ReaKtion Round-Up: What You Thought of Hell Bent

David Power is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

“Featuring Donald Sumpter, as Rassil-gone.”

Is Series 9 over already? Huh, feels like just yesterday we were discussing who the Hybrid could be, why Ashildr was such a hyped up character, and how Gallifrey got out of it’s universe. Glad we got all that sorted, eh? Anyway, given how Hell Bent is the Series 9 finale, I though I’d give you all a special longer Reaktion Round-Up to celebrate.

And definitely not because I got caught up in complaining about Hell Bent.

Anyway, let’s check out the poll:

A fitting finale – utterly brilliant 37.19%  (209 votes)

Rounds off Series 9 excellently 25.27%  (142 votes)

Expected more, but it was alright 16.9%  (95 votes)

Anticlimactic after Heaven Sent 12.81%  (72 votes)

Hellish 7.83%  (44 votes)

You all seem a bit mixed on this one, with most of you leaning to the good spectrum of the poll. But for me, while it had it’s moments, it was the most disappointed I’ve ever felt after a Doctor Who finale.

I thought the start was great, at least. The unexpected opening in Nevada with a sudden appearance by Jenna Coleman catches you completely off guard, and does what Doctor Who is best at, playing with your expectations. (As the Doctor plucked Clara’s theme, he also plucked my heartstrings.) Those initial minutes on Gallifrey where the silent Doctor, “The Man Who Won The Time War”, returning to the barn he grew up in, manages to bring Rassilon himself, the man blamed for the Time War, to the his front door by shear presence alone was brilliant. I thought it fit perfectly that the Doctor would blame Rassilon for the Time War. As we saw in The End of Time, Rassilon’s High Council was hugely corrupt, so much so that anyone who even questioned his decisions would immediately be disintegrated. Also we all know that deposing Rassilon is gonna come back and bite the Doctor in the backside, right? I for one welcome the idea of a vengeful Rassilon starting a war to reclaim Gallifrey for himself.

So the General (played once again by Ken Bones) uses an extraction chamber to pull Clara out of her timeline right before her death so the Doctor can talk to her (no hard feelings, Adric.) Then the Doctor shoots the General, forcing him to regenerate. It’s been weeks since this episode aired and I’m still unsure how I feel about that part. The Doctor brushes off the shooting, comparing regeneration to “man flu” at this stage for the Time Lords, which again fits with what was described in The End of Time as “billions are dying, being resurrected and dying repeatedly.” So it makes sense that it wouldn’t be a huge deal, but there’s just something that feels wrong about the Doctor casually murdering someone. Also Ken Bones regenerates into T’Nia Miller and that’s fine by me. It explains neatly that gender-swapping regenerations is not impossible, just uncommon.

Time to wrap this episode up. The return of Gallifrey, hyped up and shrouded in mystery is suddenly forgotten so we can say goodbye to Clara… again. What was the point of bringing Gallifrey back now if it was inconsequential to the rest of the episode? How did Gallifrey return? Again, the Doctor brushes it off, telling the audience that they’ll explain some other time. Why couldn’t we have this whole story some other time?

Ashildr’s alone at the end of the universe (Sam Swift promptly forgotten after The Woman Who Lived), and we learn that in a very Moffat fashion, no one actually knows for certain who the Hybrid is; there’s just theories, and again the show moves on as if this story-arc for the entire season simply isn’t important anymore. Finally though, things start to get better. The whole episode I was waiting for the Doctor to realise the error of his ways, and attempt to fix his mistake. But what we got instead was pretty interesting. The end of Hell Bent features the Doctor being punished for a mistake he couldn’t bring himself to apologise for, no matter how bad a mistake he knows it was. In a beautiful moment from Clara, she takes her future into her own hands, which results in the Doctor forgetting Clara Oswald, or rather Jenna Coleman. The Doctor still remembers having adventures with a companion called Clara, but he knows now that his refusal to let her go resulted in them being forever separated. Seeing Clara’s face on the TARDIS, realising that that was Clara in the diner, possibly allows the Doctor to realise that this was for the best, and with a new sonic in hand, the rejuvenated Twelfth Doctor heads off for an adventure in space and time. It’s kinda beautiful really.

And then because Moffat just couldn’t let Clara go, Clara procrastinates going back to Gallifrey to die, and instead flies off to have adventures with Ashildr in a diner, because it’s not like her dying somewhere else will change a fixed point in time and shatter reality or whatever, also in the process happily ignoring the big lesson she just forced the Doctor to learn, about moving on. So in summary, I wouldn’t call myself Hell Bent‘s biggest fan.

Ratings continued to rise this week. The overnights rose from 4.51m to 4.8m (being the second highest this season after The Girl Who Died). Although the overalls dropped from 6.19m for Heaven Sent to 6.17m for Hell Bent. The Appreciation Index score rose by two from 80 to 82.

What did our lovely K-readers think about this finale? And beware some strong language!

So you lot, one last Who of 2015 Reaktion Round-Up to go, and I don’t know about you, but I think we, as well as the Doctor, need a good old Christmas romp right about now. Till the next one!

The post ReaKtion Round-Up: What You Thought of Hell Bent appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.