Less effective are a Dalek, a Cyberman, and some Weeping Angels, which give the scenario an unnecessary greatest hits vibe. The Doctor and Clara make their way into the Matrix (it seems here the Cloisters are an area within the Matrix), where they encounter an array of phantoms, most effective of which are the Cloister Wraiths - haunted distortions of Time Lords long since gone.
The Doctor: On Gallifrey, death is Time Lord for man flu. In an unusual display of violent bravado, the Doctor delivers a fist to the jaw of the General, disarms him, and then, after asking which regeneration he’s on, shoots him, forcing a renewal into a young black woman (T’nia Miller), which adds yet another level to the ongoing conversation about regeneration (though not one that hadn’t been previously assumed, but it’s nice to see it as canon). I was reminded of Rory Williams, the Boy Who Waited, only times a million. It was always about getting to this very point to save Clara - all of it, even his navigation of the four and a half billion years in the confession dial. She now exists in a state between her last two heartbeats - living, but not alive. He removes Clara from her death on Trap Street, a moment before it occurred. Naturally, he assumes the presidency, and not for the first time in his many lives.Įven with Rassilon out of the picture, the prime concern of the General (Ken Bones) remains the elusive Hybrid, which the Doctor uses as an excuse to access an extraction chamber - a device able to enter fixed points in time. The entire planet, save for one maniacal leader, bows at his feet. The Doctor is now viewed as a war hero, and treated with a reverence that comes with such a position. That’s the only way the Doctor will have it, and when the city boy believes that he has the advantage over the country boy, the Doctor uses everything in his non-violent arsenal against Rassilon: “Get off my planet.” It’s thrilling, epic fare that reminds us how much the series and its central character have changed over the years – how this idea of the Time War has loomed over and informed the entire texture of the modern series. The city boy, Lord President Rassilon (Donald Sumpter, playing the same character Timothy Dalton played in “The End of Time”), sends one party after another to retrieve the Doctor, each of which is ignored, until he shows up to confront the country boy in person. Stories are where memories go when they’re forgotten.
The Doctor: Every story ever told really happened. While the scenario certainly has an Eastwood Man with No Name dynamic, I was more stuck by something else: Simply, the Doctor is a country boy who’s had enough of the city boy’s shit. Whatever one might think about the other two-thirds of the piece, surely we can all agree that the first section is glorious in scope while intimate in intent. The framing device aside (which we’ll get to in due course), act one is largely concerned with the Doctor’s return to Gallifrey, and his measured, methodical dismantling of the political hierarchy, seemingly born out of anger not only over Clara’s death, but also for the four and a half billion years spent within the hell of the confession dial. This may be putting too fine a point on it, but it seems likely your feelings on “Hell Bent” will largely hinge on whether or not you’ve been a fan of Clara Oswald, and whether her character development and story arcs over the past three seasons have resonated with you. Like so many of Moffat’s season-enders, “Hell Bent” is a highly operatic and deeply emotional affair. But nobody, anywhere on the planet, in any corner of the world that this show is viewed in, predicted that this season would end with Clara and Ashildr/Me flying off into time and space in a diner-shaped TARDIS. Sometimes, in the broadest sense, a few folks correctly call a thing or two ahead of time. In any given season, people develop theories about what will happen.
One aspect of Steven Moffat’s writing that doesn’t get nearly enough praise is its unpredictability.
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