S09.E12: Hell Bent

[Ringthane]

I think somebody else brought this up, but as of this episode, Gallifrey is back.  Never mind how they managed it, but look at it this way: since the beginning of the return of the show in 2005, one thing has been guiding the Doctor above all else - Gallifrey.  First it was the loss of it, and having to blow it up.  And then, once he figured out how to save it, the objective became finding it.  And now it's back, and he knows where it is, and I have to ask...

 

Why?  Why did he want it back so badly?  Every time he goes there, he ends up being disgusted with the place, and tries to leave as soon as possible.  He has nothing but contempt for the Time Lords.  And he usually ends up almost being executed for something. 

 

Be upset that it's gone, OK.  Be as guilty as you want because you had to burn it, fine.  But why expend getting all that energy over it when it turns out you never liked it in the first place.  What a case of sour grapes. 

 

Remember, this has been the Doctor's albatross for ten years now.  And instead of getting something awesome when it came back, we get this.

[truther]

I think somebody else brought this up, but as of this episode, Gallifrey is back.  Never mind how they managed it, but look at it this way: since the beginning of the return of the show in 2005, one thing has been guiding the Doctor above all else - Gallifrey.  First it was the loss of it, and having to blow it up.  And then, once he figured out how to save it, the objective became finding it.  And now it's back, and he knows where it is, and I have to ask...

 

Remember, this has been the Doctor's albatross for ten years now.  And instead of getting something awesome when it came back, we get this.

It's even worse than that, really, because Gallifrey was just a plot device -- the place that had the technology the Doctor needed to bring Clara back.  Once he got what he needed from Gallifrey he left.  The whole Doctor-laments-Gallfrey narrative arc was just a long con on the viewers.  The place itself turns out to be meaningless.  It would be like the movie Braveheart ending with William Wallace being made king of Scotland, then using his authority to sell some royal lands so he can fulfill his life's dream of buying a chalet in the south of France and moving there.  And saying "au revoir, suckers" as he boards his ship.

Edited December 10, 2015 by truther

[proserpina65]

I wish I could forget Clara, too.

Me, too, and I actually liked her in the beginning, before she was the Most Specialist Snowflake Who Ever Snowflaked Ever.

[tennisgurl]

I will say, I liked Clara, she did overstay her welcome. I am sorry, I just don`t see her as that super special. Shes a nice young woman (usually), but does that make her the most important companion ever? Who the doctor just cannot function without, and mourned for a trillion years? Thats a bit much. I am excited to see who comes next. 

 

Also, I do not like the retcon that the Doctor took the Tardis because he was scared. Did I miss something? What was wrong with the whole "I wanted to explore the universe" thing? Not interesting enough for ya? 

[LoneHaranguer]

 

Me, too, and I actually liked her in the beginning, before she was the Most Specialist Snowflake Who Ever Snowflaked Ever.

Unfortunately, that seems to be a recurring title. Rose held it first. Martha may have ducked out too early unless you count her Tinkerbell scene, but it was definitely back with Donna (aka "the most important woman in the universe") and Amy.

[Bruinsfan]

On the Ashildr front, there is no way in hell I believe 30 seconds of tweaking that Mire microchip resulted in an immortal so resilient she could last trillions of years to the heat death of the universe. Hell, even Time Lords die for good after a few thousand years and they supposedly have the most advanced technology in the universe and all of history to work with. Either she found a way to jump ahead to the very end for whatever reason, or she significantly upgraded her immortality over the years by collaboration with persons or things unknown. I was half hoping that she would turn out not to be Ashildr at all, but actually the Black Guardian.

 

And that was when a man killed what was technically his daughter.  Not his special snowflake, not the Impossible Bore (sorry, Girl), not the most special person in the Universe.  His daughter.

More like his half-clone for whose upbringing his sole contribution was involuntarily donating a blood sample. And with whom he had about 10 minutes of interaction total (though I'm happy for David Tennant that he found a wife and the world's most awesome father-in-law as a result). I think for the Doctor's actual familial ties we'd need to look to Susan Foreman and her never-seen parent and grandmother. Or at the least River Song, whose own special snowflake-ness regarding the Doctor sticks in my craw something fierce.

[Cirien]

The more I talk about it the more annoyed I get. And it's really obvious in hindsight but it felt like this season, was the season where the Doctor and Clara admitted that they had feelings for  each other. I mean we all knew Clara did, as of "The Time of" but it really felt like we were meant to see them as being in love- albeit a non consummated love- and that's why he was so desperate to get her back, in that she's the dark mirror to both Rose and Donna- but it was an *unhealthy* kind of love, that and the Doctor and Clara, are much better off without each other.

