S09.E11: Heaven Sent

[bloodstar]

A few things,

 

1) previously.tv's editor for posting is horribly confusing.

 

2) The episode took place inside the confession dial (puzzlebox) and as such was a self contained system.

 

3) Time in the puzzlebox could pass without relation to what reality was doing.

 

4) There were two seperate time threads. For the puzzlebox, time passed linearly for billions of years. For *each* iteration of The Doctor, each time he stepped out of the teleport chamber, only a split second had passed since he was teleported into the puzzlebox. So for the doctor, Each iteration only lived for a day or two. And for the final iteration, Only a day or two had passed (to him) since Clara died, and he was teleported into the puzlebox.

 

5) Of interest, because the confession dial is The Doctor's *and* is Time Lord technology, all bets are off for how it works. For example, each room reset, which means that the clothing that was on the chair would also have reset. So it's very reasonable to think that the first doctor through wouldn't have to have walked around naked. Same thing with the phrase 'bird' in the dust/dirt. The wall was the gateway, so it wouldn't reset.

 

6) But, The Doctor would know he's been trapped in the puzzlebox for billions of years, So, The Doctor saw Clara die a day or two ago, and also realizes that he has died literally billions of times inside this puzzlebox, even if he can't remember all the deaths. He's going to be a hot mess trying to come to terms with that.

 

7) I Just don't understand people who hate a show so much, and keep watching it, just to post about how much they hated it.

 

8) I think the episode was intense, very well thought out and planned, and my only quibble with it was the musical score overwhelmed the dialogue at times and made it difficult to hear what Capaldi was saying.

[forum4idiots]

Isn't that usually how TV shows work? The current episode is the person in their present, and in the episodes that came before it they are their "past selves"? I mean occasionally shows do wacky stuff with time but "Character X in earlier episodes was Past Character X" is the normal mode of storytelling, so I'm not sure why this seems unexpected to you?

where was it said it was unexpected.  i was asking clarification that if misty already got the disc, that the doctor already died and was already looping.

[forum4idiots]

from the preview, who's willing to bet that it's the master who is regenerating....

[hnygrl]

HOLY CRAP that was good!!!! DAMN Moffatt can WRITE!!! I was amazed, deligheted, surprised, even though I figured it out as the last 10 minutes unfolded.

That was by far the best episode of Doctor Who I've ever seen, including Day of the Doctor.

Well done, show. Well effing done. My heart is still beating fast....SO GOOD!!!!!!!

 

What with all the phrophecy and the messing with little time lords' minds, the hybrid thing could literally be anything. I'm really curious to see what it is. Well done, show. Well done.

[MarkHB]

Anyway, the episode was great. I was actually really proud of myself, I figured out that he was stuck in a loop early on. When his own clothes were waiting for him, I realized it was just from his previous attempt. Other clues led me to believe he was leaving messages for himself. And then they quite clearly showed that the skull matched Capaldi's face and fell in with the others. I've read Steven King's Dark Tower series, and -- spoiler alert -- in the last book there's a similar big reveal. So I was "primed" for this kind of story, I guess.

I was thinking The Dark Tower as well!  I won't elaborate here because I don't want to spoil a series that YOU SHOULD ALL JUST STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND READ RIGHT NOW!

 

Why no trailer for next week on BBC America?  During the credit there was a little pop up saying "stay tuned for a trailer for next week's finale".  But then the Last Kingdom immediately started.  And I'm not going to watch that show just to wait for the trailer to randomly appear.  I'm sure BBC America will play the trailer incessantly over the week so I'll catch it eventually.

 

BBCA has done a thing where the trailer for the next episode has been buried in The Last Kingdom several times (at least) this season.

[rainbowrockgal]

I really hate that the previews are in The Last Kingdom.  I don't/won't watch that show to see them. I try to remain unspoiled for each episode, but I like to see the previews at the end of the show. Sux how they are trying to pull us into another show...

[Kalliste]

My suggestion for those wanting to see the trailer(s) of the next episode and it's not shown locally, just check out the Doctor Who YouTube channel, it has all the trailers plus other stuff.Hopefully not geolocked, I can view it from Australia though.

 

I liked this one, I much prefer Capaldi without a companion weighing him down. I'd love to see some more solo episodes with him. 

 

I thought it was odd that he mentioned how the Dalek's wouldn't be a hybrid with anyone, except that they did just that earlier in the show.

