So here we are, the end of a great series for Doctor Who and after the masterpiece that was last weeks episode, does the finale end on a high note? Let's find out. Hell Bent sees The Doctor finally return to Gallifrey and plans on manipulating the entire planet in a way to bring Clara back to life. In the end she is brought back in a way, her body is in suspended animation so she is technically on her last heartbeat but that heartbeat can last as long as they want. In the end The Doctor is forced to have his memory wiped to prevent himself from destroying the universe to try and protect Clara.
So let's get to some details, starting with all the stuff on Gallifrey. Now I will say the first 10 minutes or so were awesome, no dialogue from The Doctor and he still some how gets his way and is able to manipulate and scare all of Gallifrey, first they threaten him, it doesn't work, then they send the council, it doesn't work, then finally the damn Lord President shows up and what does The Doctor say to him? "Get off my planet" Mic-fucking-dropped! But then we get to the bad stuff about Gallifrey, kinda something that seems to be a recurring thing in modern Doctor Who, the Time Lords are fucking retarded! The big thing here is that they are scared of a prophecy of "The Hybrid" a believed creature that is half-Time Lord, half-Dalek, making it an unstoppable monster. Of course it turns out not to be one person but two, a Time Lord and a human, The Doctor and Clara. So where do we begin? How about the fact that the mere concept of time travellers being afraid of a prophecy is really dumb. You're fucking time travellers, you should know whether or not a prophecy comes true! Also The Doctor and Clara being an unstoppable monster when combined, not really true, The Doctor is the unstoppable monster, Clara is just his motivation.
Speaking of Clara, this was a pretty bad way to end her storyline, i mean not for her personally, i'm sure she's very happy, but as a character in a narrative it was awful. She had a dramatic, heavy and excellently handled death which lead to another great episode of The Doctor experiencing grief and sorrow and pain trying to deal with it. Turns out that was all pointless because she's not really dead. Yes she is still technically dies but she can choose to go back there whenever she wants, and because her death is a fixed point in time she's now immortal just like Jack Harkness was, and she's travelling across all of time and space with Ashildr. So basically we went from an emotional death that lead The Doctor to experience pain like he's never felt, to Clara becoming immortal and travelling like before except now with a different person. BULL-SHIT! You don't give a character this incredible and momentous death and have another character go through a traumatising experience just to turn around and say "So none of that was important!". Doctor Who has brought back dead characters before and done it really well. When Rory died Amy experienced a quiet pain, she forgot he even existed but was still crying tears without knowing why and when he did come back and she remembered her character changed and grew, nothing beforehand was lost for either parties and they both changed and were better for it. That's not the case here because the development was all lost by bringing her back.
Then there is erasing The Doctors memory, admittedly and interesting concept but executed so poorly. A good companion should change The Doctor, make him grow, learn, adapt, build new relationships, all things I admit Clara did do well, especially for Capaldi's Doctor. But now with his memory erased of her, all that development is now gone and made the last 3 seasons pointless. Oh but his memory wasn't completely erased, he remembers bits and pieces of her. Well then that makes it a shallow plot point then doesn't it? Again, it's another case of creating this big dramatic scene and then having that lead to nothing. He only sort of forgets Clara, so he remembers enough for her time to have not being wasted but not enough so it's okay for her to leave the show. I repeat BULL-SHIT!. Isn't that just convenient? He only remembers the important things that the writers want him to remember, so i guess we should all just go for half-measures on these things, cheap and easy drama with no lasting consequences! Because that's good storytelling!
Good lord, what happened? This show was on such a high streak, but thankfully, unlike this episode, one element does not ruin everything that came before it. The good episodes are still good and the bad episodes are still bad, and thank god this season had some truly excellent episodes and overall this was the best season of Doctor Who since Matt Smith's first year.
I'm giving this episode a 5/10.
I'm giving this season a 9/10.
-Danny
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