 

(I can see how this occurs on both ends. Clara fancied 11, and after Danny she has nothing else, and for the Doctor, his obsession with her, carried over from 11, coupled with Clara being seeded through his timeline, and even influencing him as a child)

 

But unlike Donna who's capable of telling the Doctor to *stop*, Clara would encourage him to go further- (IMO and YMMV)- which is what this ep seemed to be saying, and why they had to be separated- though I would have preferred them to have to make that decision on their own, and for the Doctor to take her back after they admitted they had feelings for each other.

 

But because Peter Capaldi was adamantly opposed the idea of having a romantic relationship with a companion who appeared to be younger (like half his age) than him, that subtext came out of nowhere, only really appearing in the good bye scene in "Face the Raven"

 

One real example of Clara being a bad influence, is the way she decides to "take the long way" back to Gallifrey . The universe is depending on her dying, and she appears to be taking her own sweet time getting back there!!! I mean. Anyone else, even R​ose  and he would told her to go back, but for Clara it's okay? WHAT???

​

( and I'm sorry but no way was the Clara/12 relationship was a relationship of equals- it was again unhealthy co-dependency, disguised as Romance)

[HauntedBathroom]

Another thing that bothers the hell out of me about this finale: There is the fact that saving Clara effed up the entirety of reality. The whole of reality is dying because Clara's not dead, and as long as she's alive, the universe/all of reality is in chaos. Planets, people, all those people, beings, etc. in all of time and space (Gallifrey included) are dying because she's not dead. Hers is a fixed point in time.

DID THEY FORGET THIS???? Is Moffat gonna pull a MOFFAT and just IGNORE that Clara's death was a FIXED POINT and she needs to her her special little butt back to knocturn alley and DIE already?

 

That long way round thing pisses me off because hello? FIXED POINT IN TIME????

DAMN YOU MOFFAT!!! I HATE IT when he does that!!!!

 

Clara was removed from time by the Time Lords, as a result her existance is frozen. As long as she goes back to Trap Street at some point, time will flow as normal. But because she's so super wonderful terrific, she can fly around time and space with Me congratulating each other on how clever and smart and pretty they are for as long as they like, until she hauls her apparently undead arse back to die.

 

Edited December 12, 2015 by HauntedBathroom

[that one guy]

So I think I need to rewatch at some point, but I think I mostly liked it. As an old-school Who fan, it teased some answers to some age old questions but didn't actually give them. The Doctor fled Gallifrey because he'd seen a vision of the future, the Hybrid. He thinks he's figured out what it means but he probably hasn't. It also sounded like he'd run off with somebody's daughter - did this mean Susan wasn't his actual granddaughter? It's vague enough that a future showrunner could pick up the strands and run with them any way they want to.

 

I will point out that the Doctor didn't assume that the Hybrid was half Dalek and half Time Lord at the time, since the Time Lords weren't warriors yet and the Doctor had no idea what a Dalek was when he met them the first time.

[rab01]

Every female companion in New-Who other than Martha is the specialest snowflake that ever fell from the sky. Rose absorbed the time vortex and became a God. Donna became a time lord. Clara gets her own Tardis. Amy had similar stuff -- it's just the way it goes on this show so getting angry and claiming that Clara is somehow even more Mary Sue-ish seems to me to be misplaced. (By the way, this is one of the reasons that Martha was my favorite companion.)

I liked that Clara was bad for the doctor, which is really different from prior companions. The Doctor almost always picks companions that allow him to feel more fallible, empathetic and normal. Clara is the first in the new run who abetted the Doctor's worst impulses. Instead of being a brake on him, she exacerbated all of his feelings of omnipotence. I like that the Show went into what happens if a companion turns out to be (or becomes) a bad influence on the Doctor.  This version of the Doctor was MUCH more dangerous than the Doctor at the end of Waters of Mars. Seriously, any doctor that could pick up a gun and shoot another person, let alone another time lord, and just laugh it off as no worse than a cold, has gone deeply off the rails while losing all memory of how he felt in his earlier incarnations when facing death and regeneration.

 

I think that relationship was toxic to the doctor without her being the love of his life. It's just that an adrenaline junkie is not going to be the one to say "you can't win 'em all so maybe we need to do what we can and live to fight another day."

