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BBC Hell Bent |
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| Story No. | 288 | 
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| Production Code | Series 9, episode 12 | |
| Dates | December 5, 2015 |
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With Peter Capaldi
Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Rachel Talalay Executive Producers: Steven Moffat, Brian Minchin. |
|
|
BBC Hell Bent |
|
| Story No. | 288 |
|
| Production Code | Series 9, episode 12 | |
| Dates | December 5, 2015 |
|
With Peter Capaldi
Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Rachel Talalay Executive Producers: Steven Moffat, Brian Minchin. |
| Synopsis: The Doctor returns home to face the prophecy of the Hybrid. |
"How are you sustaining it?" by Donna Bratley 18/2/19
Narrative credibility, Doctor? Erm - you're not.
On broadcast, I found Hell Bent a crushing let-down. Even though I doubted Moffat could properly kill his own creation, Clara's warped happy ending felt contrived: an embarrassing backtrack, diminishing the perfect culmination of her story in Face the Raven.
I adore Clara. I wanted her to stay dead. I still maintain it would have been a fitting end to the beautifully drawn symbiotic partnership she enjoyed with her brittle but less breakable Twelfth Doctor.
On repeated viewing, it's grown on me to the point that, as a standalone, I can find enough good that I almost enjoy it. But it's not a standalone, and that is its fatal weakness.
It's muddled, disjointed and twisted - "Clara Who" indeed, now she has a stolen TARDIS and her own deeply uncertain version of immortality. It returns the Doctor to Gallifrey after all that desperate searching, only to ignore the whole storyline - ten years of agonising! - in favour of a frenzied, futile struggle to reunite with a dead companion. And after a series-long build-up, it offers a Big Bad that doesn't really exist. The Hybrid that terrorised a planet is (possibly/probably) a metaphorical construct: the combination of Doctor and companion, a force for good turned on its head to become, potentially, the destroyer of worlds.
Actually, I think the last point may be what I do like about it.
The Doctor doesn't act like "The Doctor" - that's a complaint thrown at Hell Bent. But doesn't that make total sense? After billions of years being tortured by his own kind, how could he emerge his controlled, compassionate self?
It's even a relief. So often sci-fi puts a character through hell one week, then continues the next as if nothing happened. That grates, where this feels real. I won't say human, but definitely naturalistic.
Anyway, it's about time we saw the oft-referenced menace of the Time Lord Victorious: who better to unleash it than Mr Capaldi? He doesn't have to say a word to conquer the planet, and what he's prepared to do with his new power is genuinely shocking. Would he have gone to such extremes without billions of years' torture fresh in his mind? The High Council - who, let's face it framed Rigsy and set the immediate conditions that led to Clara's death - bring disaster upon themselves.
I'm in a minority regarding a finale again, I suspect, because I find the metaphorical hybrid vastly more interesting than any "half human on his mother's side" or "Ashildr/Me" obvious answer. It's also a solution that carries the psychological element of Clara's journey to a fitting conclusion. Two sides of the same coin: recklessly dangerous together; too tightly bonded to part. If you're going to do a "companion hero-worships the Doctor and gradually becomes ominously like him" arc, that's probably the way to wrap it.
It's the final stage that doesn't sit well. I recognised from the outset that my hope of the familiar-looking waitress being an echo/splinter was unlikely to be realised (RTD couldn't bump off his beloved Rose either), but to see the undead Clara flying off in a stolen TARDIS, the Doctor Mark II in all but name... no. It's a step too far, no matter how wonderfully Capaldi and Coleman play their final scenes.
It's notable that Clara is the more rational of the pair with regard to her (cheated) fate, begging the Doctor not to do the least Doctor thing ever. I'm sorry to see Ken Bones' General take the fall for the whole High Council, and even more disappointed Moffat uses that shocking scene for another of his "see, I'm a feminist writer, I make disparaging comments about men" moments. Women have egos too, Steven - just look at your own creation.
Clara's fury in discovering what the Time Lords have done to her friend is almost as alarming as his at their part in her demise. She's been a divisive figure within fandom (who isn't?), but I've grown to rate her as my favourite revival "carer" to date, and Jenna Coleman's performance is a major reason why. I shouldn't begrudge her a kind-of happy ending, but I do.
Her companion comes off better. Maisie Williams is hit and miss through the series, but she ends on a high: infinitely wiser, at peace with her immortality and long past being intimidated even by this Doctor, it's a satisfying finish to Ashildr's story, as long as there's not a spin-off to come one day. Some things should be left unseen, and the adventures of Doctor Oswald and Me fall firmly into that category.
The Sisterhood of Karn merit an appearance purely for Ohila's slap-down of the Doctor; seeing the awe in which he's held by the common folk of Gallifrey is moving; and the scenes in the Matrix, with the magnificently spooky sliders, are wonderfully atmospheric. It even makes sense that, having spent so much time agonising over Gallifrey's loss, the Doctor finds a reason to run away again as soon as he gets there: his own kind are insufferable pomposities, and he's never going to settle as President of anything. There's plenty of Moffat's trademark sharp dialogue, emotional punchiness and unsubtle, Gold-abetted yanking on the heart-strings.
The subtleties come in the acting, which is as ever perfectly on point, and in Rachel Talalay's assured and atmospheric direction. It's lovely to see the classic TARDIS interior of course, and the switch-around from the expected resolution (yes, I assumed Clara's memories had been wiped) is both neat and in character for the cleverest of companions. And, while it may be cheesy, I particularly enjoyed the closing moments with a chastened Doctor visibly steeling himself to obey her final instruction and be the Doctor again.
I only wish I enjoyed everything that came before as much, because, as the culmination of a truly stunning series - among the finest ever in my eyes - Hell Bent remains overall an exquisitely played, elegantly staged muddle.