Heaven Sent

Home Forums Episodes The Twelfth Doctor Heaven Sent

This topic contains 628 replies, has 93 voices, and was last updated by  Missy 3 years, 4 months ago.

Viewing 50 posts - 401 through 450 (of 629 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #48590
    lisa @lisa

    @umbi

    Definitely some possible truths!  I like  a lot of your contentions.   I need to

    go thru your post  again and do another  re think      🙂

     

    #48597
    Anonymous @

    @nerys @jphamlore @morpho etc..thank you.

    @morpho

    :embarrassed laugh: haven’t watched anything with Adric in it in years….oops!

    @pedant oh, too true -last comment (that was a large post coming from you my friend)

    @umbi whoa. That was quite interesting -on many levels. I will also have to read your bonkers theories again. Definitely great for a first post and welcome to you :waving:

     

    #48604
    jphamlore @jphamlore

    Perhaps the nature of what is programmed in the confession dial as the Doctor’s worst fears tells us why he left Gallifrey and what he is really afraid of.

    The Doctor may as well be speaking of the Veil when he has his monologue at the beginning describing how something shadows one through life, ending one’s life when one stays in one spot too long.  Could this be the Doctor’s core philosophy, that a person and thus a society must ever by dynamic, willing to change, because when one stagnates in one place or time too long, then one is effectively already dead?

    Most of the castle is medieval in appearance, with rare bits of technology such as the transporter room and the monitors.  This reminds me of how Gallifrey has been portrayed:  A mass of people who may as well be medieval peasants with a few soldiers and leaders using exotic time and space technology.

    At first when the Doctor goes to Room 12 it is a blank solid stone wall.  Only after he speaks a few truths openly such that he ran from Gallifrey because he was afraid does the castle change to show him the crystal wall.   I think what the Doctor experiences is strikingly similar to the initiation ceremonies of more primitive societies marking the transition from childhood to adulthood, themes Joseph Campbell explores in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 

    The first part of many initiation ceremonies is to scare the living daylights out of the initiate, to make the initiate acknowledge fear.  The Doctor thus confesses he left Gallifrey because he was afraid.  The ceremony confronts the initiate with the initiate’s mortality, that life can suddenly end.  The Doctor must dig into a grave and ponder a skull.  There is then a long period of contemplation, under duress, which is ended when the initiate has a personal vision.  The Doctor finally realizes the nature of his prison, that it is constructed for him, and only then when he goes to Room 12 does he see the crystal wall.  Now is the moment of truth.  The initiate has his personal vision, but as Joseph Campbell points out, an essential part of the hero’s journey is the hero must bring his vision back to his people and tell them.  The hero must at least try to integrate his vision, the unity of some duality, into his society.   This is the decision point where the hero may be accepted, perhaps to become one of the leaders of the society, or it may be rejected, leading him to become an outcast.

    The Doctor can vaguely see something through the crystal wall, something he can call “HOME”.  All he has to do is to share his final secrets to realize his vision.  But he refuses to take this last step.  He has told his inner Clara there are some secrets that cannot be shared at any cost.  And she in turn told him to win.

    I am reminded of another interrogation episode, The Prisoner’s Once Upon a Time.   In that show, Number 6 through all his torment refuses to, honestly, answer the question of why he resigned.  What would be such a momentous secret?  I argue it had to be a personal one, not something like the nuclear launch codes of a major Western power.  To answer would be to lose one’s identity, to risk eventually becoming one of the bodies slumped on the ground warned about in  the show’s first episode.  I suspect the same holds for the Doctor.   Inside the confession dial, he like Number 6 does not know what side his interrogators are on, and he himself like Number 6 may have no side after having “resigned” from his planet Gallifrey.

    So we come to the question of why did the Doctor leave Gallifrey for Earth?  I do not know.  But I would not be surprised if like Number 6, one day the Doctor simply woke up, looked around his surroundings, and instinctively realized something was simply not right and that he had to get out right away.

    #48605
    CountScarlioni @countscarlioni

    @ichabod     But I think SM saw that that’s a good way to run out of stories, after so long, so why not go more for the metaphorical, the personal drama, the deeper connections?  I left because of the first approach, have come back been riveted because of the second.  I think SM is doing a bang-up job with it.   Agree completely. Three of my ten all time favourite episodes are SM written episodes; it had been two but he added one more last week. The current series it seems to me has been spectacular.

    @pedant  SM is quite willing to make the decision that any given issue can be ignored, or left for later.  I certainly was not taking a swipe at SM but the way you’ve expressed it put it’s better than my effort. It’s that he does not always dot the i’s and cross the t’s that opens up a space for bonkerising.

    #48608
    Anonymous @

    @jphamlore

    interesting bonkerisngs and observations about the initiation concept. After all, the TLs -the aristocratic classes were initiated into society at age 8?

    I would in this case:

    …strikingly similar to the initiation ceremonies of more primitive societies marking the transition from childhood to adulthood…

    perhaps refer to ‘early societies’ rather than primitive ones -“primitive”  has a pejorative feel to it, no?