Edited December 15, 2015 by rab01

[Cirien]

Every female companion in New-Who other than Martha is the specialest snowflake that ever fell from the sky. Rose absorbed the time vortex and became a God. Donna became a time lord. Clara gets her own Tardis. Amy had similar stuff -- it's just the way it goes on this show so getting angry and claiming that Clara is somehow even more Mary Sue-ish seems to me to be misplaced. (By the way, this is one of the reasons that Martha was my favorite companion.)

I liked that Clara was bad for the doctor, which is really different from prior companions. The Doctor almost always picks companions that allow him to feel more fallible, empathetic and normal. Clara is the first in the new run who abetted the Doctor's worst impulses. Instead of being a brake on him, she exacerbated all of his feelings of omnipotence. I like that the Show went into what happens if a companion turns out to be (or becomes) a bad influence on the Doctor.  This version of the Doctor was MUCH more dangerous than the Doctor at the end of Waters of Mars. Seriously, any doctor that could pick up a gun and shoot another person, let alone another time lord, and just laugh it off as no worse than a cold, has gone deeply off the rails while losing all memory of how he felt in his earlier incarnations when facing death and regeneration.

 

I think that relationship was toxic to the doctor without her being the love of his life. It's just that an adrenaline junkie is not going to be the one to say "you can't win 'em all so maybe we need to do what we can and live to fight another day."

YMMV, for me at least, it was because I felt we were meant to *see* it as a triumphant ending. She gets her own TARDIS and her own Companion, and is planning on taking the long way round getting back to Gallifrey and is travelling  through the universe in a TARDIS whose chameleon circuit is broken. Moffat has essentially rewarded her selfishness and irresponsibility, by making her the doctor. As I said above ( or well a couple of us have said) the universe is depending on her dying. And she's "taking the long way round".

 

I mean Clara from the beginning was "The Impossible Girl"

 

We're supposed to see it as a reverse Donna, but it just stuck in my craw.

[Mabinogia]

we must share a craw because it's stuck in mine too.

 

I get what they were going for, I think. I guess they were going for the toxic relationship thing (though that feels more like we, the fans came up with it rather than something they actually meant to show. It's hard to explain. It's like they didn't mean for it to happen, thought Clara was the best ever, but it didn't come off right, and we interpreted their failure as an attempt to show a toxic relationship. It just doesn't feel like they meant it to be.) I guess they expected us to all cheer Clara's success at finally becoming her very own version (and in her mind probably better version) of the Doctor. But all I feel is that this amazing idea was wasted on a half realized character.

 

Clara was never developed enough for me to care that she got a triumphant ending. And really it just pisses me off that she gets to piss away time running around having adventures before choosing when she will finally deign to die and save the universe. She's pretty much surpassed Time Lord and moved straight into God territory for me and I just don't think she's worthy of it. I'm sure there are people who do, and their opinion is as valid as mine, but it really pisses me off that she of all the companions, is the one who gets this big, rousing triumph. Yuck

Edited December 16, 2015 by Mabinogia

[elle]

I've tried to stay away, but one thing has been bothering me.   If the diner-tardis is stuck as a diner, is that what it looks like from the outside but looks like a TARDIS should on the inside or is the whole inside the diner?

 

We've seen previous TARDIS as a column, a grandfather clock, and of course a police box.  Tegan got swept up into the Doctor's - verse by thinking she was stepping into a police box.  Just how many people are going to wander into a diner?  I supposed they could be told that the place was not open for business.

[truther]

I've tried to stay away, but one thing has been bothering me.   If the diner-tardis is stuck as a diner, is that what it looks like from the outside but looks like a TARDIS should on the inside or is the whole inside the diner?

 

We've seen previous TARDIS as a column, a grandfather clock, and of course a police box.  Tegan got swept up into the Doctor's - verse by thinking she was stepping into a police box.  Just how many people are going to wander into a diner?  I supposed they could be told that the place was not open for business.

Wasn't the whole point of the Tardis as police call box that it could essentially hide in plain sight?  That it was the kind of thing that nobody took notice of because it just melted into the background, something the public might see and just instinctively assume they weren't supposed to go into?  A 50s diner would seem to be the opposite of that.  

[elle]

Wasn't the whole point of the Tardis as police call box that it could essentially hide in plain sight?  That it was the kind of thing that nobody took notice of because it just melted into the background, something the public might see and just instinctively assume they weren't supposed to go into?  A 50s diner would seem to be the opposite of that.  

It is the whole "inside out" thing that confuses me.  A police box stands by itself, would at that time blend in, as you said.  A diner also stands by itself or is part of building,  --- I'm not making sense here ---  Are we left to imagine C&A sitting in a 50's diner, chatting away ordering shakes and fries because that is what the desktop is stuck on?  I suppose onion rings are the new "round thingys".