[tankgirl73]

Additional thoughts on rewatch:

 

He *does* remember the previous iterations, but only at the end.  When he encounters the wall, and thinks 'bird?' there's a whooshy closeup, that's the moment that he figures out what's going on. He pops into his Mind Palace Tardis and not only says "I remember" but "this is always the moment where I remember". He has a freakout which on first viewing was a bit puzzling -- not too odd, as a viewer we just assume that he knows something terrible is coming and we'll find out soon what it is, and we assume that his "I can't keep doing this" and "why is it always me" and "why can't I just lose" are *general* comments about his life and actions.

 

But no, it's specific. The episode has his monologuing "nobody remembers being born, and nobody remembers dying", and then he says "I remember, I remember everything, I remember every time." Once he makes that connection, somehow he remembers every single other time that he died. He remembers dying. And he despairs, he can't keep doing this.

 

And here is something very potent and powerful, and also very puzzling. He could get out of the puzzle at any time, I think. Every time he confesses, the "combination lock" spins and opens the next circle of hell, he is in essence 'solving' the puzzle box by using his confessions as keys. The system is designed for him to confess his way out of it. But he stubbornly refuses to give up that last confession, and chooses instead to break the lock by force rather than with a key. Even it takes 2 billion years. That is potent and powerful.

 

But as soon as he breaks out, he says "the hybrid is me". Whether that means him or Lady Me or something else, we don't know yet, but the implication is that this is his big secret. The one that he spent 2 billion years (in his time frame anyway) refusing to tell. Huh?

 

Other thoughts:

 

When he finds the portrait, he bats at his pockets for a moment before finding the eye thingy (I forget what it's called) on the mantle. Was he looking for his own, only to find that it was on the mantle all along? This would make sense if a previous iteration (possibly even the first, who I think painted it to begin with) left it there, just like with his clothes. But if that's the case, then why is it NOT in his pockets? And there seem to be rules about what resets and what doesn't. My guess is that the room resets itself, but anything that he brought into the room and left there, stays there -- that's why the clothes don't disappear each time, for instance, and the portrait and eye-thingy.

 

For example, each room reset, which means that the clothing that was on the chair would also have reset. So it's very reasonable to think that the first doctor through wouldn't have to have walked around naked.

 

Why? The first time through, he would have walked into an empty room, put his wet clothes up to dry, put them back on, and continued -- leaving behind an empty room. There are 2 possibilities -- 1) he got killed the first time before his clothes had dried, and crawled up the stairs naked -- having figured out enough to re-teleport himself to try again, but not yet about the wall and the bird; the second time through he had dry clothes right away waiting for him so he left the room before the veil caught up with him and made it to the next part of the puzzle. In fact, since we're only coming it at the 7000th repetition, it's entirely possible that this is only the first time he makes it as far as the wall. More likely it's not, I think, but it's possible that it did take him lots of tries before he got that far, leaving himself clues until he gets to the end.  Anyway, the second possibility is that the clothes were magically waiting for him the very first time, because it's a magic puzzle box and knew he'd need them.  I like my way better. ;)

Also, the theme of Truth or Consequences continues. This episode is all about Truths and from the previews, so is the next. And presumably consequences as well!

[truther]

I thought it was qualitatively better than the average Capaldi-era episode.  Started with a nice premise, then the middle was characteristically confusing, but then it actually ended amazingly strong.  The reveal was impressive.  I've hated some of the episodes these last two years but not this one.  

 

The ending provokes all sorts of concerns about continuity and plot holes and just general implausibility, but those have been addressed above.  Though for me, "it's Time Lord technology" doesn't quite smooth over the idea of a machine that can make untold-millions of copies of the Doctor over billions of years where a) every iteration of his life is exactly the same in all material respects and b) there is never any degradation or mutation.  I guess I'll just think of it as a supercomputer running a billion simulations.  But computer programs aren't sentient and certainly don't love solving puzzles the way the Doctor does.  

 

Chalkboard sounds are only slightly less irritating for me than nails on a chalkboard, so that whole thing was aggravating.  You could even say I hate it.  

 

I'm unspoiled.  I really, really hope that wherever this is going it doesn't end up being some Grand Reveal that Ties Everything Together.  I hate how these shows always try to make the Universe much smaller and more interconnected than it should be.  Not everything has to relate to the half dozen characters we see regularly.  

[kirinan]

When he finds the portrait, he bats at his pockets for a moment before finding the eye thingy (I forget what it's called) on the mantle.

 

FYI, I think  this is what he had; it's called a loupe. 

 

I'm so glad I have this forum to come to; I watched the episode and enjoyed it because of Capaldi's performance (he was magnificent, I thought), but like most episodes the last couple seasons, I didn't understand what I watched. But reading everyone's comments here helped me put it into some context.