    Yes, I’m interested in Campbell’s writings. Recently repurchased another book of his that I’d stupidly loaned out and subsequently lost. 🙂

    @countscarlioni I agree as well with you and @ichabod. There’s more than meets the eye here too. SM does not bother with over explaining. Much of his work is metaphorical with a layer also easily understood by children; the ramifications of societal issues in the Zygon Inversion left to us adults to ponder.

    #48609

    @countscarlioni

    Ah, right. Gotcha. I suspect that even the uncrossed i’s and t’s are carefully considered….

    That a few don’t get picked up on (most notable, I guess, Jenny-Wife-of-Tennant) is I think just a function of how TV gets made. Sometimes you just never get around to it.

    (At the end to West Wing season 1 the character Mandy left the show – effectively mid-cliffhanger. They meant to go back and explain it, but never got around to it)

    #48613
    Anonymous @

    @pedant (wrong thread I know but I’ll be brief) I think Mandy’s disappearance was something inevitable. The trust she’s had with the ‘team’ had been chipped away by the discovery of that memo.

    But I agree – TV and what I know about it would mean that after broadcast and with  many many writers on board, I’m surprised that more continuity isn’t lost and more questions are left unanswered -by and large most ‘questions’ and hanging threads by the end of say, three years, are fully explained -imagine the drawing board! Confusion and post -it notes.

     

    #48614
    jphamlore @jphamlore

    @puroandson: Thanks for sharing your story, it was very moving and relevant to Heaven Sent.  And thanks for correcting me about using “early societies” versus “primitive.” 🙂

    As for the Doctor’s initiation at age 8, as I have noted, his description of it in The Sound of Drums makes it clear that he was motivated by being scared not boredom to leave Gallifrey, or just to keep running in general.

    <span style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;”>DOCTOR:  Children of Gallifrey, taken from their families age of eight to enter the Academy. And some say that’s when it all began. When he was a child. That’s when the Master saw eternity. As a novice, he was taken for initiation. He stood in front of the Untempered Schism. It’s a gap in the fabric of reality through which could be seen the whole of the vortex. You stand there, eight years old, staring at the raw power of time and space, just a child. Some would be inspired, some would run away, and some would go mad. Brr. I don’t know.
    MARTHA: What about you?
    DOCTOR: Oh, the ones that ran away, I never stopped. </span>

     

    #48615
    Arbutus @arbutus

    There have been a lot of interesting ideas about the virtual vs. physical reality of events in the episode and it’s all wonderful. I’m inclined to lean toward the “subjective” rather than “objective” interpretation, although not strongly in support of any one description of exactly how/why that works. Lots of people have had very creative thoughts. Frankly, this is why I don’t quite understand the viewers who demand every little thing be explained. It’s so easy and fun to come up with our own mechanisms for how things might have worked!

    @mirime   He couldn’t lie when he was in the confession dial, but he can now he’s out.   Oh, that’s a good point. It also happens to support my view that the Doctor is referring to himself, but is not telling the truth, so even better!  🙂  But it’s a good answer to the question of why the Doctor would suddenly be willing to talk now, but not to avoid billions of years of torture.

    @puroandson     Thank you for the incredibly evocative description of your hospital experience. It serves as a vivid reminder of the mind and how hugely perceptions of time and space can be altered. I hope it wasn’t too disturbing to live through it all again, it sounds as though it were bad enough once!

    A few people have mentioned the issue of what the Doctor remembers (@tardigrade, @puroandson, @ichabod, others as well). Here are some thoughts I have had on that. When he discovers the wall, he “sonics” it to figure out what it is. He peruses it and then suddenly remembers the message “bird”. Then, inside his mind palace, he says this: “That’s when I remember! Always then! It was exactly there.” There is an interesting mixture of tenses here, implying both the past and the ongoing present. He also says “I can’t keep doing this” and “I can’t always do this.” And finally, “I can remember it all… Every time.” He comes to this moment and can then remember past the reset, as it were, because he clearly remembers it happening every time, seven thousand years worth of times. So when he finally breaks through the wall, he does it remembering all the other billions of times he tried and failed.

    He appears to equate these aeons of torment with Clara’s loss. He says in anguish, “And you’ll still be gone.” Clara’s response is, “You are not the only one who ever lost someone… Get over it. Do it. Break free.” This really seems to equate breaking free from the trap of the confession dial with breaking free from his grief. Whether this means that what he is going through is literally a penance, or whether there is more of a metaphoric connection being made, who nose? But these lines strongly support @ichabod‘s thinking that much of the purpose behind “Heaven Sent” is to move the Doctor past Clara’s loss, to free him up for the future.

    By the way, if there has been any discussion of the title of this episode, then I have missed it. What do we think the title represents (other than Clara herself, possibly)?

    #48618
    tardigrade @tardigrade

    @arbutus

    You make a strong case here for the Doctor remembering more than I’d given credence to. I realise now I’d rather discounted his talking about remembering in those quotes, thinking it referred to remembering the Grimm story about the bird, but reading it in black and white it does definitely seem he is remembering prior iterations somehow, but with those memories coming once he’s already cornered he couldn’t really change how things play out, other than by giving in. Because those memories are seemingly impossible to have, it does suggest things aren’t entirely as they seem. He might have considered writing “keep spade” instead of “bird” one time though , since the point of that spade would be pretty useful against the wall compared to his fist 🙂

    By the way, if there has been any discussion of the title of this episode, then I have missed it. What do we think the title represents (other than Clara herself, possibly)?

