Doctor Who: Heaven Sent

That was dark.

One thing that classic Who did was to nonchalantly approach the darker and more cruel practices of the Time Lords. In a reflection of the times, things such as killing a man for talking to the wrong species, were seen as things that the aristocratic class would just do. I mean, the Doctor would get pissed off about it, but then he’d largely just have brushed it off by the next time he ran into them.

But not this time (by the looks of it anyway).

Here we have the Doctor trapped inside a world that requires him to die over and over again in order to escape. It’s primary purpose seems to be force him to confess his darkest secrets. This is  a bit like a plot thread that popped up in the Joss Whedon series Angel, with one the characters being sent to a hell dimension to be murdered over and over again, with time resetting the scenario every…well actually, it’s exactly like that.

This is an episode that Capaldi has to carry all by himself, with Coleman only appearing as part of Twelve’s mind palace. If there’s one actor who can pull if a solo episode like this, it’s Capaldi. The Twelfth Doctor’s persona is built around an annoyed Scot talking to himself, so it’s a perfect fit.

My only concern (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) is that it’s not child friendly enough. It’s visually frightening, but the theme and some of the imagery is very adult. The state the Twelve is left in after his first final encounter with reaper is visually horrific. It doesn’t bother me, but I can see parents not wanting their kids to see it.

In terms of writing, it’s not a massive twist to the experienced Moffat viewer (I guessed it relatively quickly) but it’s nice to see him using straight forward time travel. Which is to say; the same time travel that everyone uses. I get the impression that he may have thought of this episode while he was on a comic con panel at which he asked Matt Smith “How do you imagine you got here from this morning?”

Anyway, this sets up the finale and it’s looking good. Personally I think the trailer is a red herring; I’m going to say the regeneration hinted at in it is the Master becoming Missy and starting the chain of events that lead up to this.