“Heaven Sent” Grade and Discussion Thread

[Starkers]

BUT...the castle, the creature, and the planet are all still going. They might "tidy up" after themselves, but they're still there after all that time, which is why we see a giant pile of skulls under water.

I know the assumption is that the skulls belong to the previous Doctors in the cycle, but that doesn't make sense, because there should also be bodies from previous cycles. A body doesn't decompose from corpse to skeleton overnight.

The impression I got was that the process of charging the teleporter basically incinerated the Doctor, all that was left was the skull, which the Doctor picked up, took up to the tower, then dropped into the water. There was no body to decompose, we saw his hand crumble to dust and presumably so did the rest of him.

So an AI of 80 which is disappointing given how fantastic this was.

 

[RoJoHen]

BUT...the castle, the creature, and the planet are all still going. They might "tidy up" after themselves, but they're still there after all that time, which is why we see a giant pile of skulls under water.

I know the assumption is that the skulls belong to the previous Doctors in the cycle, but that doesn't make sense, because there should also be bodies from previous cycles. A body doesn't decompose from corpse to skeleton overnight.

No, but we see his body (or his hand, at least) vanish when the room resets itself. His skull, however, remains attached to the machine for some reason.

 

[ATimson]

I just noticed that the rerun of "Heaven Sent" next week runs 1 hr and 15 minutes. Also "Hell Bent" runs 1 hr and 20 minutes.

Maybe the repeat run has added stuff.

Those times are for BBC America; I don't think they're adding stuff, I think they're just allowing a longer-than-normal timeslot rather than cutting the episode to fit. (The first run handled the overlength episode by having shorter commercial breaks than usual.)

 

[StCoop]

So an AI of 80 which is disappointing given how fantastic this was.

The problem is, leaving aside the fact that I personally thought it was great, Moffat has moved away from making a series for a general Saturday Night audience and is making it purely for the Fans.

But without that mainstream audience the result is, as we've seen, 20% fewer viewers, drops in all the other metrics and the worst AI's in years.

It's no wonder he's talking about Series 10 as a relaunch for the show.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

The passage of time outside of the confession dial during this episode?

0 billion years or 12 billion years?

Was he miniaturized or was it all virtual in AI?



I think the Confession Dial is a tench run (y'know like in Star Wars to the vent) to get to Galifrey that's just too annoying to take because you can't get there via time travel. You have cock about for 12 billion years on a specific stretch of 12 billion years in a specific stretch of space until a magic door appears.

If regular time is regular, and locked time is locked, why can't there be well lubed time?

I am thinking miniaturized. Because we could see the castle and moat when he picked up the confession dial. So it must have been some kind of shrinking field..

why does it have to shrinking? Given Time Lord technology - it could simply be that if you look into the dial, you are seeing the castle from far away in the sky...

OK that makes more sense.

Could you dip your finger in and touch it? LOL

 

[Guy Gardener]

BUT...the castle, the creature, and the planet are all still going. They might "tidy up" after themselves, but they're still there after all that time, which is why we see a giant pile of skulls under water.

I know the assumption is that the skulls belong to the previous Doctors in the cycle, but that doesn't make sense, because there should also be bodies from previous cycles. A body doesn't decompose from corpse to skeleton overnight.

He didn't decompose, he burned.

The Doctor combusted his body to restart the transporter.

We saw him put the plugs to his temple.

Then we saw him burn.

Then we saw the skull with plugs still attached.

It was his skull.

It's possible that he wasn't just kickstarting the transporter, but powering the entire complex by burning himself.

Perpetual motion?

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vxHkAQRQUQ[/yt]

Was this mentioned in the first 5 pages I didn't read?

The Shepherd Boy

There was once upon a time a shepherd boy whose fame spread far and wide because of the wise answers which he gave to every question. The king of the country heard of it likewise, but did not believe it, and sent for the boy. Then he said to him, if you can give me an answer to three questions which I will ask you, I will look on you as my own child, and you shall dwell with me in my royal palace. The boy said, what are the three questions. The king said, the first is, how many drops of water are there in the ocean. The shepherd boy answered, lord king, if you will have all the rivers on earth dammed up so that not a single drop runs from them into the sea until I have counted it, I will tell you how many drops there are in the sea. The king said, the next question is, how many stars are there in the sky. The shepherd boy said, give me a great sheet of white paper, and then he made so many fine points on it with a pen that they could scarcely be seen, and it was all but impossible to count them, any one who looked at them would have lost his sight. Then he said, there are as many stars in the sky as there are points on the paper. Just count them. But no one was able to do it. The king said, the third question is, how many seconds of time are there in eternity. Then said the shepherd boy, in lower pomerania is the diamond mountain, which is two miles high, two miles wide, and two miles deep. Every hundred years a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on it, and when the whole mountain is worn away by this, then the first second of eternity will be over. The king said, you have answered the three questions like a wise man, and shall henceforth dwell with me in my royal palace, and I will regard you as my own child.