[angora]

It seemed to me that the outside is a '50s dinner, it's just that the outside has an "inside," so to speak.  If we think of the police box appearance of the Doctor's TARDIS as being its exterior walls, the '50s diner appearance of the freshly-stolen TARDIS is like its exterior walls and wrap-around porch - people can come into the diner without being properly "inside" the TARDIS itself.  You're not fully inside until you go through the door that leads to the console room.

 

Although I definitely agree that "incongruous-looking '50s diner" doesn't exactly scream "blending in."  Even before that chameleon circuit got stuck, it was apparently on the fritz.

[elle]

It seemed to me that the outside is a '50s dinner, it's just that the outside has an "inside," so to speak.  If we think of the police box appearance of the Doctor's TARDIS as being its exterior walls, the '50s diner appearance of the freshly-stolen TARDIS is like its exterior walls and wrap-around porch - people can come into the diner without being properly "inside" the TARDIS itself.  You're not fully inside until you go through the door that leads to the console room.

 

Although I definitely agree that "incongruous-looking '50s diner" doesn't exactly scream "blending in."  Even before that chameleon circuit got stuck, it was apparently on the fritz

A wrap around porch, okay that makes some sense to me.  I still have problems with the diner idea, after all it has a bigger "footprint" than a police box.  Are all the chameleon circuits glitchy on the tardises?  Sounds like a manufacturing problem.

[Ringthane]

Well, the chameleon circuit is supposed to disguise itself as the most innocuous thing in its surroundings.  And there are diners in the middle of nowhere in the US.  Still, it makes me wonder why the one in the Master's TARDIS didn't seem to work right after Delgado's Master either.  His TARDIS became such things as a computer in a lab, which makes sense.  But in "The Deadly Assassin" and "The Keeper of Traken", it's a grandfather clock for some strange reason.  And then in "Logopolis", it's a bush and a Roman column (in the middle of a rocky planet).  In "Castrovalva", it's a fireplace, which did fit in.  I don't remember what it was after that.

 

Another question, while we're on the subject of stolen TARDISes: how was it possible for the Master to have all those spare TARDISes?  Where was he getting them?  It's not like he could just pop back to Gallifrey and nab four or five of them.  And yet, every time we saw him, he had an extra, stashed away somewhere convenient.

 

Which also makes me wonder - if the Time Lords could track down and bring the Doctor back to Gallifrey or that space station to stand trial not once, but twice, why couldn't they just do the same to the Master?  Or the Rani?  Or the Meddling Monk?  I realize the first time they only found the Doctor because he asked them for help with the War Games, but they didn't have any trouble finding him in "Trial of a Timelord".  And if he's that easy to find, why did they never track down any of the villainous Time Lords in the same way?  They even sent the Doctor on missions to clean up after the Master, but they never went after him themselves (and they apparently had no trouble finding him in "The Five Doctors").

 

There are times when even Classic Who makes about as much sense as a Moffat story.

[truther]

 

There are times when even Classic Who makes about as much sense as a Moffat story.

Whoa there, let's not go saying anything we might regret.  :)  

[alrightokay]

Every female companion in New-Who other than Martha is the specialest snowflake that ever fell from the sky. Rose absorbed the time vortex and became a God. Donna became a time lord. Clara gets her own Tardis. Amy had similar stuff -- it's just the way it goes on this show so getting angry and claiming that Clara is somehow even more Mary Sue-ish seems to me to be misplaced. (By the way, this is one of the reasons that Martha was my favorite companion.)

 

(Just catching up on this thread.) YES--I love Martha; she's my favorite, too!  I feel she's so underrated, when she did amazing things without using any special powers or "impossibleness" or being the Mother of the Doctor's Wife.  Out of all of the companions, she also seemed to suffer the poorest treatment by the Doctor and by others (when I think of what she had to go through in "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood"--sigh).  But her triumph over the Master in "Last of the Time Lords" was so awesome (as wobbly as the whole "Tinkerbell Jesus Doctor" plot was), and her walking away from the Doctor was (now, in hindsight) perhaps the bravest and most clear-eyed exit by any NewWho companion.  I don't hate Clara, but by the end of S9 I definitely felt that she had overstayed her welcome, while Martha is someone I wish we had had a little more time with (more than just the guest appearances in S4 and Torchwood).