    Didn’t notice any discussion either. In large part, I’m sure it’s so that the second part can be called “Hell Bent”, with that being an apt title the way things are shaping up. It did occur to me though that Missy was the previous curator of “Heaven”, so might point to her involvement and the Doctor’s experience in the confession dial perhaps being similar to those of her earlier “clients” in the virtual heaven – that’s probably reading too much into it though :-).

    #48619
    tardigrade @tardigrade

    Just noticed this little exchange in The Magician’s Apprentice back at the start of the series, with Missy holding the Doctor’s confession dial:

    Clara: Since when do you care about the Doctor?
    Missy: Since always. Since the Cloister Wars. Since the night he stole the moon and the President’s wife. Since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie. Can you guess which one?

    Presumably he couldn’t have been a little girl (we saw him previously as a child as a boy). Now assuming that Missy could actually restrain herself to only one lie, do the other references link to any events that anyone’s aware of? Chances are it’s just a throwaway line, but the reference to the President’s wife has me wondering if there’s some connection with current events- given that I was theorising that if Ashildr is on Gallifrey she may have been there for quite some time, given her immortality, and become part of the society- could that possibly be her?

    #48620
    Anonymous @

    @arbutus @tardigrade

    Yes indeed- these were the thoughts I had about the hospital experience which led me to think that this was both remembered by the Doctor and at the same time, forgotten -if that helps (though it’s confusing and I’m not the best person to explain it properly).

    In fact, one could, in alerting ourselves to the Doctor’s unique perception of time and space, reconcile a variety of conceptual positions: that he has forgotten in part and chooses to remember fragmentary pieces of his experience when he is able and chooses to. Like everything, he is ready to remember when it is appropriate to do so: “who frowned this face”  was something he recalled in The Girl Who Died.

    I feel that the hospital ‘trip’ (and it was certainly a ‘trip’ on a number of levels) is like that for me too (not that I’m comparing my mind to the Doctor’s!). I choose to forget most of the time and have locked it away in its filing cabinet, as it were, until I wish to open it and scan the contents -as I did yesterday. It’s not particularly painful because some of what I believe happened, didn’t happen the way I thought it did. Some events which I’m certain didn’t occur, did!

    And thank you, no it’s not especially painful as I’ve spoken about this in various Crohns and Colitis functions where I’ve been guest speaker and also in assisting physicians and nursing staff work proactively to improve the prisoner’s patient’s experiences when building and re-establishing new hospitals or clinical wings.

    I drew on my own memories and so turned the event into something positive -it has helped others to understand and has ensured I’ve developed enough and become stronger because of it -a baptism by fire, I suppose.

    Certainly, below, those lines you drew upon @arbutus are those which convinced me as well that the Doctor did recall, varyingly, his experiences as they happened: (I’ve added your interpretation too – for clarification and because you summed it up so beautifully as always):

    “I can’t keep doing this” and “I can’t always do this.” And finally, “I can remember it all… Every time.” He comes to this moment and can then remember past the reset, as it were, because he clearly remembers it happening every time, seven thousand years worth of times. So when he finally breaks through the wall, he does it remembering all the other billions of times he tried and failed…”

    Interesting that when something is ‘heaven sent’ it arrives at a propitious moment, when it is needed -much like the Tardis taking the Doctor where he needs to go and not necessarily where he wants.

    Was the Doctor ‘heaven sent’ to Gallifrey at a time when they called him -having procured his Confession Dial and also because he may be required for something different altogether that we’ve not yet realised?

    Did young Lady “Me” ‘send him’ and as an immortal, can she be the positive article -the ‘heaven sent’?

    I also wonder, having heard Clara in the Doctor’s head (throughout this series apparently: recalling the Zygon Inversion) that it was she who arrived propitiously circumventing his other fears and anxieties associated with this enormous feat that he needed to complete, compete with or overcome. Either way, Clara assisted the Doctor to complete his mission inside the Dial: at the end of his tether, at the end of the noose, at the end of his rope, it was the image of Clara placing her hand gently on the Doctor’s cheek and saying “beat it, get up off your arse and win” which led the Doctor each time to chip away at the diamond wall. She was sent by heaven, perhaps? Whatever Heaven might be?

    We’ve been instructed by Moffat in the past few series that a person’s memory and their evanescence transcends their bodily condition. Without that image, without that audience (“I’m nothing without an audience”; “don’t you want to know how I did it?”; “see Clara…I still have it!” -*gulp*) perhaps he would never have left that dial after all?

    I’m reminded of how a small boy in Mat Smith’s 2nd season was able to call “for a Doctor” to scare away the actual monsters in his cupboard. The Doctor was “heaven sent.” So, now something or someone has called for the Doctor  -he’s ‘Heaven Sent’  ??

    Kindest,

    Just Puro (flying solo this evening!)