 

I didn't think the person with her back turned was really Clara, so I was surprised and pleased by that little glimpse of her. We had just finished watching the Raven episode at 8 p.m., so I was a little misty over her departure. Of course, I've always liked Clara, for the most part. But it was a nice little surprise for me.

 

And thanks for the link to the YouTube trailers, Kalliste; this isn't the first time they've buried the previews in the show afterward, and I hate the practice. I have no desire to watch that show (I can't even remember its name), and the bait-and-switch makes me angry.

Edited November 29, 2015 by kirinan

[Occasional Hope]

Also, what exactly did the title mean?

[Primetimer]

The season's penultimate Doctor Who episode signals a return to familiar territory.

Read the story

[Triskan]

The Hybrid is actually a High-Bird and it's the shepard's boy ! 

 

Sorry, already out ! x)

[Snow Fairy]

I think I will need to rewatch this entire seson to connect the dots..

 

But on the hybrid thing and Daleks not letting that - didn't Daleks make a half human-half Dalek in Manhattan? They wanted to evolve or something (too lazy to google it now).

 

And why would the Time Lords give the Doctor new regenerations if they really wanted to get rid of him?

Edited November 29, 2015 by Snow Fairy

[Triskan]

Yeah, but they were the Cult of Skaro, the most open-minded Daleks to ever exist and even they were quite reluctant to the idea of a hybrid.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Triskan

[Shades of Scarlet]

One of the best episodes, if not the best episode, of NuWho.  Utterly fantastic acting and directing and a terrific job of writing the dialogue.  The plot was not as surprising as it seemed to think it would be, but was still extremely well-executed. 

[Llywela]

I decided to give this episode a go, to see what everyone was talking about. I found it boring and pretentious. The location spotting was fun, though - some lovely shots at Cardiff Castle, Caerphilly Castle and Castell Coch.

[HauntedBathroom]

Anyone though the "Hybrid is me" line could actually be misdirecting and it's "Me" with a capital M, aka Ashildr ?

 

100% certainly.

 

The whole half-human idea almost makes me laugh because of how ridiculous the idea is if you hold it up against the whole time lord/human meta-crisis of Ten/Donna.  Didn't Moffet write that?

Nope, that was RTD, and if the show pisses all over that incredibly stupid idea, I'll call this the best season of New Who ever.

 

But on the hybrid thing and Daleks not letting that - didn't Daleks make a half human-half Dalek in Manhattan? They wanted to evolve or something (too lazy to google it now).

That was one Daleks idea, and as soon as he did it, the rest of his gang exterminated him. The very idea of hybrids goes against the Daleks core belief in racial purity.

[Gentian root]

FYI, I think this is what he had; it's called a loupe.

. A time loupe?

[catrox14]

This is the work Capaldi should have been given from the moment he arrived as 12. makes me even more irritated at how elevated Clara was over 12.

This reminded me of Human Nature/Family of Blood quite a bit. I think actual!12 is hiding somewhere in plain sight and this hybrid is not actually THE Doctor.

 

 

The whole half-human idea almost makes me laugh because of how ridiculous the idea is if you hold it up against the whole time lord/human meta-crisis of Ten/Donna.  Didn't Moffet write that?

 

 

 

I thought the meta-crisis!Doctor  was a one time only thing. So to me that didn't mess with the idea of the actual!Doctor not being human. I don't see where or how he could become half-human. To make that happen they would be retconning the entire premise of the Doctor. So for me this better be a misdirect.

 

Unless the make it so the Doctor had sexy times with a human and this is really the Doctor's son. Or like in the Doctor's Daughter, took his DNA and actually made another Doctor.

 

But yeah, I don't buy into THE Actual!Doctor being a hybrid.

Edited November 29, 2015 by catrox14

[foreverevolving]

OK, I'm confused by what you're trying to say here. When you say "you" can literally within a day make billions of copies, what do you mean by that? A person couldn't, just because taking a file, making changes, saving the changed file as a new file (which I really don't think the Doctor did, since he didn't retain any memories from the previous loops-- he just re-opened the original file at the end of every loop), then opening that new file, making changes... etc, takes time. Absolute best case scenario, with a computer that had excellent processing speed, it would still take several seconds to make each resaved copy, open that, and resave it under a different name again. There are only 86,400 seconds in a day. If a person spent 24 hours straight doing that, without eating or sleeping or going to the bathroom or taking a sip of water or anything, they would STILL have complete each loop in 0.0000864 seconds. 