--The End--

Brothers Grimm, y'all.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

He might get to be king with those answers but would he get a job at Google?

 

[RoJoHen]

I think, for me, the real question is: "Was the Doctor meant to escape?"

The Confession Dial and the creature within seemed intent on killing him unless he confessed his hidden truths.

Was he tricked into re-living the loop over and over again, or was that the Doctor's way of breaking the rules? The trap was that he was going to get to the diamond wall and realize that his only way out was to CONFESS or DIE. "Truth or Consequences."

I'm not sure anyone actually planned for him to climb his way back up to the teleport room and avoid both outcomes.

 

[Mr Awe]

Excellent! Gave it the top grade. This was an intense story with a great twist! It's the best kind of twist where once you know it, you reinterpret everything you saw in the episode! What a creepy revelation when you realized it was his skull hooked to the electrodes and his many skulls filling the ocean!

A couple of comments.

This episode seems to suggest that there is no such thing as free will. Given the same exact situation, the Doctor reacts in the same exact way, over and over for billions of years. There appears to be zero deviation. Not a nitpick, more just an observation. Quantum mechanics may suggest that wouldn't happen, but who knows what tricks are built into Gallifreyan technology!

Also, a small nitpick, the Doctor used the stars to determine how long he'd been imprisoned. Why would he be able to see the stars from inside a self-contained world. Of course, the story needs some objective measure of time so we can be suitably awed by how long he was imprisoned, but he shouldn't have been able to see the stars.

Mr Awe

 

[Romulan_spy]

I think, for me, the real question is: "Was the Doctor meant to escape?"

The Confession Dial and the creature within seemed intent on killing him unless he confessed his hidden truths.

Was he tricked into re-living the loop over and over again, or was that the Doctor's way of breaking the rules? The trap was that he was going to get to the diamond wall and realize that his only way out was to CONFESS or DIE. "Truth or Consequences."

I'm not sure anyone actually planned for him to climb his way back up to the teleport room and avoid both outcomes.

No, I don't think the Doctor was meant to escape. That was the Doctor finding the impossible way to always "win" like the question on the chalk board alluded to. I think the scenario was meant to force a confession about the Hybrid since the only alternative was dying over and over again. It is interesting that the Doctor refuses to confess his last secret about the Hybrid. Instead he "wins" by choosing the unthinkable: to willingly die over and over again for 7 billion years, and in the process slowly chip away at the wall and eventually break free.

I do think this episode explains why the Doctor will be so pissed at the Time Lords in "Hell Bent". Not just they set up a trap that led to Clara's death but they also deliberately tortured the Doctor for 7 billion years just to get a confession out of him about the Hybrid. Yeah, I'd be pissed too!

 

[Captrek]

The Shepherd Boy

There was once upon a time a shepherd boy whose fame spread far and wide because of the wise answers which he gave to every question. The king of the country heard of it likewise, but did not believe it, and sent for the boy. Then he said to him, if you can give me an answer to three questions which I will ask you, I will look on you as my own child, and you shall dwell with me in my royal palace. The boy said, what are the three questions. The king said, the first is, how many drops of water are there in the ocean. The shepherd boy answered, lord king, if you will have all the rivers on earth dammed up so that not a single drop runs from them into the sea until I have counted it, I will tell you how many drops there are in the sea. The king said, the next question is, how many stars are there in the sky. The shepherd boy said, give me a great sheet of white paper, and then he made so many fine points on it with a pen that they could scarcely be seen, and it was all but impossible to count them, any one who looked at them would have lost his sight. Then he said, there are as many stars in the sky as there are points on the paper. Just count them. But no one was able to do it. The king said, the third question is, how many seconds of time are there in eternity. Then said the shepherd boy, in lower pomerania is the diamond mountain, which is two miles high, two miles wide, and two miles deep. Every hundred years a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on it, and when the whole mountain is worn away by this, then the first second of eternity will be over. The king said, you have answered the three questions like a wise man, and shall henceforth dwell with me in my royal palace, and I will regard you as my own child.

--The End--

Brothers Grimm, y'all.

I fail to see both the point of the questions and the wisdom of the answers.

 

[Marc]

I just noticed that the rerun of "Heaven Sent" next week runs 1 hr and 15 minutes. Also "Hell Bent" runs 1 hr and 20 minutes.

It ran 1hr15 in Canada on Saturday night which might have caught some people off guard if they let their PVRs go by the program guide.

Fortunately mine was set for the cable channel of Space as it was recording so I was able to "rewind" and watch the last 5 minutes.