    🙂

    #48633
    todeledo @todeledo

    This question have been bugging me for a wile. <span style=”line-height: 1.5;”>The skulls in the ocean where the doctors, so shouldn’t the ocean get filled with skulls after the billionth time the doctor died? If so, why didn’t the doctor  die when he feel in the water, thus breaking the psycle?</span>

    If someone already pointed this out, excuse me I have yet to read through all the coments 🙂

    #48634
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @tardigrade    He might have considered writing “keep spade” instead of “bird” one time though , since the point of that spade would be pretty useful against the wall compared to his fist    Yes, that would have been practical!

    Interesting thought about Missy as we know she definitely “sent” Clara to the Doctor. And even thought the Doctor is on his own here, and Clara is most definitely dead except in the confines of his Mind Tardis, and we only see her face or hear her voice for one brief moment, I would say that this episode was surprisingly Clara-centric. The Doctor in mourning. Clara, as @puroandson says, saving the Doctor yet again. Lady Me doesn’t really figure here at all, even though he is in the Dial because of her actions; ditto Gallifrey. This episode is, I think, all about Clara.

    Interesting that we have touched again upon memory in this episode. Ashildr/Lady Me apparently can’t remember huge swaths of her experiences, as her brain just isn’t built for that much data. The Doctor clearly has a different mechanism for dealing with the memories of a long life, by layering them, in a sense, perhaps? So that they can be mined when needed, and sometimes a catastrophic event will turn things upside down and thrust something to the surface (Who frowned me this face?). And here, he is definitely able to remember, at a certain point, things which physically he shouldn’t be able to, having been “reset”. Or else, as @tardigrade says, things just aren’t as they seem. This would support the “subjective experience” theory.

    #48635
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @todeledo   I can think of several possible answers to your question.

    Bone does not last all that long in the sea unless it is buried in the sand or silt of the sea floor, and if the passage of time was objectively two billion years, rather than being a simulation within the Confession Dial and so something experienced only subjectively by the Doctor, even mountains do not survive that long.  The older skulls would have been decaying or being eroded by sea currents and sand movements at a fairly constant rate, even as more skulls were added.

    Assuming, again, that the sea and the castle were physically real in a bigger-on-the-inside Confession Dial, and the skulls were piling up around the base of the castle, the heap would, as you say, eventually rise above the surface of the water; but in the underwater scene they seemed to be spread fairly evenly over the sea floor, as if they had been shifted about by sea currents. The sea around the castle cannot have been very large, and if the skulls were spread fairly evenly, their mass would have displaced an equal volume of water and so the surface level of the sea would gradually have risen above them, and the depth of water remained more or less constant.

    If, however, the castle and the sea were a virtual environment generated by the hardware of the Confession Dial, as I have been suggesting, then what we saw need not be taken too literally. All that would be necessary to convince the Doctor of the passage of time would be the changing pattern of the stars and a sea floor covered in skulls, but realism would not need to extend to the finer details.

     

    #48639
    Starla @starla

    @ichabod For one thing, it operates at full bore, and then releases him alive on Gallifrey — whereas Missy described it as something that would only open after his death.  Of course, that’s Missy talking . . .

    It did open after his death. Many, many deaths….

    #48642
    Starla @starla

    @tardigrade  It did occur to me though that Missy was the previous curator of “Heaven”, so might point to her involvement and the Doctor’s experience in the confession dial perhaps being similar to those of her earlier “clients” in the virtual heaven – that’s probably reading too much into it though 🙂.

    I think I like your interpretation of the title Heaven Sent. Missy has been noticeably absent, but I think she is inextricably tied up in this whole scenario.

    @tardigrade Clara: Since when do you care about the Doctor?

    Missy: Since always. Since the Cloister Wars. Since the night he stole the moon and the President’s wife. Since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie. Can you guess which one?

    Cloister wars… interesting in light of the discussion over on Spoilers. I forgot about this.

    Hey, here’s some serious bonkers with a rating of 0.001% likelihood of actually being right. Little girl… okay, Ashildr isn’t exactly little, but she’s a young girl. No idea at all how she could be part time lord (she’s certainly not!), but let’s pretend she somehow was… she is the little girl, she regenerates into a young version of the Doctor.  “The hybrid is me/Me”… both are true!

    #48651
    tardigrade @tardigrade

    @starla

    Little girl… okay, Ashildr isn’t exactly little, but she’s a young girl. No idea at all how she could be part time lord (she’s certainly not!)

    “Little girl” is a stretch, although it is Missy speaking, with her low opinion of humans, so rating her above “puppy” might be a compliment. If Ashildr’s been on Gallifrey for some time, exposed to the time vortex and maybe even looking into the Untempered Schism (perhaps with her healing tech she could survive that, sanity intact), then she might plausibly be part TL in some sense (River Song certainly seemed to be following exposure to the time vortex in utero).

    If she was literally part-time lord, she could be the daughter Missy mentions. That’s obviously really stretching though 🙂

    I’m not sure that time lord procreation has ever been explored- I’d say there’s a strong chance it’s not sexual. Conceivably ( 🙂 ) creating the child consumes a regeneration of the mother. If Ashildr (with no regenerations to give) were the Doctor’s mother, perhaps she literally gave up her life to create him. Again wild speculation though.