If a computer were making the changes, that's still pretty fast, and the more the computer did that, the more likely that at some point there would be a blip or an error, and then all the subsequent copies would be faulty. (The same is true of a human, of course.) Plus when you're saving that many files on a computer, it will eventually run out of memory. (And the computer will start going ever slower as the memory fills up.)

 

So... yeah... color me confused. *headscratch*

 

Also, why would only a few days have passed? The Doctor was digging a hole through a diamond wall by punching it, and during each loop took time to go through a series of events to lead him to that spot; so each loop took a significant amount of time to complete, and he had to repeat it enough times that he could punch through a diamond wall. That... seems like it would take a really long time.

 

Not really that confusing, in reality the time that passed was only a few days, but for the doctor stuck in the confession dial it felt like billion of years.

umm... you can say the confession dial was working on super speed.

you are taking my example waaaay too literal. but if we go with it: the doctor is the file, the confession dial is the computer, and the outside is the outside. Just because the file has been made billions of times, and for the file it may feel like billion of years because of the non stop changes to it, it does not mean that billion of years have really passed.

 

I guess you can see it as sort of like a dream... ever had a dream where someone in it was a baby and than all of a sudden they were adults or really old?

you don't dream for billions of years now do you? you go to sleep wake up a few hours later- in reality only a handful of hours passed, but in your dream it may have felt as billion of years.

 

I don't really know how else to explain it.

[Beatriceblake]

I loved this episode so much. I thought Capaldi was terrific and I liked the eeriness of the castle and the solution to the whole problem. I just wish there had been a little more care about the "loose ends" (why didn't the Doctor use the shovel, why did some items reset but not others). That said you can look past those when the story is engaging. One thing I was curious about- is death an option in the confession dial? The Doctor can get out by confessing his secrets but what happens if the prisoner just gives in to the veil creature?

 

Oh and I agree with everyone who thought the music was poor. It would have been better if the only sounds came from the castle.

[Llywela]

I thought the meta-crisis!Doctor  was a one time only thing. So to me that didn't mess with the idea of the actual!Doctor not being human. I don't see where or how he could become half-human. To make that happen they would be retconning the entire premise of the Doctor. So for me this better be a misdirect.

Well, to be fair, the TV Movie with Paul McGann is where the notion of the Doctor being half-human comes from - pretty much the whole of Doctor Who fandom likes to pretend that particular plot device never happened, because it contradicts pretty much everything we've ever been told about the Doctor, and was included not because anyone involved with actual Doctor Who wanted it, but because the movie was made in partnership with an American company, who wanted to humanise the Doctor to make him more 'relatable'. But nonetheless the line is out there. So there is precedent for the idea of the Doctor being a half-human hybrid. But that precedent is on very dodgy ground, and most of the fandom would riot if Moffat tried to legitimise it and set it in stone.

 

Then again, he's gone out of his way to stamp his mark over every other aspect of Doctor Who lore and mythology, so it wouldn't surprise me if he went there.

The Doctor can get out by confessing his secrets but what happens if the prisoner just gives in to the veil creature?

I kept wondering what would happen if he tried fighting back? He had that shovel right there. Yet he just quaked every time the creature came near him. The Doctor I know would have tried whacking it with the shovel at least once.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Llywela

[Beatriceblake]

I kept wondering what would happen if he tried fighting back? He had that shovel right there. Yet he just quaked every time the creature came near him. The Doctor I know would have tried whacking it with the shovel at least once.

I just assumed the creature was unkillable. It's a pretty lame trap if the Doctor can just take out the creature and then chill in the castle while he knocks the diamondlike wall down ;-) That said maybe he should have tried it at least once in the story so we could see it heal.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Beatriceblake

[Llywela]

I just assumed the creature was unkillable. It's a pretty lame trap if the Doctor can just take out the creature and then chill in the castle while he knocks the diamondlike wall down ;-) That said maybe he should have tried it at least once in the story so we could see it heal.

Oh aye, I imagine fighting it probably would be pretty hopeless - I just really needed to see the Doctor try it at least once. But the story was trying to sell itself as a time loop aesthetic (although it wasn't a time loop), so it didn't allow the Doctor to do anything different, not in any of the iterations - which also didn't ring true to me. He's such a quirky, quixotic man. He doesn't behave predictably. I don't believe he'd have done and said the exact same things every time, still less thought the same things every time.

[gypsybee]

Enjoyed the episode, bravo Capaldi.   Great job all around on the production side of things.

