The penultimate episode of Doctor Who this week wasn’t so much a television programme as a barn-storming showcase of BBC talent. Picking up where last week’s episode left off, after the tragic death of companion Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman), Heaven Sent saw Peter Capaldi’s Doctor tele-ported to a mysterious prison castle.
Pursued
by a terrifying yet slow-moving cloaked monster, known as The Veil, The Doctor’s only escape is to
confess truths to the beast just before it kills him, although this only really serves to buy him more time to
try to solve the mystery of his surroundings. Heartbreakingly,
in between run-ins with the creature and the discovery of clues, he imagines himself back in the TARDIS,
telling Clara about his adventures whilst she kept her back to him, writing questions on the blackboard, in a fitting
tribute to what had been her day job. Despite the fact that this was a solo
Capaldi episode, Heaven Sent was as
much about Clara as it was about The Doctor.
As a
companion, her character came across as quite two dimensional at the start, but
her final series with the show has been no less than a tour de force. Coleman and
Capaldi created something very special together, in a welcome
move from the slightly-almost-romantic-but-not-quite relationship of previous
Doctors and travelling partners. This episode allowed us to see The Doctor
grieve – something we’re not always privy to as an audience, as companions have
often departed in the final episode, with The Doctor returning a series later
damaged, but very much on the mend. Heaven
Sent showed us the anguish and mental torment usually glossed over.
Steven
Moffat always writes his best work in single setting, claustrophobic
environments, and this fantastically imaginative personalised hell allowed him
to fully explore The Doctor’s emotional instability, as well as being one of
the most inventive plotlines I think we’ve seen a while. As it
slowly dawned on us as an audience that The Doctor has been stuck in this loop
for a very long time, and the skulls at the bottom of the sea took on an eerie
new significance, watching the Time Lord forced to take ‘the long way round’ to
such an extreme gave the show a scale and emotional depth beyond compare.
If Peter
Capaldi doesn’t win some sort of award for his performance in this episode, let
alone this series as a whole, we’ll eat our collective hat. Equal parts angry,
resigned, guilt-ridden and defiant, Capaldi’s performance here was an intense
emotional journey, carried off with trademark ease. Between his extraordinary talent,
Rachel Talalay’s able direction and Moffat’s stunning concept, all supported by
a gorgeous score and fantastic set design, this episode could happily have
been feature length.
Series 9
of Doctor Who has been one of the best in a while, with Capaldi settled into
the role, and his companionship with Clara going from strength to strength. The
two-parter structure has really helped, and I for one hope that it continues
into the next series.
Although past follies remain unforgotten, the show seems
to be on a role at the moment.
And frankly, te fact
that television of this calibre is available as regular Saturday night entertainment
serves as an excellent two fingers up to recent criticism of the BBC licence fee,
and is reason enough to keep the Beeb going for many years to come.
This is
me signing off on Series 9, as Becky will be here with you next week for Hell Bent – it looks like it’s going to
be a cracker.
Jen
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