Over a course of 50 minutes this episode punched through the diamond wall of my heart.
“Heaven Sent” Grade and Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Starkers
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I had a realisation about this recently. There was a 'prequel' short released for this, as there have been for many 'important' episodes. But the prequel to "Heaven Sent" turned out to only be the opening scene of the episode, where the Doctor steps out of the teleporter and warns whoever is behind this about what a badass he is going to be.
At first I was disappointed in that, because the prequels normally have additional material and story, not just the same scene released early. But then I realised - this is a clue. The prequel is showing us one of the earlier iterations of the loop. The fact that it's identical to the first scene of the episode is kind of the point - it's just that we can't possibly realise that until later.
It had been taken from Missy when the three of them were captured by Colony Sarff. After that it was in the little box of trinkets in Davros's laboratory with his sunglasses. Presumably he picked it up out of there when they were making their escape, while Missy poked Davros in the eye. He certainly had it back in his pocket by the end of "Witch's Familiar."
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Missy hands it over to the Doctor when her and Clara meet with him just after the medieval rock concert.
Did anyone else think "Bird..... is the word" and Peter Griffen when they saw that in the sand?
And then couldn't stop?
The rotating castle was the image of Colony Sarff
Did anyone else think "Bird..... is the word" and Peter Griffen when they saw that in the sand?
And then couldn't stop?
Interesting thought! Except that the Doctor's ordeal apparently was repeated over several billion years, while it only SEEMED like Seth McF repeated the 'Bird is the Word' gag for an eternity during that particular episode!
I have no idea what to make of that ep. Gripping and stark, but he location made zero sense, unless (IMO) it was all in his head. It was also weir seeing the Doctor so helpless to change things. Also, where did all the skulls come from? That man is losing calcium! By the last iteration, there'd be so many he wouldn't be able to see out the windows. As usual in the last 2 seasons, shioddy background and setup, nut great acting.
The castle is inside the Confession Dial. Its Timelord technology, thus bigger on the inside.
All of them are The Doctor's skulls.
Well it depends on how large the ocean is. From the final scene, it seems to be large enough to hold 2 billion skulls without too much water being displaced upwards.
The bigger concern is conservation of mass/energy... or the apparent lack of it. Apparently the Confession Dial has sufficient energy/mass to "3D print" 2 billion bodies of The Doctor! That's probably enough mass to cover the surface of the earth with.. half an inch of stuff?
No, the energy to materialize another Doctor came from burning the Doctor's body. It was a recycler/replicator. It would convert the Doctor's body into energy by burning it, then convert the energy back into the Doctor's body.
It's still a problem of conservation of energy. Burning up a Doctor minus the skull provides enough energy to create a new Doctor including the skull.
But... this is Doctor Who. The MST3K mantra applies.
Of course, in the real world, conservation of energy would prohibit it. The energy gained from burning the body minus the skull would be less than the energy lost from reconstituting the body with skull plus there would be some energy loss due to inefficiencies since no process is 100% energy efficient. So the process would necessarily lose energy over time.
It is possible that the machine had some huge amount of energy stored and the energy from burning the body was simply to start the process. But there would still be energy lost. Eventually the "battery" would be dead. But if we imagine that the "battery" is a supernova or something, then perhaps it had enough energy stored to last billions of years. It is Time Lord tech after all, where we know that the TARDIS the size of a phone box on the outside can be powered by an exploding star on the inside.
But, ultimately, we have to chalk it up to "it's a Doctor Who episode" so it is not going to make perfect sense.
Seriously. I've said it before: This is a show about a time-traveling alien with a preternatural fascination with Great Britain who takes one or more (usually human) companions along to experience adventures through time and space, and the rest comes out in the wash.
For whatever it's worth, the ENTIRE scenario was said to take place within a "closed energy loop," if that means anything.
Remember the cybermen--he's still alive--no clean-up. All those skulls.
I'd love to make tons of copies of myself--but have each do work in a different field of research--so a version of me could read every book--then somehow--re-integrate.
^^^ Took forever for this one to show up, too.
Re-integrate all those copies??? Now that's just crazy talk.
You do realize you can start one yourself, right? You don't have to wait for somebody else to do it.
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