Rate and Discuss: Hell Bent

[Andrew Curnow]

Another season, another season finale. Gallifrey! Time Lords! Sand Dunes! What did you think?

[Paul Clement]

I'll go with Shit. A lot of early story promise but it went squirrelling away up its own arse as the story developed.

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[Dino]

I can't really vote or decide on a number yet. I've wanted to like this series a lot more than it's made me like it.
I was thinking "Well it's a finale, when was the last time any of their finales worked?" but it was still...
*insert Alan Partridge post end credits scene of him going "Yeah..."!

[Philipnet]

Great Scott!
Tampering Timelords

What on Earth Gallifrey was that???

[Alex]

Hmmm, disappointed by that. The big return of Gallifrey felt wasted, and whilst I enjoyed parts of the episode, I hated the fact that at the end they basically made Clara the Doctor, complete with her own companion and a tardis with a faulty chameleon circuit. If we'd seen Clara force the Doctor to return her to Trap Street and her death, and he had to witness it again, it could have been poignant and touching. But instead the ending really annoyed me, and I'll be horribly disappointed if we ever see Clara again.

Still, on the plus side at least we have the Doctor with a new Sonic, and the potential for the show to go in any direction. Can't help but feel that I hope this next season is Moffat's last though, and someone new comes in with new ideas soon.

6/10 - though I accidentally miscounted and rated it 7 in the poll.

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm not sure what to think. Maybe it's the old problem of expecting something very different to what we actually got?

[Andrew Curnow]

Thinking about it this morning, I still don't know. I was expecting a big showdown with the Time Lords - but actually it wasn't that at all really. The Doctor rocks up, holds his ground until the President shows up, deposes him, takes over Gallifrey, convinces them to retrieve Clara because she can help with the hybrid.... and then it turns up everything so far has been the Doctor getting into exactly this position so that he can try and somehow save Clara, on a "time will sort itself out" kind of way.

So.... Good idea, following on from last week's sort-of exploration of the Doctor, this week we sort-of had the Doctor going 'bad' to try and save his friend. Nothing wrong with it, just really, really not what I had expected.

Good points, though - curiously thrilling to see old-style roundels, and Capaldi running around inside what is basically William Hartnell's TARDIS. Along the way Moffat has pretty much addressed the niggle of why Tennant's Doctor (in The End of Time) desperately didn't want the Time Lords back, and yet the Three Doctors (as in The Day of...) desperately did - so in a nutshell, Rassillon is the rotten apple in the barrel, and he's dispensed with.

I assume the hybrid stuff is now done - presumably the Doctor fled Gallifrey because he thought it was him, but whether it was him (and I notice even the usually bold Moffat shied away from having Capaldi actually say he was half-human) or 'Me', they were clearly both stood on the ruins of Gallifrey at the very end of time.

And as Alex says, we've now the potential for a fresh direction. Hopefully the Time Lord business is now done with, Clara is gone, we're back to just some guy in a box with a screwdriver!

[egdcltd]

Looks like I'm not the only one uncertain as to what to think about that episode. And I liked seeing the old-style TARDIS control room again too.

In a way, it was kind of nice to have a season finale that wasn't big and awe-inspiring - they were really getting hard to top after resetting the universe.

[egdcltd]

(and I notice even the usually bold Moffat shied away from having Capaldi actually say he was half-human)

I'm sure one of the Doctors said his mother was human once. Perhaps it was Paul McGann.

[Perry Vale]

A damp squib, that dragged and was mostly boring. When the return of classic "roundels" is the best thing in a series finale, you've got serious problems.

Gallifrey seemed to be the setting just for some fan squee.

Was I the only one who thought he saw Tom Baker & Peter Davison's face in the matrix wraiths faces?

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm sure one of the Doctors said his mother was human once. Perhaps it was Paul McGann.

Indeed, much to the fury of some fans. I thought for a moment Moffat was going to fully legitimise it last night, for those fans who don't count Paul McGann. (No, I don't know.)

[Jason Thompson]

That ending was, frankly, dull. Big mythology-heavy episode with bugger all plot.

