I think for the first time in several months now, I’m excited for Doctor Who again. Since the announcement of Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, I’ve done nothing but smile and feel happy about the future of Doctor Who. I was already heralding the return of Russel T Davies as a miracle from a higher being. Of course, we haven’t seen him in the role, the costume, or even an interaction with the cast and crew outside of Davies. Yet looking back at his work in GRID Legends and checking out Sex Education, I’m hopeful. For the first time in forever (I’ll quote Frozen if I want), I am hopeful for my favorite piece of entertainment.

Back to the grumpy old White guy and one of his… three good episodes? Four, if we’re pushing it. Steven Moffat is someone I’ve put a lot of weight on when it comes to my displeasure in the Capaldi-era. Some of it is justified, as he is the showrunner at the time. Nonetheless, from time to time, he pulls out an absolute banger from nowhere. Occasionally he put so much creativity and much behind the character of the Doctor, recapturing that spark you felt the first time you watched “Blink.” Though they fall into the usual description of two-parters, I’ve opted to split off “Heaven Sent” & “Hell Bent,” mostly because one is fantastic and the other is terrible.

Following the events of “Face the Raven,” woohoo Clara is dead! The Doctor is teleported to a place he keeps waking up in over and over following suicide attempts after Ashildr (or Me) betrays him with the help of mysterious aliens. It’s the Time Lords, it is always the bloody Time Lords. There is a trap street that people look over, and it fits in a small crevice between buildings yet creates a whole village. It was Time Lord tech and it was on the nose. It wasn’t bad, just something you could spot if you were paying a small bit of attention to the almost 60-years of the show’s history.

The reason “Heaven Sent” works so well is just how stripped back it is. Often when a writer does something complicated or grand, they like to throw in a collection of buzzwords or stunt pieces to pull your attention away from the reveal. This is generally used to confuse the viewer into thinking the writer is more intelligent than them. The truth of the matter is that you don’t need to do this to get what you want as a writer. It ultimately makes your work look messy. Strip away the dancing elephants in act 3, put away the talking shoes on the homeless man, and tell me your story.

Two examples of complicated stories would be “Blink” and “Flux.” One sets up one of the most terrifying creatures in the universe, and the other was throwing things at the wall hoping they stuck. Why did the Sontarans have to go back in time to conquer the planet they had already conquered in the future three days ago? No one knows, it was throwing an idea to use time travel into a script that didn’t need it. Why did the Doctor only appear in 17 DVDs? Sally Sparrow only has 17 DVDs, and thus he maximized his chances of getting her attention with the “Don’t blink” speech.

Once again, Moffat cleared the board to set up something that was a tricky idea to convey, but simple enough to understand. Not that he deserves all the credit. Something with all these moving pieces needs a good mechanical machine working in tandem throughout the creative process. When it is a play of one man and his Grim Reaper, the entire crew that worked on that episode were like gears beautifully turning into each other. It is a bit like Steven’s other fantastic Tennant episode, “The Girl in the Fireplace,” beautiful cogs in the mind.

Peter himself is just outstanding, symbolizing the hope of this not being the last time, breath, step, door, and ultimately the last punch. “Heaven Sent” is a puzzle. By that, I mean it is a simple puzzle you’d find in a game. Something is chasing you, you have to figure out a way through a maze, and at the end of the maze is a wall you must break through. Like any game, once you die you’ll return to the start to try and chip away at that wall once again. It is a simple way this concept is teased throughout the episode to reveal that Peter’s Doctor was trapped in that tower, dying for two-billion years. A typical Moffat trick of saying the big number.

It puts in the work to make the ending satisfying. There is the reveal that finally, after so long believing he murdered 2.47-billion children of Gallifrey, remembering the planet wasn’t destroyed, and after wanting to feel like he has his people back for so long, he gets to stand on Gallifrey. I said when reviewing “The Day of the Doctor,” that Steven Moffat outstayed his welcome as showrunner. Nevertheless, even in his worst period, he could pull out something magnificent like this to give some perspective. I don’t think Steven is a bad writer, he just expended his best ideas and spread himself thin enough that when he was in the twilight of those years, he had no time to focus.

Of course, the Doctor’s way of concentrating was to go into the TARDIS and show off. He slowed downtime, worked out problems, and was the Doctor in the face of death. Truth be told there are a number of brilliant little ideas throughout the episode, from the fact the gardeners have an inferiority complex and are a dictatorship for the inadequate, or put simply a dictatorship. There is also Fitcher’s Bird being the basis behind the wall at the end of the maze and the torture chamber of nightmares designed to reveal the truth, a confession if you will. All of it builds to those final few moments.

The first person Peter’s Doctor stumbles upon is a child, not of high status but one of his people. Then it all goes a bit Pete Tong, sending us into the final episode of the series talking about the hybrid once again. Much like the Timeless Children nonsense where the Master fused with Cybermen, the Hybrid prophecy is a mystery best-kept secret. Nonetheless, we have Peter shouting “I am Spartacus!” or whatever, with Steven stating that it was in fact the pairing of Clara and the Doctor. I’m not saying the end alone made it worse, “Physics of a triangle! You lose.” did that enough.

Ultimately, “Heaven Sent” is a fantastic character piece, a brilliant piece of writing, and a wonderful piece of production coming together. The only thing letting it down is that whether or not you view it as a two-parter, “Hell Bent” drops the bowling ball down the stairs and kills the cat. The pace, the atmosphere, and the entire history of the show since it returned sits behind that moment he’s standing on the red sands of Gallifrey, yet gets shugged off with a flat episode. Where “Heaven Sent” strips away all the messy points building to the end, “Hell Bent” was well, hell-bent on trying to show these two people who had as much chemistry as Neo and Trinity before The Matrix Resurrections, which is to say they had none.

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Doctor Who "Heaven Sent"

9.5

Score

9.5/10

Pros

• Rachel Talalay's beautiful direction.
• Peter's magnificent ability to convey every second of pain.
• Steven Moffat's beautiful writing, stripping it down.

Cons

• "Physics of a triangle! You lose."