Heaven Sent

Last week’s shock ending was terrifying, though the ‘Beeb as usual does more than its fair share of deflating the surprises and shocks of recent episodes, this one included. If you had the misfortune of accidentally stumbling upon the plot for the episode, the twist is spoiled, but that doesn’t stop this episode from being an intense character study in a season filled with them.

The episode takes place for the Doctor right after Clara’s violent death in last week’s “Face The Raven”, but the period it takes place in is murky from the very beginning. There’s plenty of clues to the true nature of the castle from the beginning. The resetting rooms prevent the Doctor from being able to find traces of previous occupants, but the copy of his outfit, the river of skulls, and even the hand pressing the lever are a clue to what’s happening. And it’s to the credit of Moffat whose writing has continually raised the bar this season as it milks the premise for all it’s worth.

This isn’t the first time the Doctor has lost a companion, whether by separation, death or just being left alone. The last time in Moffat’s run we saw the Doctor lose a companion was in “The Angels Take Manhattan”. The followup episode “The Snowmen” took place some time after, and even though the Doctor claimed to be done with the thankless job of helping others, he still had the luxury of time and space to work out his grief, and Clara (or rather a fragment of her) to snap him to his senses. Here the Doctor gets no such luxury, he’s thrown into danger from the beginning, and while he makes not-so-veiled threats to the safety of his captors, they’re empty ones.

What this episode pulls off astonishingly well is just who the Doctor is without an audience to play for and people to care about the safety of. As anyone who knows me can tell you: I’m a harsh critic of Moffat’s Doctor Who. While I loved the episodes like “Blink” or “Silence in the Library”, his run on Doctor Who during Matt Smith’s tenure ran increasingly towards being “clever” instead of actually being clever. That combined with plot based character arcs to get cool moments as opposed to character based plot arcs has been off putting. I also wasn’t a fan of Capaldi’s debut season for similar reasons.

This season however has been an entirely different animal: barring the first 4 episodes and “Sleep No More”, the story has leaned more towards a character study of the Doctor himself and more importantly Clara. That last bit has been key this season. As mentioned in the previous review: Clara suffered from a tendency to be written in ways that left her undefined in favor of the “Impossible Girl” plot or just simply characterizing her as controlling. But as “Face The Raven” showed, she took one risk too many, and in “Heaven Sent” her absence creates a narrative tension unseen even in traditional follow ups to the loss of a companion like “The Runaway Bride” or “The Snowmen”, and moreover just what kind of space she created in Doctor Who’s story with her absence.

It’s easy to forget that the function of the companion was originally just so the Doctor could have a “Watson” to explain the more out there concepts to. While the companions of the 2005 series have evolved well beyond that, they still serve that essential narrative function. However, as “Heaven Sent” shows, the Doctor has intellectual limitations of his own without someone to ask the right questions as Clara would have. Moreover, as we’ve known for a very long time now: the Doctor is a very lonely man. Moffat’s time as the showrunner in particular has highlighted that the Doctor has a difficult time functioning without an audience. While the Doctor’s opening round of threats is there to establish his emotional state, it also serves the purpose of showing just how much he relies upon playing off of others in order to facilitate his normal process, as well as to show just what isn’t there.

The typical Doctor Who episode relies upon a healthy amount of exposition towards whoever the companion or villains are, but in this case: the Doctor’s thoughts are self-directed. While the Doctor thinking out loud isn’t terribly new, just how he compensates for keeping his confidence is one of the rewarding parts of this episode. While Moffat does steal a bit from his other show Sherlock for the TARDIS “mind palace” sequences, it works in the context of establishing just how quickly the Doctor’s mind works. Moreover, it’s a reminder that like anyone else: the Doctor seeks comfort in the familiar, and while his enemies deny him that he will still get that respite by any means necessary.

It’s a credit to director Rachel Talalay’s ability to spin what could be very repetitive material into a very torturous experience. The foreboding nature of the Veiled’s unbending pursuit of the Doctor, the repeated deaths of the Doctor, and the bloodied crawl back to the teleporter. That repetition and torture is well-doled out in a way that maximizes the use of Peter Capaldi’s own emotional outbursts.

Speaking of Capaldi, while he has to carry much of the story by himself, it’s a testament to his own evolution in the role of the Doctor how he’s able to evoke so many different emotions. Fear, anger, loss, wrath, resolve. While we’ve seen angry Doctors so many times over, Capaldi has to bear the brunt of this all on his own as opposed to projecting it on a hapless character. He carries that repeated pain and anguish to the fore once the nature of his imprisonment becomes clear in a way David Tennant himself would be proud of. But that final ending, when he realizes he’s home, and that home is now his enemy, he really does project a “Time Lord Victorious” vibe that makes him more frightening than ever. I look forward to seeing how “Hell Bent” makes use of this status quo, but if nothing else two out of three isn’t a bad ending.

5 out of 5 Veiled Threats

P.S

• Seriously, am I the only one who thinks Peter Capaldi has gone full David Tennant now? He’s gotten the emotional speeches down, the frightening wrath, he’s only missing the hair and the trainers.
• I have to say, even for a Doctor Who episode, the castle was pretty spooky as a set. Kudos to the set designers.
• See you guys this weekend for Hell Bent. I’m confident that this season will be a killer ending.