David Tennant may be a hugely popular performer, with considerable range (compare his performance in the Fright Night remake with his depiction of serial killer Dennis Nielson). Christopher Eccleston is one of the country's great contemporary actors. But for me, the most accomplished actor to have portrayed the Doctor is Peter Capaldi.
I've already mentioned some of Capaldi's "hero" moments in another post in this series - "Hello Stonehenge" - but it's worth looking at Heaven Sent in its own right as one of the programme's finest episodes, ever.
It's not typical of the series. It's not even typical of the Moffat era. It's not typical of the Capaldi era. It's not even typical of Series 10.
We are promised an episode unlike any other on 2nd December 2023, with the broadcast of Wild Blue Yonder. Rumour has it, it's a two-hander with just a robot character keeping the Doctor and Donna company as they're trapped on a spaceship for an hour.
If that's the case, it can't really be all that novel as Moffat and Capaldi gave us a single-hander back in 2018.
Heaven Sent follows directly on from Face the Raven, in which the Doctor has just seen Clara killed, and he manoeuvred into a trap by some unknown enemy.
In the next episode, he's trapped in a bizarre castle - a deserted Gormenghast. Whilst he struggles with his grief, he has to contend with working out the mystery of this place, which isn't as empty as he first thought. There's a monstrous shrouded figure inexorably hunting him down. It only relents when he says something which is true, when the castle resets itself and the hunt commences all over again.
The thing following him, he identifies as a horrible childhood memory embodied.
Events climax when the Doctor reaches a wall of crystal, harder than diamond. Whatever his goal is, it lies beyond this wall.
Watching this for the first time, ignorant of the plot, we expect the story to move forward from here, but the Doctor is caught and apparently killed by the figure - only to reappear back where he started at the beginning of the episode.
It really throws the viewer, who might have been starting to gather what was going on. Not only does the sequence repeat itself, but we then see the same thing happen over and over again.
Things start to fall into place. The change in the stars, and the ever increasing mound of skulls in the ocean surrounding the castle.
The Doctor takes short breaks in his "mind palace", as Sherlock had already termed it. For him it's the TARDIS, where he sees Clara who seems to give him hints.
I won't say any more about the plot. Reading Facebook comments about the recent uploading of the back catalogue to the BBC i-Player, it is clear that a great many "fans" have rather large gaps in their viewing of the series. (To have not felt the need to seek out and watch every single episode of Doctor Who is unthinkable to me).
Throughout Heaven Sent we have only Capaldi's remarkable performance, accompanied by Murray Gold's music. One piece in particular stands out - The Shepherd Boy, which is his masterpiece.
I've always liked Gold's scores, ever since RTD's Queer as Folk, and own the soundtracks up to Series 9.
The combination of Capaldi's performance, Moffat's writing, and Gold's score make Heaven Sent a brilliant Doctor Who story.
Atypical, and not the sort of thing you could do very often, it deserved to be one of the top two stories of this Doctor's era in the recent DWM 60th Anniversary polling - which means that it will go forward to the final poll to determine the very best. I gave it a 10.
Unfortunately, the episode led onto probably the worst of the Capaldi stories - but it can't be blamed for that. Only Moffat can.
Wild Blue Yonder will have to pull a few rabbits out of a few hats if it's to challenge Heaven Sent as a truly remarkable and unique instalment of Doctor Who...
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