The Doctor Who Review | Season 9 Episode 12

Last updated on 28 December 2024

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WARNING! SPOILER ALERT! 

Welcome back to the twelfth and final Doctor Who Review until Christmas, where I recap the week’s episode and give some thoughts and opinions on it. Please do not read if you have not seen this week’s episode. There are major spoilers ahead. You have been warned. 

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What happens in Doctor Who Season 9 Episode 12?

Title: Hell Bent

Written by: Stephen Moffat

I quite enjoyed this episode, even though it was all a little crazy. After the previous episode, which was mainly just the Doctor running around a castle for billions of years by himself, this was a very character-full episode.

We step into the scene with the Doctor roaming the American desert again (like in season 6, with Matt Smith, Amy, Rory and River), and follow the Doctor in a diner, where at the bar is … Clara! Wait what? Isn’t she dead and gone? Apparently not. Their conversations indicate that they don’t actually know each other, and the episode continues as the Doctor tells Clara the story of what he got up to on Gallifrey.

Flashback to the Doctor standing in the desert of Gallifrey, where he is hanging out in a barn, which is the same barn that is occupied by three Doctors back in The Day of the Doctor, and won’t even move when the High Council comes to get him. It’s only when Lord President Rassilon shows his face that the Doctor makes a move. It’s Rassilon that the Doctor blames for the Time War, and he would like to know, please, two things: all about the hybrid that is supposed to stand in the ruins of Gallifrey, and he wants the Doctor dead. But the President’s men side with the Doctor, and the Doctor becomes head honcho of Gallifrey.

The Doctor needs more information about this hybrid, and tries to get as much as he can out of the people there…but eventually, he needs to ‘talk to an old friend’ and then boom. There’s Clara. Not the diner-girl Clara, but actual Clara. He grabs her up from moments before the Raven kills her in Face the Raven, and while she has no breath or heartbeat, her death is a fixed point in time; she has to die eventually. But the Doctor wants to play with Time, and he shoots the General – who regenerates into a woman, naturally – and they are on the run again, heading down into the dungeon/crypt type place where there are monsters tied to the walls.

Eventually, they steal a TARDIS and run. His main objective is to get Clara away from Gallifrey and the fixed point in time to get her heart beating again. So he travels right to the end of time, the end of everything, where, waiting for him, is Me herself. A couple of things happen in their conversation, which Clara hears through eavesdropping from the TARDIS, including the Doctor’s word play on ‘me’ when, at the end of the episode a few weeks ago, he says that this ‘hybrid is me’, he really meant that the hybrid is ‘Me’ … but then Me does away with that theory and says that it is actually the Doctor…but it’s the Doctor and his companion.

So the Doctor knows he has to wipe Clara’s memories, sort of like what he did to Donna Nobel back in season 4, but Clara hears of his plans and plays around with the sonic sunglasses, reversing the polarity. Now, one of them will forget the other … just which one will it be? And ta-da! It’s the Doctor! Clara knows all along in the diner, and we move back to that scene to discover that it’s he who doesn’t remember her, and she and Me are just in the stolen TARDIS, not a diner at all. The stolen TARDIS, complete with Me and Clara, zooms away, Clara saying that she will go back to Gallifrey and make them put her back into her timeline, where death is inevitable, but they can go the long way round.

As their TARDIS disappears, the Doctor’s blue police box pops up and there’s a memorial to Clara on the outside of it. He jumps on in and off he goes.

So this may (or may not be) the end of Clara’s story. For the sake of everyone, I sincerely hope it is, but it seems open to the fact that the Doctor may run into her again. But I don’t think that will happen. Jenna Coleman is leaving and unless she comes back for a one-off episode at some point, I think that’s the end of that. I quite enjoyed this episode. I think it was a great way to end a season which hasn’t really excited me all that much at all. It was sort of odd, having Clara come back after she died, and I know it sounds morbid and sad, but I was actually content with Clara dying. None of the other companions in the ‘new’ series have died, and I thought it was going to be a good addition to the companion’s stories. And I guess she does die eventually, we just don’t see it.

I thought it was a great spin, though, that it was the Doctor who had forgotten Clara, and not the other way around like with Donna. Very clever, and I think I’m happy with that. I’m super pumped for the fact that the Doctor finally got another sonic screwdriver – and an awesome one at that! – and I’m even more excited about the Christmas special because two words: River Song. Ohmygosh. I love River a lot, and I’ve always thought that Capaldi’s Doctor and River would be so great to watch together. Definitely looking forward to Christmas!

And so ends, mostly, another season of Doctor Who. After the Christmas episode (which I may actually not get to watch on or near Christmas day, we’ll play it by ear), I’ll do a bit of a summary of the season and link up all the episodes if you’re interested in seeing what I had to say about that past episodes if you missed them.

Until Christmastime, Doctor!

Favourite quotes:

“We’re on Gallifrey! ‘Dead’ is just Time Lord for ‘man flu’!” – The Doctor

“Never be cruel, and never be cowardly, and if you are, always make amends.” – The Doctor

“Tomorrow’s promised to no one, but I insist upon my past! I am entitled to that!” – Clara

What did you think of Hell Bent?