 

[Mr Awe]

I can't see the "something will happen that'll drive the fans nuts" being "he's half-human" - we've had 20 years to get used to that one.

I'm guessing its probably the Doctor going full blown revenge rampage on the Timelords.

That's what I was thinking, too.

Moffat may have brought the Time Lords back so the twelfth Doctor can do something the Doctor trio in "Day of the Doctor" never did -- genocide the effing bastards.

I see it as the Doctor is a hybrid healer/destroyer. But, I don't think he'll destroy the Time Lords. Note how this episode ended by showing a Gallifreyan child. The Doctor wouldn't destroy kids. He may well seek those responsible and destroy them and thereby restore Gallifrey.

Mr Awe

 

[JoeZhang]

I'm guessing its probably the Doctor going full blown revenge rampage on the Timelords.

That's what I was thinking, too.

Moffat may have brought the Time Lords back so the twelfth Doctor can do something the Doctor trio in "Day of the Doctor" never did -- genocide the effing bastards.

I see it as the Doctor is a hybrid healer/destroyer. But, I don't think he'll destroy the Time Lords. Note how this episode ended by showing a Gallifreyan child. The Doctor wouldn't destroy kids. He may well seek those responsible and destroy them and thereby restore Gallifrey.

Mr Awe

He might destroy the time lords and leave the Gallifreyans.

 

[Mr Awe]

BUT...the castle, the creature, and the planet are all still going. They might "tidy up" after themselves, but they're still there after all that time, which is why we see a giant pile of skulls under water.

I know the assumption is that the skulls belong to the previous Doctors in the cycle, but that doesn't make sense, because there should also be bodies from previous cycles. A body doesn't decompose from corpse to skeleton overnight.

The bodies got burnt into the ashes that the Doctor ran his hand through at the beginning, but we saw the skull survive with the electrodes attached. And, they showed the Doctor knocking the skull into the water. So, only the skulls accumulated down there.

Mr Awe

 

[Mr Awe]

I think, for me, the real question is: "Was the Doctor meant to escape?"

The Confession Dial and the creature within seemed intent on killing him unless he confessed his hidden truths.

Was he tricked into re-living the loop over and over again, or was that the Doctor's way of breaking the rules? The trap was that he was going to get to the diamond wall and realize that his only way out was to CONFESS or DIE. "Truth or Consequences."

I'm not sure anyone actually planned for him to climb his way back up to the teleport room and avoid both outcomes.

I wondered this too. My impression is that the goal of the Time Lords was to obtain the information they wanted about the hybrid and that by obtain this information, the Doctor would get to escape.

But, the Doctor made a decision while he was by the diamond wall that he'd give no more information. So, he's going against the original purpose. He escaped without giving information about the hybrid, it just took a very long time. That's why he said at the end that he took "the long way around."

He set up a loop that they weren't expecting, and apparently they never, ever checked on!

So, the intention was probably that the Doctor would give all the information and then at that point he'd be released into the custody of the Time Lords.

Mr Awe

 

[Mr Awe]

That's what I was thinking, too.

Moffat may have brought the Time Lords back so the twelfth Doctor can do something the Doctor trio in "Day of the Doctor" never did -- genocide the effing bastards.

I see it as the Doctor is a hybrid healer/destroyer. But, I don't think he'll destroy the Time Lords. Note how this episode ended by showing a Gallifreyan child. The Doctor wouldn't destroy kids. He may well seek those responsible and destroy them and thereby restore Gallifrey.

Mr Awe

He might destroy the time lords and leave the Gallifreyans.

Possible but only if all of them are evil. Surely their are kids and other innocents among the Time Lords? Maybe it'll just be the ruling class who were specifically involved. I just don't see a large scale slaughter in the offing!

Mr Awe

 

[Hartzilla2007]

QUOTE=Lonemagpie;11370982]

Why do you all think The Doctor is the hybrid?

Because he says he is.

Not quite - he says it "is Me", which could mean himself or Lady Me (Ashildr, outright referred to as a hybrid of two warrior races - Vikings and Mire - in her first episode)[/QUOTE]

But he never calls her that.

Two great warrior races = Hybrid: Mir and Vikings
Destined to bring down Gallifrey: Me's vow to protect people from the Doctor

That would be stupid since the Timelords would fry the moment she started something (if she could even get to them), she's nor super immortal just really hard to kill, and the Timelords can manage killing such things.

So probably the Doctor.

 

[StCoop]

So probably the Doctor.

We know from the trailer that she's in it again next week. But if we're supposed to disregard 50 years of being told one reason for the Doctor's departure from Gallifrey and now accept that it was because he knew who the Hybrid is, then it can't be her.

 

[Captrek]

Is that Arcadia, looking all shiny and perfect? Does that place this before the events of DOTD, or were they able to rebuild inside their "frozen moment"?