"You'll find it a very small universe when I'm angry with you."

Chills, man.

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Well, farewell then Clara. You stayed on longer than you should have done, but fair play, you went out like a boss. High quality episode all round.

 

Episode:

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That was a great companion exit, and I loved the story as well. It's very similar to Utopia in a way - basically the first episode of a three-part finale.

Yey, time lords!

Finale:

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Clara is in the 12th episode, although it remains to be seen whether it's a splinter echo, some time travel hijinks, or a reset button.

 

Eh. Good episode I suppose. Pretty transparent the moment Clara was trying to sell the switch what would happen, but I can buy it.

Shielda continues to still be terrible whenever she shows up. You think the Doctor would pick up on that trend. Well if anything could make him see it, it's this.

Hopefully angry!Doctor is here to stay. Capaldi is so very very good at that.

 

I liked that episode a lot. It wasn't fantastic writing but it was enjoyable and maintained tension.

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I do get the sense that Clara is dead with an extra side of dead, especially since Coleman is slotted to leave this season... but I expect she'll make a trippy post-death appearance of some sort in the final episode.

 

An angry Capaldi is what I expect from the finale. It was a pretty good episode. I don't want to say I felt it rushed but, well, I guess it went by pretty fast. As someone already said, this is a three parter.

Anyone got a Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere vibe besides the obvious Diagonal Alley vibe?

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I was always a fan of Clara. I got why people didn't like her, but I did. I felt it was a nice departure although perhaps a little bit less dramatical. I'm guessing we will get the drama on the final episode.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong but there was obviously some sort of romance subtext going on right?

"There was one other man but it would never have worked out... He was impossible."

"Don't say it. We've had enough bad timing."

Her whole time with the Eleventh Doctor.

Also, that time The Doctor though Clara's rebound was an Eleven look a like.

Not complaining or anything, just wanted to be sure I wasn't seeing things. I guess had Smith kept going or a younger actor had been cast we would have another Ten/Rose. Maybe the show could have made it work. Then again, I believe what we have is better. Clara not getting either of her SO is tragic and well executed.

 

So. 'Heaven Sent' was a textbook example of why so many in the fandom rejoiced when Moffat took over, imo. Because although he's got a tendency to fall back on the same old ideas and tropes, and can be a bit too clever for his own good sometimes, when he's on form he is a fucking good writer.

Couple that with Capaldi killing it and the freakiest beastie they've had on the show since the Silence first appeared, and you've got what was for me the best episode since at least 'Day of the Doctor'.

 

Agreed. Loved everything about this episode. Capaldi, the monster, the twist and how it was used for the resolution. And it got my expectations for the finale rather high which probably means I will be really disappointed the next weekend. For now though I can't wait to watch it.

 

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Save for the fact that the Doctor's clues to himself, along with the 400x stronger than diamond wall, all conveniently failed to reset with the rest of the confession dial castle "for reasons", I thought it was a seamless and very enjoyable episode. This season's writing is such a wonderful step up from series 8. So goddamn excited for Time Lords.

 

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This was a great episode. They laid the clues very well too - the dying doctor was actually in the very first scene.

I kept thinking "time loop" while the episode was ongoing. The final reveal was great.

 

That was a special episode! My personal favourite at this point.

 

Hands down the best episode since Capaldi started. The hype for the finale is so real.

 

I really liked the 'the Doctor will see you now' throwback.

Also holy shit, hands down the single best episode this season.

What I don't understand, is

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what exactly happened before and after the confession years? Was the teleporter Me killed Clara to use on the Doctor the entrance to the Dial, or the portal to Gallifrey? Did the Doctor activate the Dial midway to Gallifrey? But hadn't he given it away last episode, or am I forgetting something?

Also, what was the point of the loop? The Doctor confessed the same things every loop, what changed after however many billion years? What was the point of breaking that wall? What did the dial accomplish?
The people who threatened Shielda haven't been revealed yet, have they?

 

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As I understand, the loop wasn't part of the plan to force the Doctor into confession. The loop was his plan to escape the prison. As for the wall, it was basically a more fancy door that couldn't be opened by any other means than confessing or that's what the interrogators thought when they put it in this place.

 

That was one of the best episodes in quite some time.

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Whenever he mentioned he knew where and what the hybrid was, I knew he was talking about himself. Wasn't his mother a human or something like that?

Also, what did the Time Lords want by putting him there? And how did that even happen? I am guessing it was something similar to The Name of the Doctor? Had he said his name the firs time around, the door to Gallifrey would have opened instantly.

 

Cool episode. Really sad too. But, I don't care how long he was at it, there's no way he could punch through something harder than diamond.

 

400 times harder to be precise.

But, in theory he can. He spent over 2 billion years doing it. Let's assume it takes him 2 days to complete a cycle so about 182.5 loops a year so that's 365,000,000,000 loops and about 5 punches in each loop so that's 1,825,000,000,000 punches!

 

....you've never done any sort of physics or materials studies have you?

 

Except hardness and brittleness are two different properties of a material. A piece of 80 HRC untempered steel is incredibly hard but is unusable for tool steel since one hammer blow would cause it to shatter.

Punching through that wall is unlikely in that it was extremely thick and the vibration-causing force from the punch which would cause the wall to crack isn't likely to get through. Still, just because the wall is super hard doesn't mean it can't break.

 

-__- if it was brittle, he wouldn't have been able to literally carve out a doorway. The whole wall would have shattered. Come now, try a bit harder with your BS.

 

Can you punch through something harder than diamond? This article says yes. It must be legit, it's from a tv listings magazine.

In all seriousness...probably not. But it's pretty plausible as far as Doctor Who goes, so fuck it.

I've re-watched it now, and loved it just as much, and literally the only thing I'm questioning at the moment (pending viewing of Hell Bent next week) is:

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The spare clothes that the Doctor changes into after his jump into the lake. Is this an example of the Bootstrap Paradox, even though time travel isn't involved? I get where they come from in the time frame we see, but they have to start somewhere...and there isn't time travel to get it going.
In the Beethoven's 5th example given in the Fisher King episode, it's someone who goes back in time to meet Beethoven, realises he never existed, writes the music himself and thus becomes Beethoven. That all makes sense, or at least you can follow the chain of events, but that doesn't apply here. For Heaven Sent, the Doctor is teleported into the castle - teleported, not time travel. So where do the clothes come from?
Also, who's operating the teleport when he first arrived? Or is it automatic but he converts it to manual once he realises what he's going to have to do?

Fun fact 1*: back in my original set of fanfic, long since abandoned, I set a couple of scenes in Azkaban; the exterior shots of the castle in this episode are pretty much exactly how I was picturing it.

Fun fact 2*: I think we can now say that Moffat is a fan of classic DC comics.

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One of the more infamous incidents of DC continuity is Superboy Prime getting so enraged with his current situation that he punches a hole in reality, causing sweeping changes and retcons.

*Fun facts may be neither fun nor factual.