Doctor Who series 9 episodes 10-11 review - Face the Raven/Heaven Sent

So, this week we have the episode where Clara dies and the first part of the finale, let's take a look.

So, this is the episode where Clara dies and I couldn’t be happier… I may not have been particularly open on the subject but I never liked Clara. She spent the entire back half of series 7 as a plot point as opposed to an actual character, series 8 was so focused on her it became unbearable and series 9 reverts it back to her being a plot point. The fact is if it weren’t obvious from all the promotion, the fact that she was going to die was hammered into us to the point of being irritating, and we see so much less of her life outside the TARDIS it’s hard to know anyone other than the Doctor her death had an impact on.

But I could write an essay on this subject, which would go into lengths about Adric and no-one wants that, let’s get to the episode itself.

Rigsy, that guy from Flatline who was one of 2 interesting characters in it discovers a tattoo on the back of his neck counting down to his death. The Doctor and Clara investigate, finding it was planted by Ashildr from a few episodes back, now head of a colony of the Doctor’s greatest enemies, including a Cyberman (I’ll be bringing this up) who wants to trick the Doctor to wearing a teleport bracelet to take him to that castle from Warriors’ Gate (or at least that’s what it looked like given the previews)

OK, let’s start with the stupidly obvious and go down to the stupidly stupid. Why is a Cyberman hiding amongst an alien colony? Handles was at least broken. Second, why is a Cyberman scared of a soul-sucking Raven when it’s autonomy is machine. These days I think a Cyberman can survive with few organic components. 3^rd off, why is a Sontaran in hiding rather than doing what it was cloned for, waging war, and why is it scared of dying? 4^th of all… need I continue on this line?

Anyway, upon discovering that the tattoo can be shared with someone else Clara thinks she can cheat the system by being the sort of reckless type she was becoming and was especially in this episode. She takes the tattoo and in case you didn’t realise from all the mass media publications of it, it was her eventual death sentence.

She dies trying to save someone. A noble (especially since he had a kid) if very contrived and stupid noble, except we’ve already seen Clara do this when she jumped into the Doctor’s timeline. Sacrifice to save someone else, sure it isn’t the Doctor this time, but in the long run it’s stupid. That and the fact that neither she nor Rigsy told the Doctor about what they did?

Then we get to Ashildr, and whether she believes it or not at face value she’s made the transition from well-intended, if somewhat naïve and lonely to full out villain. Congratulations, you took a character that was actually interesting and made me stop caring about her within the course of a single episode. Why, because we got the impression from the last ep that she was actually learning, but she’s exactly where she was at the beginning the Woman who Lived and has added manipulative to her list of ill features. Burn the b*tch now. And don’t tell me that won’t kill her, Torchwood Miracle Day told us that being burned alive is the natural equivalent of an immortal being dead. And f*ck you episode for making me reference Torchwood: Miracle Day

This episode didn’t work for me, not on any level. Handing such a significant moment to such a novice writer was a mistake.

Rating 4/10

An episode where the Doctor has no permanent companion is rare, an episode where he has neither designated companion is even rarer, no supporting cast at all is practically unheard of in Doctor Who, and the results, whilst following another more confusing Moffatt narrative actually yielded a very good result.

The focus was purely on the Doctor, there were no other characters to introduce apart from the scary monster that, whilst interesting, had little depth to it outside of it being a scary monster.

So to the plot. The Doctor is trapped in an existential nightmare. Pursued by the monster everywhere he goes he realises the horrible truth. In order to win, he’d have to live the experience over and over again.

The Doctor’s psyche is his TARDIS, how’s that for intriguing? Clara does have a role, but it’s all within the Doctor’s head and I presume it’s her last major appearance in the show. I can’t say I’m not glad to see her go, but I appreciate that she’s not just forgotten. In fact, the entire episode feels partially like a goodbye to Clara

Major kudos to Peter Capaldi on this one, he absolutely nailed that opening speech showing the Doctor’s anger and despair over Clara and he carried this episode, which is one of the best episodes of the season on his own back.

Also kudos to the writing of Steven Moffat. This was a truly engrossing story that had drama, humour, was genuinely frightening and made great use of some of the time tricks that Moffat has fame for during his era.

It’s well shot and edited, but I do have an issue and it comes to the resolution of the hybrid thing. Spoilers: The Doctor is the Hybrid. Oh, Mr Moffat, you’re opening a can of worms with this one... Take careful steps to avoid the McGann movie’s mistake

Rating 9/10

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