 

I think the Doctor is referring to himself as 'The Hybrid' of prophecy.  When the Doctor confesses that he knows what the hybrid is, he says the Time Lords knew it was coming, 'like a storm on the wind'.  And there's all those repetitive scenes of "I am in 12".

 

I expect to be surprised by the nature of 'The Hybrid' (especially if I'm wrong about it being the Doctor, lol);  since The Doctor has returned to Gallifrey, throwing out an obligatory "Valeyard" guess.

[WatchrTina]

I started out loving it when he made his Liam-Neeson-in-Taken-style declaration that he was going to hunt them down.  

 

Then I rapidly got annoyed and thought we were falling into another humorless and pointlessly confusing dark-and-scary episode like that awful Sandman episode.

 

Then when the loop started I got interested again though plot-holes galore crowded into my head:  If the "game" resets after each iteration then why are there Doctor skeletons in the sea?  Where did the second set of clothes come from?  Why would the night sky change as if actual time is passing? Why does the "age" of the portrait of Clara have any significance? If it is not a "game" (or an accelerated lifetime like Picard experienced in the famous "The Inner Light" episode of Star Trek TNG) then is The Doctor now billions of years old?  I can't imaging that being allowed to become canon, so back to the resetting video game theory.  But not everything re-sets and there doesn't seem to be any inner logic to what does and does not re-set.

 

I was spoiled for the Galifrey reveal (that'll learn me to follow BBC America / Doctor Who on Twitter but not watch the show live) and that was cool but I still have to say WHAT WAS THE POINT?  Was there a reason the Doctor had to spend billions of interations in the game punching down that barrier to get to Gallifrey?  Was it to keep him out or was the whole episode an elaborate way of letting him (and only him) in?

 

Nothing makes sense to me and that's not good.  As a buffer episode allowing us (and The Doctor) to mourn the passing of a companion, it served its purpose and as a teaser for the big finale it worked too.  But as a stand-alone episode it does not work at all because I have no interest in ever watching it again.

Edited November 29, 2015 by WatchrTina

[elle]

I had to look this up but I was pretty sure that one of Capaldi's last line was what Eleven had said at the end of "The Day of the Doctor" (in bold)

Eleventh Doctor: Clara sometimes asks me if I dream. "Of course I dream", I tell her. "Everybody dreams". "But what do you dream about?", she'll ask. "The same thing everybody dreams about", I tell her. "I dream about where I'm going." She always laughs at that. "But you're not going anywhere, you're just wandering about." That's not true. Not anymore. I have a new destination. My journey is the same as yours, the same as anyone's. It's taken me so many years, so many lifetimes, but at last I know where I'm going. Where I've always been going. Home. The long way round

 

I couldn't tell what the word was that appeared on the last bit of wall, if it was "welcome" or "home" or both.  Now, I think it was "home" to match Twelve saying to the boy to tell them that he was back and that he came "the long way round".

[tankgirl73]

If the "game" resets after each iteration then why are there Doctor skeletons in the sea?  Where did the second set of clothes come from?  Why would the night sky change as if actual time is passing? Why does the "age" of the portrait of Clara have any significance?   If it is not a "game" (or an accelerated lifetime like Picard experienced in the famous "The Inner Light" episode of Star Trek TNG) then is The Doctor now billions of years old?  I can't imaging that being allowed to become canon, so back to the resetting video game theory.  But not everything re-sets and there doesn't seem to be any inner logic to what does and does not re-set.

 

My take on it is that anything that is outside the castle, or that comes from outside the castle, travels through time in a normal fashion. The stars, the sea, and everything the Doctor brings to the party -- his clothes, the shovel, his bones, his loupe. Within the castle, there's a magic reset button for individual rooms. The final barrier isn't reset because it's connected to the outside world.  Of course, the sea would have eroded the castle, and the skulls as well. Although maybe that's why the sea didn't actually completely fill up with billions of skulls overflowing its banks.

 

Plus, when you learn that the whole thing was actually inside the confession dial... none of it was necessarily physically 'real' anyway. Maybe it was -- maybe it was its own pocket universe with its own pocket rules. It didn't completely make sense. But each time, by the time the Doctor figured out WHY it didn't make sense, it was too late, it was time to bang on the wall.

 

I was spoiled for the Galifrey reveal (that'll learn me to follow BBC America / Doctor Who on Twitter but not watch the show live) and that was cool but I still have to say WHAT WAS THE POINT?  Was there a reason the Doctor had to spend billions of interations in the game punching down that barrier to get to Gallifrey?  Was it to keep him out or was the whole episode an elaborate way of letting him (and only him) in?