[polyhymnia]

So there is precedent for companions being able to manage the basics of TARDIS operation and gaining rudimentary understanding of the more basic flight controls - but there's a huge difference between that and two humans running off with a TARDIS of their own and no Time Lord supervision whatsoever. That just seems like a recipe for disaster - especially given the track record of both characters involved. They might be able to figure out the basics of its operation, especially since Clara has been learning from the Doctor, but they'd never grasp the full nuances and complexities involved - it took the Doctor several lifetimes to get it down pat.

Especially THESE TWO PARTICULAR HUMANS.  Ashildir/ME seems very amoral.  I can't imagine that she'd give two craps about messing up the fabric of time.  Clara is reckless with a death wish (maybe cured during this last heartbeat, maybe not).  These are not people who should have a time machine.  They could create more havoc than Master/Missy completely on accident.

 

I was annoyed by this episode so it has taken me this long to come back to the episode post.  Gallifrey just being a throwaway destination (as someone else mentioned earlier) was ridiculous.  I can understand why the Doctor was super irritated with them trapping him/torturing him for whatever ridiculous amount of time we are pretending like he was in the confessional, but even given that level of irritation you would think Gallifrey would be more than a means to an end when it's been this mystery wrapped in timey wimey nonsense for pretty much all of new Who.  Thanks, Moffatt.

Edited December 28, 2015 by polyhymnia

[Ringthane]

Yep, Gallifrey coming back should have been a moment like Tom Baker's cameo in the 50th anniversary story, or when Smith's Doctor got a new regeneration cycle in his last story.  Actually, even that was ignored - there should have been a lot more done with getting a whole new cycle than there has been.  Maybe another example would be seeing Twelve with all the other Doctors in the 50th freezing Gallifrey in time. 

 

Instead, we got "Gallifrey's back.  Where has it been?  How'd it come back?  Who cares."  I remember reading that Moffat couldn't understand why people wanted to see how the Doctor and Clara got out of his timestream after "Night of the Doctor" (or whatever one John Hurt was first in),  In his mind, they just walked out, and there wasn't anything to see.  Ummm...  Huh?  Then why was it such a big deal to go into it in the first place?

 

It's like there being a huge present under the tree a month before Christmas, and when you open it, it's a keychain.

[Bruinsfan]

Especially THESE TWO PARTICULAR HUMANS.  Ashildir/ME seems very amoral.  I can't imagine that she'd give two craps about messing up the fabric of time.  Clara is reckless with a death wish (maybe cured during this last heartbeat, maybe not).  These are not people who should have a time machine.  They could create more havoc than Master/Missy completely on accident.

I'll counter that Ashildir appears to have developed the most finely-tuned self preservation instinct in all of history if she managed to survive until the heat death of the universe, and she appears to have spent an unknown amount of the intervening time in the ruins of Gallifrey. She might have taught herself everything about TARDIS operation, or at least everything a human brain is capable of comprehending. She just needs a ruler to smack Clara's fingers with whenever the latter reaches for the controls impulsively.

[Dobian]

I enjoyed the Clara/Me ending, but I still can't buy into the logic of Clara still existing, it feels like a cheat.  It was made clear that her death could not be changed without possibly disrupting the fabric of time, but you can freeze her last moment and let her live in it, while allowing her to move all about space and time doing all sorts of things that would disrupt the fabric of time after she should have been dead?  Eh whatever.   Impossible Girl indeed.  But seeing her and Ashildir zipping around the galaxy in an old diner was still humorous.

Never a fan of the memory wipe trope and never will be.  Hated it when Donna's memory got wiped and hated it with the Doctor in this one.

Edited February 20, 2017 by Dobian

[supposebly]

Well, I finally watched this season. With more or less attention. I'm glad the Doctor (and I) can now pretend Clara never happened.

I can't say I ever really warmed up to Twelve but overall, watching this way, it wasn't as bad as I thought. As long as I ignore most of what was Clara-related.

Obviously, she's gonna pollute the universe some more with her awesomeness and impossibility until she feels like going back to her death. Which really, could mean another few thousand years in her lifetime since she can't die any other way. Being just sort of dead and all.

I was surprised Ashildir managed to survive.

Huge spoiler for season 3 in case someone hasn't seen that. Seriously, the best in the series if you ask me:

Spoiler

 

It's not like Jack Harness who literally couldn't die. And even he ended up as a face in a jar eventually

 

I'm just glad Moffatt is gone after the next season. 

Is it just me who finds it odd that Gallifrey has people living somewhere in the desert with apparently no electricity or running water? Some back-to-nature movement on Gallifrey abandoning all technological advancement? I found that ridiculous in 

Spoiler

the 50 years special too.