It was really the epitome of my biggest gripe with Staven Moffatt as producer of the show: he hasn't got the guts to kill off a main character properly. Oh he still writes big deaths cenes with big build-ups, stirring music, slo-mo, horrified reaction shots, and everyone being sad afterwards, but then he undoes it all. 'Everybody lives' was a great moment in The Doctor Dances. A really uplifting ending to the story. Now, with hindsight, it just looks like a calling card that says 'this is what I'll do all the time from now on'. He's given us monsters that 'kill' you by not actually killing you but making you live your life in the past, He's killed Rory and brought him back over and over again, killed Amy in one episode only to have her 'actually not quite dead' in the next, Killed Jenny and had Strax restart her a scene or two later, made Clara into multiple copies he can kill over and over again and still have her turn up, then finally killed the 'prime' Clara only to have her extracted just before her last heartbeat and left roaming time and space in a new stolen TARDIS. Clara's death should have been a great moment, but now it's just a cheat.

And the real sod about that whole situation is that at the end of the episode the Doctor hasn't learned anything. He's just sad because he's forgotten her. There was a great opportunity for him to realise and understand that Clara's actions got her killed, not his, and after his rant about how it had to end because of the lengths he went to to keep her safe, he didn't accept and understand, he just found another way out so Clara could live rather than accepting the 'reality' of the situation and putting her back at her own request.

Monsters, aliens, fiendish plots, actual death. Does anyone remember when Doctor Who used to be about these things rather than obsessive, dysfunctional relationships between the Doctor and his companions?

[Dino]

Although some people did like it! They haven't posted on here yet, but they did like it.

[SiHart]

It was an episode that promised so much but delivered very little. So much potential, so many ideas frittered away in little asides- the Cloister Wraiths, the fall of Rasillon, Gallifrey being back... All to tell an inward looking story of the Doctor and Clara, when it should have been big, grand spectacle.

What was the hybrid in the end? I'm buggered if I know. Was there any threat to anything at all? I don't get the point of this episode at all, except that the Doctor didn't want to lose Clara. Whi8ch made the ending of Face the Raven just another silly moment, instead of the end it should have been.

A whole lot of very pretty looking nothing. Nice, but ultimately what was the point?

[Antony Cox]

Another waste of my time.

I’m not sure if just that I’m a mouldy old fig, forever harking back to the Good Old Days, but I’m really finding the current series over-complicated and far too emotional. Doctor Who always has been and should still be an adventure series all about the story. I’m not suggesting that the characters should be two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs, nor that The Doctor should not be seen to be upset if someone close to him dies, but when there are entire episodes given over to him having an emotional crisis over losing his companion, I can’t help but feel that the series is drifting away from what it does best.

If I may hark back to the Good Old Days for a moment, whenever The Doctor ‘lost’ a companion, be it by them leaving or dying, it was still handled appropriately, even continuing through subsequent episodes in some cases, without descending into self-indulgent sentiment (I’m thinking specifically of Adric’s demise and of Susan and Jo’s exits, the latter of which is handled beautifully with such subtle poignancy).

Not only do I grow bored of this type of episode in the New Series, I’m starting to literally lose the plot by not really engaging with the esoteric ‘storylines’ which, I’m happy to admit, tendto go over my head sometimes. If DW is still aimed at a younger audience then goodness knows how they are dealing with it – perhaps I’m just way out-of-touch and they’re just a lot more switched-on than I am?

[duncan]

Over complicated it certainly is. My teenage daughter was loving the show until recently. She now rarely understands it and is always asking for explanations.

I need to re-watch this before I give it a score.

[Si Hunt]

Absolutely the wrong episode to watch after wine. Like much of the rest of the season, you had to listen intently as important plot points were uttered behind great blasting incidental music. You really needed to concentrate!

Thus I hated it on first viewing but enjoyed it more the second time. There were good ideas here - the Cloister Wraiths, the ringing bells, and a lovely scene with the General regenerating. Interesting that he's been a woman in every other incarnation and the character isn't named. Who is he/she? General Romana perhaps?

It was, what it was, a story about the Doctor tricking the Time Lords into 'extracting' Clara (I notice he didn't 'extract' Adric while he was there) and then escaping in a TARDIS. It's a shame that Ashildyr felt wasted in all of this. There she is, billions of years in the future, unchanged, unremarkable and really incidental to this little plot. She goes off with Clara, as if a loose end in need of tying up where previously it seemed as if her story was the whole arc of the season. They really needed an older character actress to bring an immortal character to life. An 18 year old inexperienced actress just couldn't convey the weight of millions of years in her performance - and seemingly didn't try.

Also I have to say that the Doctor might as well have not forgotten Clara at all, as he said he was left with knowing her name, sketchy details of some of their adventures, then he meets a mysterious girl in a dematerilising cafe who returns his TARDIS to him, complete with a big picture of Clara stapled to the door! Could the Doctor really not fill in the gaps?

