HEAVEN SENT:

(Beware spoilers) This is the 11th episode of the 9th season of Doctor Who and the first after Clara Oswald "died". It's a rare episode in which the Doctor is without a companion, though we do see Clara at odd moments. It was written by Stephen Moffat and directed by Rachel Talalay. It was first broadcast on BBC 1, on november 28 2015. The episode starred Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, Jenna Coleman as Clara, Jami Reid-Quarrell as The Veil, and an uncredited little boy on Gallifrey, at the end.

The Story:

After Clara died in "Face The Raven", Mayor Me (Ashildr) tricked the Doctor into entering a glass chamber, and then he was transported to a mysterious castle, operated by clockwork gears. As the constant viewer will know, the Doctor was lured into a Trap Street by Mayor Me, who was in league with the Time Lords. Clara's death was not intended and Me did try to make amends for that mistake. However, here he is, the Doctor, trapped, emotionally disturbed by having only just witnessed Clara's death, and defiantly trying to brazen it out. As he always does. The Doctor is nothing if not 90% bravado and 10% knowledge.

The Doctor realises in a moment that he has been trapped, though by whom he does not know. He talks aloud, angrily, assuming Whoever is listening and watching. Bebing a creature of time, he is aware of how much time has passed, though he does not know where he is. He finds several interesting things: a spade that has been used, dust covering the floor, and a series of television screens everywhere. Then he is aware that he is being stalked by a terrifying being known only as The Veil. It slowly, painstakingly follow the Doctor. After a series of experiments, he discovers that he can entice the Veil to one end of the castle and race to the other end, giving himself 58 minutes in which to explore, sleep, and eat. He realises that the Veil has come out of his own nightmares, from an experience as a child when he saw a similarly veiled dead person. When the Veil corners him at a dead end, the Doctor is moved to confess, out loud, that he is afraid of dying and death. That stops the Veil in it's tracks, for a moment. Then the castle rotates and reconfigures itself, so the Doctor is able to enter a bedroom. In which there is a faded and chipped portrait of Clara.

But the Veil can walk through doors and walls, and it enters the room. There is no escape, but to jump out of the window and into the ocean that surrounds the castle, having first calculated how far he would have to fall, and how fast. When he reaches the bottom of the ocean, he finds a mountainous pile of skulls. Pausing barely a moment to consider that turn of events, he reaches the surface and climbs back into the castle. To find a room with a blazing fire and dry clothes waiting for him, identical to the outfit he usually wears.

All the while, he retreats inside his head into his thinking room. (Didn't Sherlock Holmes have something similar?) That being the Tardis. He talks to the back view of Clara, who faces a blackboard on which she writes pertinent questions for him to answer. This helps him to realise that the castle was custom made only for him. The Veil is out of his childhood nightmare, the clothes etc. After some more exploration, he discovers a small walled garden with a grave, and that spade waiting for him to dig it up. Inside the grave there is a stone with the message "I am in 12" written on it. When the Veil almost catches him again, the Doctor retreats into his mental Tardis, and realises that he could pause the Veil simply be telling the truth. And therefore, the castle has been created to extract his confession. (Ah, constant viewer then remembers Missy and something about the Doctor's confession being a circular device to be used on his final real death.) The Doctor tells the Veil that he had originally left Gallifrey because he had been afraid, not bored as he tells everyone. The Veil does indeed pause, and the Doctor can escape. For a while.

There are more clues: the rooms revert back to their original states when he leaves then, there is a skull in the teleporter room along with the word "bird" written in the dust; and 7,000 years have passed since he arrived in the castle, going by the stars in the night sky. But still there is no way out that he can see. When the Veil confronts him again, the Doctor confesses that he knows the identity of the Hybrid. This, it seems, is a prophesy, that the Time Lords will be vanquished by a creature made from the mixing of two warrior races. It is assumed that the races are the Time Lords and the Daleks. This time, the castle resets and the Doctor finds himself in Room 12, facing a wall made of azbantium, a crystalline substance 400 times tougher than diamond. He has to smash his way through this barrier to get out of the castle once and for all. And his will is all but defeated. It takes another visit to the inner Tardis and a good talking to from Clara, to begin his long ordeal, slowly breaking the wall, one punch at a time. Until the Veil interrupts him, by killing him and sending him back to the transporter room to the beginning.

And now we have a montage, as the Doctor has to go through the whole process over and over again. The cycle goes on for more than four billion years, with the wall being slowly eroded, and a little more of the Brother Grimm story about the bird and the diamond wall is told. More skulls, (which are all copies of the Doctor that came into the castle before the one we see.) Until finally the barrier is broken through, the Veil disintegrates, and the Doctor steps out onto the sands of Gallifrey. The castle is revealed to be within his confession disk. A small boy appears out of nowhere, and the Doctor gives him a message to take to the Time Lords. That has arrived, having "taken the long way around." He continues to speak out loud, assuming the Time Lords can still hear him: ""The Hybrid, destined to conquer Gallifrey and stand in its ruins, is Me."

Opinion:

This is a "ship in a bottle" episode, where the action is confined to one place. We see the Doctor go through the gamut of emotions. From grief at Clara's death, new and raw as it is at the beginning of each of his "resets". Anger at the temerity of Whoever at imprisoning him, HIM, in his own confession disk. Terror at the childhood memories of the dead veiled creature with it's own entourage of flies. The baffling, confusing clues, not knowing that they are created by him anyway. The loss of Clara is particularly heavy, yet the Doctor has lost companions before, and more than one was lost to death. But, as it was hinted, Clara is not the usual run-of-the-mill companion, being the "impossible girl", who lived different lives and in different time periods, to save the Doctor from certain death. Yet the Doctor was not able to save the love of her life, Danny Pink, from death as a Cyberman (a nod to his next companion's fate perhaps?), nor could he save Clara from the raven. At this point, don't forget, he doesn't yet know that Clara will still be alive, travelling between heartbeats with Ashildr, and going to the Time Lords, "the long way round" herself.

Peter Capaldi is the best Doctor. He can be silly and excitable, serious and thoughtful, angry, everything the other versions have been. But there is a gravitas about him, for want of a better word. As someone commented, when Peter Capaldi is the Doctor "the growns ups have entered the room".

The next episode was "Hell Bent", the final in the season. In which the Doctor faces Ashildr, who is now the longest living human there has ever been. He tries to save Clara and fails, and in the process, he and she become the Hybrid. At the end of that episode, Clara, Ashildr, and the Doctor separate and go off to create merry heck in the universe. To a new companion for the Doctor. He can't be alone for too long.

Links:
Tardis Wikia
BBC site
IMDB