    #48654
    Starla @starla

    @tardigrade Ooh, Missy’s daughter… hmm, I like where you went with that.  I also like your theory that if Ashildr was exposed to the time vortex and untempered schism she could potentially be part TL.

    My ridiculously 100% unlikely #butimthrowingitoutthere theory(laugh if you will, I sure am!!;
    Ashildr, a young girl in relation to time lords, has been chilling on Gallifrey, exposed to timey wimey juju, and has befriended Missy  (maybe a child version at some point??).  Ashildr dies in Hell Bent, and regenerates (or is forcibly regenerated in a machine) – she regenerates into a young boy or baby boy. The young boy/baby is the Doctor. 😮😃😎 The Doctor recognizes this and realises by making viking Ashildr immortal he has essentially created himself (bootstrap paradox), hence why CapDoc seems to recognize Ashildr in Girl who died.  The childDoc is sent back in time to where to Doc should be.  Therefore the hybrid is both me (the Doctor) and Me (Ashildr). Totally ridiculous I know.  😀lol!!

    #48655
    Anonymous @

    Slightly off-topic, but over the past few days I’ve watched the Deadly Assassin and Invasion of Time in anticipation of Gallifrey’s return in Hell Bent, both of which were great. It’s interesting that, while you think about BG Who as featuring Gallifrey and the Time Lords quite often, according to the wiki there are only 7 serials that show Gallifrey (compare to 6 AG episodes!- though of course all of those appearances were fleeting), and only 14 serials that show Time Lords other than main characters (4 of which are Trial of a Time Lord).

    #48657
    nerys @nerys

    @tardigrade

    …, then she might plausibly be part TL in some sense (River Song certainly seemed to be following exposure to the time vortex in utero).

    For a while now, and for this reason, I’ve been thinking the hybrid is River Song. Of course, all my other theories have amounted to zilch, so this one probably will, too.

    #48660
    tardigrade @tardigrade

    @starla

    Ooh, Missy’s daughter… hmm, I like where you went with that. I also like your theory that if Ashildr was exposed to the time vortex and untempered schism she could potentially be part TL.

    If she were already part-TL somehow, then it might actually take exposure to the Untempered Schism for her TL side to be expressed (her expanded memory to kick in for one thing)- that seems to be a coming-of-age event.

    @nerys

    For a while now, and for this reason, I’ve been thinking the hybrid is River Song.

    It did occur to me- just no signs I’ve noticed that character’s making a comeback at this stage though, and her arc was reasonably resolved. Possibly she could have made her way somehow from the Library computer to the matrix?

    #48666
    Anonymous @

    @starla

    this is son of Puro writing. I like your theory and I don’t think its ridiculous at all, I like your hashtag I occasionally follow twitter -my favourite cricket players and so on. That would be funny if you tweeted that -your theory about who that lady is, actually, in Who.

    But as mum as said the outline to the website is theories madder than what is happening (or something like that) so I think you should not call it ridiculous but a really totally awesome theory.

    You have one day to get more of your awesome theories out there. 🙂 We don’t see Doctor who until the next night in Brisbane its not shown on Saturday night and also on Sunday its shown at early time of 7.30 because its family viewing.

    In England it’s on at 8.30 I think Dad said and his relatives in England said that too but none of them are fans. In fact, they are seeing doctor who as an evil show -they are weird extremist Christians who believe that any show which has that much darkness and doesn’t mention god or heaven must be bad.

    I don’t remember meeting those relatives because I was 5 . Mum and Dad don’t get on with them very well -it’s only one of dad’s 5 brothers who are like that the others are ‘normal’. Its hard to talk to them -they are always asking if I say my prayers etc and its difficult to fib to them (and wrong) so I just tell the truth!! Sometimes I don’t go to church and forget to say prayers (oops)

    Anyway, off topic there, I am sorry  -so definitely have more theories Miss @starla!!

    Just son of Puro today

    #48667
    Starla @starla

    @puroandson Thanks son of puro! I quite like my theory, even if it is bonkers. I would be ecstatic if it came to pass!

    #48672
    tardigrade @tardigrade

    Oops- replied on the wrong thread, so will repeat here for those not reading the spoilers thread:

    @puroandson

    We don’t see Doctor who until the next night in Brisbane its not shown on Saturday night and also on Sunday its shown at early time of 7.30 because its family viewing.

    I noticed last week that the episode was available on iview (ABC catchup service) at 8am Sunday- that’s AEDT, so that would make it 7am in Brisbane, which by my calculations makes it half an hour after it starts in the UK. So assuming it’s the same this week, if you were so inclined you could skip to the end and see that before it airs in the UK :-). So I’ll be watching it as soon as it’s available.

    iview is geoblocked, so you need to be in Oz for anyone else reading.

    #48676
    Anonymous @

    @tardigrade

    I noticed last week that the episode was available on iview (ABC catchup service) at 8am Sunday- that’s AEDT, so that would make it 7am in Brisbane, which by my calculations makes it half an hour after it starts in the UK. So assuming it’s the same this week, if you were so inclined you could skip to the end and see that before it airs in the UK :-).