 

Again, my takeaway on it, is that he did NOT have to do that. That was never the intention of his captors. The intention was that he would either die, or he would confess his secrets. Then they'd know his secrets. I don't think the intent was for him to die, either, I think it was 100% about getting his secrets. It was a puzzle box, and each time he confessed something, it unlocked the next circle. If he had told his final secret at the wall, I think he would have been released. I think that was their plan. But he refused. He found another way. He decided to break the puzzle box rather than solve it. The fact that it took billions of resets was never the intention of the captors, that was the way the Doctor thought of to break the box without revealing his secrets.

 

And that's what he meant by "the long way around". They expected him to reveal his secrets quickly, and thus get out quickly and directly. He opted for the more difficult path.

 

And wow elle great catch on the Eleventh callback!!!  The wall did indeed say "home". As 9 would say, Fantastic!

[tankgirl73]

Oh and I still don't understand what the octagonal hole in the floor with the arrows had to do with anything. Anybody have any ideas?

 

(PS I just rewatched the episode with my 8yo daughter. Watching her face as she figured out what was happening -- as he was working the teleporter -- was amazing. And as they showed him going through the next cycle, she very matter-of-factly explained to ME what was going on. "So you see that's where all the stuff came from, he left the shovel, and there's the clothes he left" etc etc.  And as soon as he got to the part of the story where he said "every 100 years a bird comes along" she IMMEDIATELY said "he's the bird!!!"  Some stuff that many adult viewers apparently had a hard time grasping, were instantly obvious to a bright 8yo heehee)

 

------------

 

thankyou momy -the 8yo daughter :)

[alrightokay]

Again, my takeaway on it, is that he did NOT have to do that. That was never the intention of his captors. The intention was that he would either die, or he would confess his secrets. Then they'd know his secrets. I don't think the intent was for him to die, either, I think it was 100% about getting his secrets. It was a puzzle box, and each time he confessed something, it unlocked the next circle. If he had told his final secret at the wall, I think he would have been released. I think that was their plan. But he refused. He found another way. He decided to break the puzzle box rather than solve it. The fact that it took billions of resets was never the intention of the captors, that was the way the Doctor thought of to break the box without revealing his secrets.

 

And that's what he meant by "the long way around". They expected him to reveal his secrets quickly, and thus get out quickly and directly. He opted for the more difficult path.

 

Yes, I agree with this interpretation; his choosing to do things the hard way, causing himself so much suffering but willingly taking it on every time, is what makes this episode so beautiful to me.

[elle]

As 9 would say, Fantastic!

Aw!  I miss 9!

 

One of the other things Twelve said was "and I know what they did".  Is it too much to hope that he is referring to what was done to The Master?

 

thankyou momy -the 8yo daughter :)

AW!  How sweet!  I know there are a number of us who share this with our kids, or parents, a generational show! :0)

Edited November 29, 2015 by elle

[Morrigan2575]

I had to look this up but I was pretty sure that one of Capaldi's last line was what Eleven had said at the end of "The Day of the Doctor" (in bold)

I couldn't tell what the word was that appeared on the last bit of wall, if it was "welcome" or "home" or both. Now, I think it was "home" to match Twelve saying to the boy to tell them that he was back and that he came "the long way round".

I believe it was "home" which The Doctor took to mean The TARDIS was behind the 'diamond' wall. However, when he finally broke through the twist was that I was Galifrey.

Does this mean that Mayor Me's deal was with the "hidden" Time Lords? We're they hidden/trapped in The doctor's Confession Disk since the 50th Anniversary episode?

Edited November 30, 2015 by Morrigan2575

[SourK]

Well, you can tell I'm a casual fan, because I didn't realize he was on Galifrey until I read the recap.

 

I thought this was a really interesting idea and that the last 10 minutes were super exciting, but the rest of it fell a little flat for me in execution. Having a character talk to himself the whole time is the most obvious solution to the writing problem of having an actor alone on stage and I wish they'd done something more creative. I've been a little bit distressed this season at how much this show is becomming exactly like Sherlock, so I wasn't pleased to see the Doctor's mind palace, either. That was a good solution for Sherlock, but replicating it for Doctor Who didn't work for me.

 

I also hate to say this, because it's clear that he's trying really hard, but I don't like Peter Capldi's take on the Doctor. I think he lacks the warmth, charisma, and vulnerability that the last three Doctors had, and I don't think 12 has a strong enough personality to carry an episode alone. I know not everyone agrees.

 

Did the whole castle set remind anybody else of the video game Myst?

