| 262 – "Hell Bent" | |||
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| Doctor Who episode | |||
| Cast | |||
Others
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| Production | |||
| Directed by | Rachel Talalay | ||
| Written by | Steven Moffat | ||
| Produced by | Peter Bennett | ||
| Executive producers | Steven Moffat Brian Minchin | ||
| Music by | Murray Gold | ||
| Series | Series 9 | ||
| Running time | 61 minutes | ||
| First broadcast | 5 December 2015 (2015-12-05) | ||
| Chronology | |||
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| List of episodes (2005–present) | |||
"Hell Bent" is the twelfth and final episode of theninth series of the Britishscience fiction television seriesDoctor Who. It was written bySteven Moffat, directed byRachel Talalay and first broadcast onBBC One on 5 December 2015.
In the episode, the alientime traveller known asthe Doctor (Peter Capaldi) arrives on the planetGallifrey after escaping imprisonment by his people, theTime Lords, and takes over as the new President. He tries in vain to use knowledge of "the Hybrid", which is prophesied by the Time Lords to stand in Gallifrey's ruins and unravel the Web of Time, to save the life of hiscompanionClara (Jenna Coleman). Doing so causes the Doctor and Clara themselves to become the Hybrid. This episode is Coleman's final regular appearance as a companion.
The episode was watched by 6.17 million viewers and received positive reviews. Aspects that were met with praise were the episode’s unpredictability, emotion and the performances of Capaldi and Coleman.
OnGallifrey, theTwelfth Doctor has escaped from his confession dial[N 1] after four and a half billion years of imprisonment, alerting theTime Lords. Aided by the Gallifreyan military, the Doctor usurps and exiles Lord PresidentRassilon. Now acting as new President, the Doctor learns that Rassilon imprisoned him in the dial to force him to confess about the Hybrid, which is prophesied by the Time Lords to stand in Gallifrey's ruins and unravel the Web of Time.
The Doctor has the Time Lords retrieveClara from her timeline the instant before her death,[N 2] with her biological processes suspended in a time loop, leaving her without a pulse, ostensibly so the Doctor can consult her about the Hybrid. The Doctor turns against the Time Lords and shoots the General fatally, leading him toregenerate into a female form. The Doctor then flees with Clara and steals aTARDIS from the workshops under the Capitol, telling her he held out confessing to have something to bargain for her life with.
The Doctor attempts to take Clara far enough away in the hope that her pulse will resume and she will not have to be returned to the moment of her death, despite potentially damaging time itself in the process. When this fails, they go to the extreme end of the universe. The Doctor finds the immortal humanAshildr waiting in the ruins of Gallifrey. Ashildr theorises that the Doctor and Clara together are the Hybrid. Since they are so alike, each pushes the other to potentially catastrophic actions. The Doctor reveals his intention to erase Clara's memories of him with a neural block taken from Gallifrey, hoping that the Time Lords will not be able to find her. Overhearing them, Clara attempts to reverse the neural block to backfire on the Doctor; Clara accepts her death, but insists on retaining her memory. The two agree to activate the neural block together, not knowing if Clara succeeded at reversing it. The Doctor concedes that he became the Hybrid by trying to save Clara.
The Doctor's memories of Clara are erased. He awakens in the Nevada desert, alone. In a diner, the Doctor tells his story about Gallifrey to aspace-time echo of Clara, working as a waitress there. The Doctor doesn't recognise her face or voice as he has pieced together the hole left by the wipe aside from how Clara appears. After Clara leaves the room, the whole diner dematerialises, leaving the Doctor behind and revealing the Doctor's TARDIS. Clara was not an echo but the original, checking up on the Doctor after his memory-wipe. Travelling with Ashildr in a TARDIS stolen from Gallifrey, Clara begins her trip to Gallifrey to return to her death, "the long way 'round". The Doctor's TARDIS produces a newsonic screwdriver.
