking for him.
At this point I was afraid we'd retread the circumstances behind Donna's departure, but we actually get a refreshing twist on it. Clara, over hearing the Doctor's plan. "reversed the polarity" of the neural block. If he uses it, it will erase his memories of her. Both emotionally agree one of them needs to forget the other and both activate the block. The Doctor draws the short straw and slowly falls unconscious, losing his memory of Clara.
We're then brought back to Nevada, where everyone realizes the waitress Clara we met earlier is the same Clara. It's an awesome payoff, as I mentioned earlier, and really went against what many, including myself, were expecting. Also, it turns out the Doctor still remembers his adventures with Clara, but just can't remember what she looks, sounds, or acts like. It's a bit of a tragic moment for both characters, especially when the Doctor claims he'd know Clara when he saw her, and Clara just looks devastated.
Another fun twist: the diner is the TARDIS the two stole from Gallifrey. Behind the Doctor's back, Clara enters the console room, with Ashildr waiting inside, and her TARDIS dematerializes around the Doctor, revealing his own TARDIS with Rigsy's memorial to Clara still on it. I thought the idea of leaving it completely ambiguous as to whether or not all these clues actually tip off the Doctor completely was a really good way to end the episode. He's not an idiot, obviously, but we don't know how strong the effects of the neural block were.
Though strange, Clara's ending works too. She's exploring the universe in her very own TARDIS. She still plans to return to Gallifrey to accept her fate (which does eventually happen, since we her die in "Face the Raven," of course), but she plans to take "the long way round" and she and Ashildr go off on some adventures in a flying American diner. Yes, you read that correctly.
Overall, "Hell Bent" is a perfectly fine ending to Series 9. It may have not been the finale I was expecting, and the emotional impact of Clara's death may have been copped-out on, but it's still an episode that'll leave you on the edge of your seat and keep your mind racing, which is what a good Doctor Who finale should do.
Other Thoughts:
- Can the Doctor still visit Gallifrey now? Unfortunately, that's never really answered before the end of the episode. When he does inevitably return again, he'll have a lot to answer for...
- "Amy and Rory. It was Amy and Rory!"
- "Hell Bent" had a ton of callbacks to earlier episodes of the reboot. I might write a separate post about the easter eggs/references in Series 9.
- I hope this isn't the last we see of Ashildr. I could see her becoming sort of like River Song where the Doctor encounters her again at different points in her timeline.
- How 'bout that new sonic screwdriver, eh? I did warm up to the sunglasses, and the idea behind them, over the past few episodes, but this new sonic looks so cool. And will probably cost another $40 to buy the toy version of it.
- The General regenerating into a woman was a funny twist, but felt a bit preachy.
- Is the velvet-y jacket going to be Capaldi's costume from now on? That would be awesome.
Rating: 8.0/10 pears
Doctor Who will return...in, like, two weeks for the Christmas special. River Song's back in what appears to be a completely bonkers episode. Should be great.
Noah
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