 

The thing where he just wandered around randomly, examining everything and hoping for something to happen, reminded me of Myst.

[beeble]

Had the doctor wanted to refer to himself and use correct grammar, he would have said "The Hybrid is I," because the use of "I" over "me" would be the proper use of predicate nominative.  Something tells me this, rather than casual colloquialisms would be important to the Doctor. Therefore I believe that "Me" is the character played by Maisie Williams.

 

That is the only thing for whichI have any sense of certainty. Otherwise this episode really confused me. I liked it, but it confused me.

[Starchild]

"Me" had better refer to Ashildr, because otherwise there was no excuse for that horribly clumsy exposition of why she stupidly calls herself that.

[tankgirl73]

Are we supposed to spoilerize preview promos? I've seen two, one had this info in it and the other didn't and I can't find the one that has this info again so I don't know how 'official' it is, so I'm spoilerizing it --

 

One of the promos shows Lady Me in the next episode, saying something about "it's time to tell the truth"

 

This seems to me a clear indication that one hypothesis here is accurate.

 

I still wonder, though, after spending 2 billion years breaking a puzzle box rather than confess about the hybrid, why the first thing that he does upon escaping the puzzle box is confess the truth about the hybrid. I guess because it's "just between ourselves"?

[txwatcher]

tankgirl173 As I was reading your post %u26A1%u26A1 Maybe that was dirt from Gallifrey. It could act as a tether enabling the Confession Dial to transport the Doctor home. Presumably he be dead. fwiw %uD83D%uDE01

[Ringthane]

See, I said Capaldi works better without a companion... 

 

Maybe we're taking the whole episode too literally?  As in, maybe the whole thing wasn't a physical thing, where the Doctor spent centuries physically breaking down the wall to Gallifrey.  Maybe it was just his thoughts as he was being sent to wherever the thing sent him, and that's how he perceived what had to happen to break down the wall between our universe and wherever Gallifrey is. 

 

And the "hybrid is me" line could also mean, "they thought it was a hybrid, but it turns out it's actually me", not that he is the hybrid.  Again, I'm just hypothesizing here, and I have no actual facts to back this up.  But he does say they got the prophecy wrong, so it's not a stretch to think that maybe he's saying "what they thought was a hybrid is actually the rogue Time Lord who's been fighting against them all along". 

[ganesh]

I was unspoiled for Gallifrey. I had really hoped this season was going to be about the search for Gallifrey, so I'm glad it's around, but I would have liked it to be a season theme. 

I think the final line is actually: The "hybrid" is me. What they're actually calling a "hybrid" isn't exactly a hybrid. I mean, if the prophecy is so many thousands of years old, the words or usage of them is going to alter over time. I also had a knee jerk reaction "they aren't talking about the tv movie?" too. While I don't think the tv movie is nearly as bad as it's been made out to be, I do think that's one thing that should not be canon.

Not everything has to be the same on the show. Each regen is different. Why couldn't Twelve be a not-companion type incarnation? The episodes I liked the most were with minimal Clara.

[Terrafamilia]

A strong episode but still with some NuWho wobbliness. The missing floor tile with the arrows pointing to the hole in the floor was found in the grave the Doctor dug up. Was that part of the original fear castle setup or did one of the earlier Doctor iterations put it there? Did he set that up because if he hadn't put it somewhere else it would have reset? Then why didn't all the scrawled arrows on the floor not reset? The Doctor gave his Confession Disk to Ashildr then was apparently teleported straightaway to the castle. So was that all in his own disk or simply a disk? If it was his disk I suppose his teleport signal could have been kept stored in the pattern buffer while the Time Lords retrieved the disk at set up the castle. But why? What would the point be of it being his disk? Is this the sort of thing that one would normally find in a Time Lord Confession Disk? A fear castle, a fear creepy motel, a fear secluded farmhouse, a fear cabin in the woods...I guess I'm just not getting the point of the disk in the first place and why this was all inside of one.

Then there was the Time Boy who just happened to be out in the middle of nowhere when the Doctor stepped through. (and why would it have been in the middle of the great Gallifrean desert if the Time Lords had set this up? They could have had the exit lead to anywhere, on Gallifrey or off.)

I must be overthinking.

[Gentian root]

Maybe Ashildr set it up to give the Doctor some breathing room before he got to the city? Maybe the Time Lords didn't want whatever came out of the disc in their midst? There might have been a possibility that the Veil could get out. Either way, you'd think that someone would be keeping an eye on it and keep the kids away.

I have the same problem as others with music drowning out dialogue (Sorry, monologue). Old ears plus old TV.