    I’m pretty sure it’s only put on iView after the episode finishes airing in the UK, for exactly that reason. Similarly to previous episodes that I’ve watched as soon as they went up, Hell Bent seems to be airing at 8pm in the UK, according to the BBC, and it’s 55mins, so it’ll be up some time after 7:55am AEDT (6:55) but they usually go up considerably later than that, like 8:15-8:30, there must just be a delay in putting it up.

    Warning: Just googling ‘Doctor Who BBC’ in order to the airing time managed to reveal two spoilers to me…

    #48677
    CountScarlioni @countscarlioni

    @puroandson  SM does not bother with over explaining. Much of his work is metaphorical with a layer also easily understood by children  Very good point. And it seems to me modern day children are much more sophisticated `consumers’ of images and TV than my generation was.

    @pedant  That a few don’t get picked up on (most notable, I guess, Jenny-Wife-of-Tennant) is I think just a function of how TV gets made. Sometimes you just never get around to it. Another very good point I need to keep in mind when bonkerising!

    @starla  Cloister Wars. I’ve stayed away from the Spoilers forum but I hope we are going to find out what Missy was talking about and if there is any relationship to the Tardis’s Cloister Bell.

    @tardigrade   @arbutus   discussion of the title of this episode. What do we think the title represents (other than Clara herself, possibly)?  Perhaps worth remembering that the Doctor tells us “Or maybe I’m in Hell? That’s OK. I’m not scared of Hell. It’s just Heaven for bad people. But how long will I have to be here?”

    #48678
    tardigrade @tardigrade

    @supernumerary

    That makes sense. Still good of the ABC to get it up as soon as they can. I think at one point they were getting them up before the UK showing and were probably getting clobbered by sneaky international downloads. Better for everyone it’s out right after the UK showing from a spoiler perspective too.

    #48691
    PhaseShift @phaseshift
    Time Lord

    So, here we are. Facing the end episode. Time for one last spin of the roulette table of bonkers speculation?

    Reading people’s theories, I’m inclined to believe that Missy is behind the Raven and Confession Dial scenarios and will make an appearance tonight. I think my reasoning comes down to:

    Knowledge

    Missy has the advantage of knowing the Doctor ‘since he was a little girl‘. Hence the construction of the veil as a childhood terror of his.

    The choice of Rigsby could be Me’s watching events, but I can’t help but remember that Missy appeared to be watching the events of Flatline from the Nethersphere. “Clara, My Clara. I have chosen well.” I think Me may genuinely not have known that Clara would make her sacrifice. Missy may have engineered it though, knowing the bond that they shared on that first encounter.

    Opportunity

    Missy could touch the Confession Dial and had it for an unspecified time prior to meeting Clara in Magician’s Apprentice. Ample opportunity for tampering. Whether she acted alone or as an agent of the Time Lords or a mixture of the two, she’s in play … they are not.

    She’s the one person who could give Me the rather cynical view of the Doctor we saw in The Woman who lived. The one who told Me he ‘ran away’ and about his marvellous Space/Time ship (Me neatly sidestepped the Doctor asking ‘who told you that’ both times).

    And generally it just makes sense that if Heaven Sent is an attempt at the Matrix episode of Deadly Assassin, and that we’re going to explore Gallifrey, then both of Gallifrey’s most notorious children will be in the mix. Probably with Missy acting as Time Lord agent, but with her own goals in mind. Having the Doctor grief stricken, and with the knowledge of what his other selves endured to get him out of the Dial must leave him in a delicious place for someone who wants to corrupt him.

    Needless to say, I’m really excited for the episode tonight. Will this be that rare beast? A good Gallifrey set tale?

    #48693
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    @phaseshift (and everybody else) — I’m still slightly clinging to my Clara as agent of Missy theory too. Certainly think that we’ll see Missy tonight.

    My main concern is that an enormous can of worms has been opened by the return of Gallifrey — possibly more than can be resolved in one episode — the last time we really saw them RTD rather quickly had to pop the cork back in the bottle. I still maintain that a Whoniverse with the Time Lords back in it less than delights me and a big part of me wants them to stay gone by the end of tonight’s episode.

    Still, looking forward to it greatly. It’s promising much and it would have to seriously go wrong for this not to be one of (if not the) finest series since the reboot.

    #48694
    blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave

    @phaseshift, @jimthefish

    I am not convinced that we will see Missy. I suspect that this will be the Doctor facing off with the TLs by himself. Missy stories tend to require Missy to be the central agent driving the story. But as this is the conclusion to a three part story, I don’t see Missy as part of the mix. Clara, yes. Because in some sense the Doctor has to resolve himself to her death and move on. So I think we are likely to see Clara in some way tonight (or tomorrow in the colonies).

    Cannot help but notice the wonderful irony of two of our resident and respected Time Lords (who are vital to the success of our virtual world here at The Doctor Who Forum) wanting a Whoinverse without Time Lords…

     

    #48695
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    @blenkinsopthebrave They’re renegades! Wouldn’t have it any other way.