The interior of the TARDIS that the Doctor and Clara steal to escape the Cloisters is modelled on the original, as seen inAn Unearthly Child (1963).[1] This is the first episode since "The End of Time" (2009–10) to feature Rassilon.[2] Clara uses the phrase "reversed the polarity" in modifying the memory wiping device; this is a phrase commonly associated with theThird Doctor, but has been used by other Doctors as well.[2] The Doctor, once on Gallifrey, travels to the same barn in the Dry Lands where he spent time as a child, as seen in "Listen", and would later be where he debates the use of the Moment in "The Day of the Doctor" (2013).[1]
Before deciding that the Doctor and Clara, combined, are the Hybrid, Ashildr postulated that the Doctor might be half-human and thus the Hybrid. TheEighth Doctor made a similar statement about his lineage in the1996 television movie.[1] When Ashildr knocks on the TARDIS's door, she knocks four times, which the Doctor points out. This is a reference to theTenth Doctor's regeneration and the prophecy stating "He will knock four times" just before his death.[2] When the Doctor decides to wipe Clara's memory of himself to save her, he mentions that he has done it before, telepathically, referring to the Tenth Doctor's wiping ofDonna Noble's memory of him and her travels in the TARDIS in "Journey's End" (2008).[2]
The Cloister Wars were mentioned byMissy in "The Magician's Apprentice", along with the Doctor stealing "the moon and the President's wife." The Doctor sets the record straight in this episode (albeit inadvertently in his babbling when reunited with Clara after over four billion years), claiming that it was his daughter, not his wife, and that he did not steal the moon, he 'lost' it.[2] The Doctor claims he rescued Clara because he has "aduty of care", a phrase mentioned before.[3]
Foxes' version of "Don't Stop Me Now" is heard playing when the Doctor first walks into the diner; the song was also used in "Mummy on the Orient Express".[2] The Doctor, while talking to the waitress, plays on an electric guitar, and at times plays variations on both Clara's theme, as composed byMurray Gold and heard first in "Asylum of the Daleks",[4] and the "Bad Wolf"leitmotif.[4][5]
The read through for the episode took place on 4 August 2015, and filming began on 10 August 2015 and concluded 2 days later. The external scenes were shot inFuerteventura.[2]
The diner at the end of the episode was previously used in theEleventh Doctor story "The Impossible Astronaut".[6]
Maisie Williams, who played Ashildr in "The Girl Who Died", "The Woman Who Lived" and "Face the Raven", appeared in this episode, as didKen Bones, who reprised his role from "The Day of the Doctor" andClare Higgins, who played Ohila.[2]Timothy Dalton, who had previously played Rassilon in "The End of Time", was asked to reprise the role but was unavailable for filming.[7]Donald Sumpter previously appeared as Enrico Casali inThe Wheel in Space (1968) and as Commander Ridgeway inThe Sea Devils (1972).[2] He also appeared inThe Eternity Trap (2009), a story from spin-off seriesThe Sarah Jane Adventures, playing Erasmus Darkening.Jami Reid-Quarrell returned as a Wraith, after previously playing Colony Sarff in "The Magician's Apprentice" / "The Witch's Familiar", as well as the Veil in "Heaven Sent".
The episode was watched by 4.47 million viewers overnight in the UK, a 20.0% audience share.[8] It received anAppreciation Index score of 82.[9] The final figures were 6.17 million viewers with a 25.7% audience share.[10]
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Rotten Tomatoes (Average Score) | 8.05[11] |
| Rotten Tomatoes (Tomatometer) | 86%[11] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| The A.V. Club | A−[12] |
| Paste Magazine | 9.0[13] |
| SFX Magazine |    [14] |
| TV Fanatic | [15] |
| IGN | 9.3[16] |
| New York Magazine | [17] |
| Radio Times | [18] |
"Hell Bent" received positive reviews from critics. The episode received a score of 86% onRotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 8.05/10. The site's consensus reads "'Hell Bent' swerves from the expected storyline for the finale, and instead delivers a heartfelt resolution for The Doctor and his companion".[19]
In his review forDigital Spy, Morgan Jeffery said the episode was "at points thrilling and affecting" but "it's the shaky climax that people will remember, and unfortunately that could end up overshadowing the episode's (many and various) good points."[20]Den of Geek's Simon Brew thought the episode was "a coherent, nerdy, often brilliant, sometimes a little frustrating, but always watchable piece of television".[21] Amy Burns of theIndependent found it to be "an emotional and humorous episode" although she admitted "not understanding about half of what happened."[22]
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