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

I did wonder whether somebody incredibly skilled in the Art Department had done that drawing, because to be fair it was enough like Clara for us to know the intention, but actually not that good a likeness if you didn't know! Maybe I'm being over-generous...

They really needed an older character actress to bring an immortal character to life. An 18 year old inexperienced actress just couldn't convey the weight of millions of years in her performance - and seemingly didn't try.

I'm glad to see you say that, Si. I've held off making any mention during the series so far, because the world & his wife seemed to be raving about Maisie Williams - I've not seen Game of Thrones, and she may well be superb in that; and she may be lovely to work with and all that... but she didn't do anything with the part in Doctor Who that any other half-decent actor could have done. There seemed no depth, no reality, no nothing to her.

I've only watched it once by the way, so I'm still very undecided!

[Stuart Wallis]

So many people have gone and mentioned all the reasons why I didn't like this episode in the thread already, so I won't go over old ground; except to emphasise why does Mr. Moffat over-complicate things, except to cover the lack of a storyline, or one made up of seemingly disparate, seemingly random points picked up during the course of several years? I think it's time he left, and let someone else get on, as Ant said, with trying to tell good stories wherein something actually happens? Give up the story arcs and let the plots tell themselves!

1/10 - and that's for the "old" console room

[Philipnet]

Absolutely the wrong episode to watch after wine.

I've found this season has been good to watch with a beer!

Could Si consider changing drinks for next season and seeing how he fairs?

[Alex]

I did wonder whether somebody incredibly skilled in the Art Department had done that drawing, because to be fair it was enough like Clara for us to know the intention, but actually not that good a likeness if you didn't know! Maybe I'm being over-generous...


I'm glad to see you say that, Si. I've held off making any mention during the series so far, because the world & his wife seemed to be raving about Maisie Williams - I've not seen Game of Thrones, and she may well be superb in that; and she may be lovely to work with and all that... but she didn't do anything with the part in Doctor Who that any other half-decent actor could have done. There seemed no depth, no reality, no nothing to her.

I've only watched it once by the way, so I'm still very undecided!

I watch (and indeed love) Game of Thrones, and think Williams is great in it. But I thought she was pretty weak here, she had the odd okay moment but I was disappointed overall. Maybe she just needs a really good director to get the best out of her, but there was something just a bit off about her whole performance in Who.

[Philipnet]

there was something just a bit off about her whole performance in Who.

That would sum it up for myself.

In The Girl Who Died, she wasn't playing a main character, so I could put with her rather 1 dimensional appearance.
But when it came to The Woman Who Lived, I couldn't quite put my finger on it - but her performance just didn't gel.

[Antony Cox]

My problem with the series now is that it tries too hard. Moffatt is undoubtedly a talented and creative writer but the slavish need to constantly better the previous season or episode has resulted in the series disappearing up its own backside, and this is most evident in each successive series finale. It’s like watching a perpetual machine which has seemingly transcended the second law of thermodynamics but in reality will ultimately burn itself out. Perhaps this is the bleak reality of TV production these days now that there’s 10 million channels with everyone striving to produce the next best thing; there doesn’t seem to be a place for a straightforward sci-fi adventure series.

I’m inclined to think that this is what audiences demand these days; ever more sophisticated storylines and ‘cool’ factors, but surely a romping good adventure will always win out over esoteric self-indulgence? Perhaps Nick Park and Bob Baker should be the next show-runners?

Also, I shuddered when I saw the sonic screwdriver again at the end of Hell Bent. What are we going to have next – a sonic hedgehog, perhaps?

[Stuart Wallis]

I’m inclined to think that this is what audiences demand these days; ever more sophisticated storylines and ‘cool’ factors, but surely a romping good adventure will always win out over esoteric self-indulgence? Perhaps Nick Park and Bob Baker should be the next show-runners?

Cracking Wesleydale, K-9!

I have to admit that I've not been a fan of what I've seen of Moffatt outside Who anyway, and for that matter most of what he's written for it, so bias admitted. After Empty Child and Silence In the Library I thought we might just be lucky as long as he didn't follow the RTD route and write half the series himself (my least-favourite RTD-era scrips also tend to be RTD-written scripts). Unfortunately, for me at least, with exceptions that's tended to be the case.

[egdcltd]

I've not seen Maisie Williams in anything else, but to be fair to her, I think she was given an impossible role to play. You have someone who is supposed to have become a never-aging immortal at a young age, so she needs to look young, yet she's also supposed to have a weight of experience behind her. You need an actress who still looks like a child despite being 50+ to manage that properly.