    #48706
    Frobisher @frobisher

    Some very last minute, very bonkers theorising from me:

    When we met “our” Clara (aka Clara Prime) she was a nanny to some children. In “The Crimson Horror” she is seen fiddling with a toy robot in the childrens’ home. That robot is a Transformers G1 Galvatron figure. This jumped out at me at the time because that toy was released in 1986, and is an unusual thing for children to have as a toy in 2013. Transformer collectors like me, sure, but kids? Odd.

    Now, what is interesting about Galvatron is that he is the original Transformers lead villain, Megatron, rebuilt and given a new lease of life in a new body. You could say Megatron “regenerated” into Galvatron. Could this be a hint that Clara has also regenerated from a well known villain? Could the fact Missy dresses like a dark version of Mary Poppins, a childrens’ nanny, also be a clue? Could Clara be a missing link between the Simm Master and Missy? An enemy within a friend?

    Or am I reading waaaay too much into a simply idiosyncratic prop choice? 🙂

     

    #48707
    blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave

    @frobisher

    There are bonkers theories and then there are bonkers theories that take it to the next level of bonkerism.

    Of course, I think it is all highly unlikely. But it is one hell of a bonkers theory.

     

    #48708
    Rob @rob

    Today has been a long way around, started to write a post then….. a trip to take my beloved to the emergency dentist (abscess) then we made 286 mince pies and now shortly before the end of the series, after numerous cups of coffee a bit of bonkerising….. (interspersed with randomness which I hope will one day in a galaxy far far awa…… nope wrong universe)

    Listen, Chalkboard, Long way round, Ouroboros or in Ashildr’s time Jormungandr and Thor, Mire battlefield kit, Last will and testament, Master/Missy acolytes and Lucy Saxon, Asylum of the Daleks:- Amy, Clara and Doctor 11, Tasha Lem. Fear

    See??? No well Listen

    Clara tells the Doctor to Listen four time in quick succession in “Face the Raven”

    “Listen” had the chalkboard which wrote mysteriously (not if that episode was partly in his mind palace though) then Clara used through the Doctor in “Heaven Sent” Clara is in his mind palace literally “In 12” Room Twelve the Tardis console for the Twelfth Docotor ?

    “Don’t run           Stay with me” To stay with the Doctor is to run.

    Ashildr still has the Mire battlefield medical kit, perhaps given to Clara?

    The never ending circle in Norse mythology fights an almighty battle with Thor, poisoning the oceans and the skies and dies,  Thor walks away but dies after taking nine steps (9 our first New Doctor)

    Ashildr/Me has taken the long way round and was older/smarter than 12 but now the Doctor has taken an even longer way round and hopefully learnt from that journey (by learnt I mean remembered or grown)

    The last will and testament has been in Missy’s control but as the Doctors document he would want the truth out there (maybe) and thus he devised the Sea Fortress to make himself face the truth of his life ( yeah I know earlier I posited it was Missy but this way I’ve covered my bets!!!)

    Missy is totally a hybrid too the bringing back in “The End of Time” making the Master a hybrid of the Acolytes and Lucy Saxon

    In Äsylum of the Daleks” Clara is a hybrid, so too Amy and the Doctor (no wristbands to protect them)

    In “The Name of the Doctor” Clara becomes a hybrid with both the Timelords and the Tardis

    In “The Time of the Doctor”Tasha Lem reverts from being a Dalek Puppet to herself so also becoming a hybrid

    And… we have Jenny the Doctors daughter too.

    Also in Dan Martin piece about links between Clara and Orson …. Dan remember we don’t see Clara’s and the Doctors relationship played out fully (Amy getting older and needing reading glasses) plus also a Claricle could have been the great great grandmother of Orson too

    You know what… You’re all fantastic 😀

     

     

    #48709
    lisa @lisa

    Anxious to see the finale!!!   Particularly the scenes with the Doctor and Me.  Well,

    and all the rest too.   I wonder if just maybe there is a small chance that Me was

    going by the pseudonym Penelope Gates during her life in the Victorian era?

    (A hint from the novelizations)

    #48710
    CountScarlioni @countscarlioni

    Like others, very much looking forward to the finale of what’s been a spectacular and brave series.

    I’m puzzled why the Time Lords are so very concerned about the hybrid at this point, and hope to find out why tonight.

     

    #48712
    bendubz11 @bendubz11

    @lisa 

    I wonder if just maybe there is a small chance that Me was going by the pseudonym Penelope Gates during her life in the Victorian era?

    I think I heard that name a few days ago, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying that is one hell of a theory and I’d love it to be right!

    #48732
    Anonymous @

    @rob

    by now, you’ve all seen the finale. I am still reading digesting the wonderful @rob‘s theories and posits -and @frobisher yes! the galvatron -a friend of Son has  a dad who is collector -he was talking about that last year (they’ve lost contact since)

    Should I go to catch up TV and watch it? Or not? “She loves Me, she doesn’t, she loves Me, she doesn’t” (using lilies of course)/

    Just Puro flying solo.

    #49221
    lewis97 @lewis97

    With the script for Heaven Sent (as well as Hell Bent) being released by the BBC, it’s seemingly confirmed that The Doctor stated at the end of the episode that the Hybrid was Ashildr/Me, which I guess is supported by his dialogue in Hell Bent.