Repeat to yourself ,"It's just a show. I should really just wibbly-wobbly."

Edited November 30, 2015 by Gentian root

[John Potts]

Quote

Gentian Root Repeat to yourself ,"It's just a show. I should really just wibbly-wobbly."

Shouldn't that be:

"And if you wonder how Doc lives,

Please don't come down all whiny,

Just tell yourself it's just a show

And say it's Timey-Wimey!"

[SVNBob]

I hate when Twelve breaks the 4th wall, I think this is the 3rd or 4th time they've done it.

Technically, he wasn't breaking the 4th wall here, just leaning on it.  In that scene, he's imagining he's talking to Clara, because he needs an audience.  Looking at the scene from his POV, the camera (thus us, his real audience) is where he perceives/imagines Clara to be. 

 

And that's also meta, because the companion's role has always been that of the audience substitute.  The character that the Doctor has to explain things to inside the story so we on the outside can understand what the hell is going on. 

 

So in that moment, from his perspective, we are Clara.  Just as we always have been.

[darkestboy]

An odd episode for me and ten minutes longer than it needed to be as well.

 

I do think Peter Capaldi did amazing work and it was very psychological to watch but it also dragged in parts.

 

The scene with Gallifrey at the end did work though and I found the Veil creepy enough.

 

The use of Clara in this one, more so her death worked well too.

 

Also blood, diamond wall and arse, 8/10

[Ringthane]

Oh, yeah, forgot about that - is this the first use of the word "ass" in DW?

 

That Moffat - he's so edgy.  Still thinks he's making Coupling, I guess.

[Pattycake2]

I definitely think "The hybrid is me" refers to Ashildr.  Moffat loves to leave clues to the future of the Doctor throughout a season (and previous seasons) and the Doctor several times over a couple of episodes discussed her name change.  It was a little obvious, but perhaps since many of the episodes had to be rewritten to include Clara, the groundwork had to be less subtle than usual.  Someone convinced Mayor Me to trap the Doctor and to take his confession disk (another newly introduced plot tool).  By possessing the disk, the Doctor's deepest fears could be used against him.  Eleven fought for hundreds of years not to share the secret of his name in order to bring back Gallifrey. Something worse would have to be attempted to get the Doctor to share information.  So, is it Gallifrey trying to once again reach the Doctor?  Is it The Master working with Gallifrey supposedly to help them, but really for his/her own benefit?  The Mistress did tell The Doctor that she knew where Gallifrey was hidden.  And she has the ability to roam on earth and could have set up the whole thing as well as influencing or threatening Ashildr to participate.

[Commando Cody]

I guess I will be the one dissenting opinion about this episode.

 

On the positive side, I love Peter Capaldi as The Doctor. I think this episode really cemented it for me. I think it was this episode that they finally let him be The Doctor. 

 

On the negative side. Despite Capadi's great acting in this one, the episode was kind of boring.  Mostly at the end with the repetition. Even in death, Clara was a freaking pill. All that bitchy writing on the chalkboard was really annoying. I knew we weren't going to get rid of her with some sort of epitaph, but the whole episode was The Doctor talking to her. 

[catrox14]

I just realized the score in this episode, aside from overwhelming Capaldi's brilliant work, kept pinging at my...."wait a minute....where have I heard this before ..this music sounds awfully familiar" part of my brain. And maybe it's been used throughout 12's reign but I only really noticed it in this episode but it really reminded me of Mozart's Requiem Mass in D-Minor, specifically the final movement of that piece.  I wonder if that is purposeful because that piece was the final requiem for someone unknown and some think it was for Mozart himself. 

 

Or am I just way off base with this?

[Darth Nigel]

Well, I liked this episode, better than most recent ones.  I do like that the producers/show-runners are trying new things (found footage, solo show, musical episode...) for the Doctor Who franchise.  Some work better than others, but that's a risk you take when you take risks.

 

I think this solo episode worked for me, although there were a couple of fridge-logic moments (be warned, that link takes you to TV Tropes, and a billion years may pass before you return). 

Thoughts:

• So how did he get to Gallifrey? He seemed fairly sure that he'd been teleported less than a light-year. Assuming he started on Earth, does that mean that in 2 billion years, Earth becomes Gallifrey?  (really hope not)
• If he just teleported into his own confession disc, how did the disc get to Gallifrey?  Did Ashildir take it?  Did Missy?
• How much time has actually passed?   Subjectively for the Doctor, it has been about 5 days -- as far as he knows, there was just the one iteration.
• Please can Clara be dead now.  How can we miss her if she never leaves?