    THE DOCTOR (cont’d): The Hybrid … destined to conquer Gallifrey and stand in its ruins … is Me.

    #49355
    CedarBranchTardis @cedarbranchtardis

    Anyone besides me get dizzy the last 15 minutes of Heaven Sent?

    #49517
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    For anyone like me who likes “making of” details, Rachel Talalay has answered some viewers questions about directing the episode on her Tumblr. More to come later.

    http://racheltalalay.tumblr.com/post/135461038194/some-attempts-at-answers-heaven-sent-part-1

    #50033
    ichabod @ichabod

    Came across this, this morning, on reddit:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/3zvef7/production_notes_steven_moffat_qa_for_doctor_who/?

    If anyone here can resist reading the rest, after Moffat’s invitation not to proceed, my hat is off to that person!  Though I feel quite comfortable ignoring what doesn’t suit my view of Heaven Sent . . .

    Good lord, this guy’s *mind* — !

    #50034
    Anonymous @

    @ichabod Good lord, Moffat really knows what he’s doing on those smaller details!

    My opinion is that Heaven Sent is a total masterpiece resulting from the sheer effort and perseverance from Moffat, Talalay and Capaldi. But what pushed them so far with this particular story? What happened when The Doctor first arrived in the puzzle box? And what would it look like inside MISSY’S confession dial?

    #50035
    ichabod @ichabod

    @birdtomahawk  Oh, great — thanks!  But, “Citizen Kane”?  Not initially, for sure.  Talalay says (in the “extra” for this episode) that she went to the German Expressionist film makers and their work, specifically “The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari” (those dramatic shadows, lots of stairs, moments of wordless menace!).  You can absolutely see the results of referencing that visual vocabulary on the screen.

    And I wish they’d stop talking about a “mind palace”.  The term as I’ve seen it used is “Memory Palace”, referring specifically to an education technique common to Ancient and also medieval times (before the printing press and the common availability of books and literacy).  “Human knowledge” worth learning was thought to be a sort of limited quantity, and the way an educated man could hold it in his head was by constructing in his mind a structure full of objects used as clues to this theorem, or that exposition or disputation.  That’s what it was; and that’s why it died out (as a teaching tool) with the spread of libraries and literacy which took the place of a fully-stocked, educated memory.

    But all in all, I love these guys’ enthusiasm and insight; thanks for posting their review here.

     

     

     

    #50036
    Anonymous @

    @ichabod No worries, thank you for your lovely compliment on our reviews! I’m sorry that when reading back my own post, it looks a little too much like an advert.

    You are very correct in mentioning that Citizen Kane was not Talalay’s primary influence, but in DWM #494 she does mention that her “second influence was Citizen Kane. I kept these images up on my computer, of Kane alone in William Randolph Hearst-type spaces, and I harkened back to  those.” Sorry for being pedantic!

    I do agree with you that the mind-palace idea is very much the wrong way to look at this. I saw far too many comparisons to Sherlock after Heaven Sent came out…

    #50037
    Superfreak @superfreak

    OK Im a bit of a late replyer to this post but I only just found the forum. I can get over how amazing it was!! It  was so beautiful, dark and inspiring!! The theme of persevereance really resonated with me! I dont care what anyone else says, series 9 is the best and most moving series of any TV show Ive seen! The only other thing that has ever hit me so hard is the ending of Phil Pullmans His dark Materials. And at the risk of looking like Im shamelessly self promoting my art, I hope people dint mind if I post a link to a song I wrote after watching the last 3 episodes of series 9 that tells the story of it:

     

    #50040
    gamergirlavatar @gamergirlavatar

    @superfreak Welcome to the forum. I have to say that I agree that this is the best season so far. It was dark, inspiring, and beautiful. The season was carried out by great actors playing the roles of doctor and companion. The writing has evolved to a better state and allow the story form and character development to change in a positive way. The stories were more emotional and brought out great moments and lines. I couldn’t move after seeing Clara die in Face The Raven. The 12th Doctor has become The Doctor with his own personality. I hope season ten is just as good or greater.

    #50041
    ichabod @ichabod

    @superfreak    Thanks for your music — you have a clear, free-flowing voice that’s very appealing.  I loved S9, too, plus the Xmas Special which wrapped it up with near-perfection — which is as close as we ever get.

    @birdtomahawk   You’re right, I forgot the “Kane” remark — my head was full of images of stairs, bannisters, and Cesar creeping up (or was it down?).  So I was being the pedantic one!  And I do get annoyed over the corruption of the *meaning* of the memory palace into the brain as an architectural lumber room stuffed with all the junk its owner has ever lived through . . .  Moffat should know better, and he’s inventive enough, gods know, to come up with something better to describe what he *is* writing about.

    Now, did you guys do a review of Hell Bent and of Husbands yet?  If yes, where do I find them?

    #50043
    Anonymous @

    @ichabod Still editing those two I’m afraid! I had absolutely zero time to edit these together as the episodes were going out unfortunately. I expect the hell bent review to be up sometime this weekend. Thank you again for your interest in them, it’s not something we’re used to, if you see our viewing figures!

Viewing 50 posts - 401 through 450 (of 629 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.