Doctor Who Christmas's specials can be divided into two categories: epic adventures at the beginning or end of a Doctor's regeneration (The Christmas Invasion, The End of Time, The Time of the Doctor) and one-off, usually more comical, stories. This episode falls into the latter category and the lightness of the story is welcome following a very dark Series 9. The tone of the episode is set with the appearance of the first guest character (Nardole played by comic actor Matt Lucas) and the Doctor's re-introduction wearing novelty reindeer antlers. It is Nardole who mistakes the Doctor for a skilled surgeon and summons him to his employer, the time travelling archaeologist, River Song.
It was thought that River Song's role in Doctor Who may have concluded after she last appeared as a hologram in The Name of the Doctor (2013). There is a slight concern that River's reappearance contradicts continuity with that episode because River had shown no hints of awareness that the Doctor would live on beyond his thirteenth regeneration. However, it could be explained that the timeline has since altered or that River was hiding the truth. Writer Steven Moffat was obviously keen to see Peter Capaldi and Alex Kingston act together for the first time, and their chemistry and the characters' relationship is refreshingly different to that between River and Matt Smith's Doctor.
The twist here is that the River doesn't recognise that Doctor. This brings their relationship full circle because it is a reversal of River's first appearance in Silence in the Library (2008). We also get to see what River gets up to when the Doctor's not around. Her behaviour is amoral, marrying the tyrant King Hydroflax (Greg Davies), in order to gain possession of the precious diamond which is lodged in his brain. River's actions reminds us she is not a suitable full-time companion for the Doctor; that role requires a moral conscience.
Much of the episode's wackiness derives from antics with King Hydroflax's disembodied head and his robotic body. The Doctor and River flee the robot body with the King's head in a bag and the body takes poor Nardole's as a replacement. Young children watching will have enjoyed these aspects. There is not much sense of threat and this is suitable for an earlier broadcast time on Christmas Day. Unfortunately, there is limited sophisticated comedy for the adults. The banter between the Doctor and River is not as funny as it should be and many of jokes, such as the Doctor feigning surprise at the TARDIS being "bigger on the inside", are quite obvious.
River steals the TARDIS and takes the Doctor to a starship restaurant where she intends to sell the diamond in Hydoflax's head. Here , the episode changes direction and explores the lead characters' relationships more thoughtfully. River reveals that her diary, given to her by the Doctor in Let's Kill Hitler (2011) is nearly full and she, and the audience, knows this means her life is nearing its end.
The plot takes an "awkward" turn when it transpires that River's buyer, and the rest of the restaurant patrons, are actually a followers of the King. The Doctor and River amusingly try to talk their way out of this predicament before Hydroflax's body turns up seeking a new head. The Greg Davies head is disintegrated; the comedic talents of both Davies and Lucas are rather wasted. The cowardly maitre d' Flemming (Rowan Polonsksi) promises Hydroflax that he can get the Doctor's head through River. She admits that she loves the Doctor but states that he does not love her back: "He does not go around falling in love with people" (perhaps excluding the David Tennant's Tenth Doctor). Finally, the Twelfth Doctor reveals his identity to River before she reveals her escape plan; her prior knowledge that the starship will be hit by a meteor strike River delivers an excellent pay-off line to Flemming: "I'm an archaelogist from the future. I dug you up!"
The crashing starship conclusion is underwhelming, perhaps because of the similarities to previous Christnas specials Voyage of the Damned (2007) and A Christmas Carol (2010). Escaping the crash on the TARDIS, River and the Doctor find themselves on the planet Darillirium. Finally, we see their last night together, as it was established back in 2008, and he gives her the special sonic screwdriver, Many casual viewers will have missed these continuity references but the touching final moments bring a satisfactory conclusion to a fairly average episode.
This year's series of Doctor Who scored the lowest ratings and chart positions for the show since it returned in 2005. Although averaging over a respectable 6 million UK viewers per episode (within seven days and not counting iPlayer views), over one million viewers seem to have deserted the show. The highest rated episode of the series (The Girl Who Died with 6.56 million) performed worse than the lowest rated episode of last year's series (Flatline with 6.71 million).
Doctor Who series (2005 to 2015): average ratings:
Television audiences are continuing to fragment but the fall in the average weekly chart position shows that Doctor Who ratings are now less competitive compared to other leading shows. The average chart position was 24th, falling 10 places from last year. Only two episodes made the weekly Top 20 (The Magician's Apprentice and The Girl Who Died) compared to four episodes last year (Deep Breath, Into the Dalek, Robot of Sherwood and Listen).
Doctor Who series (2005 to 2015): average weekly chart position
Hopefully a new timeslot and a popular new companion will help Doctor Who perform better when it returns in 2016 or 2017.
The BBC have released two retro posters for the upcoming Sherlock special The Abominable Bride in the style of the 1930s/1940s Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce films:
Since 2005's Bad Wolf / Parting of the Ways, Doctor Who fans have come to expect spectacular series finale stories featuring the Doctor having to save the world or universe from his greatest enemies (Daleks, Cybermen, Master/Missy). None of these villains feature in Hell Bent, and on first viewing, the episode might seem rather anti-climactic. However when viewed as a character piece, it is one of the most satisfying series conclusions.
There was a high level of expectation for this episode when the conclusion to the preceding Heaven Sent revealed the Doctor had returned to Gallifrey, his lost home-world. However, Hell Bent isn't really about Gallifrey and the Time Lords, it is about the Doctor and Clara. The pre-titles sequences show a flash-forward to the Doctor meeting Clara in a Nevada diner. This is a baffling start as neither character seem to know each other. The Doctor plays Murray Gold's beautiful "Clara's Theme" on his guitar and this establishes that Clara is playing a central role despite her death in Face the Raven. This will have divided fan opinion: some will have been disappointed that Steven Moffat has again brought a character back from the dead (as he did with Rory and, in clone form, Osgood) while others will be glad that a long-serving companion receives a more upbeat send-off.
After the credits, we flash back to Gallifrey where President Rassilon (Donald Sumpter) and the General (Ken Bones) discuss the Doctor's whereabouts and the impending crisis in the Matrix. Sumpter is a worthy successor to Timothy Dalton's incarnation of the President (the regeneration possibly occurring just after The End of Time) and Bones makes a welcome return after appearing in The Day of the Doctor. The reappearance of Ohila (Claire Higgins) and the Sisterhood of Kahn is less satisfying: it is unexplained how they got to Gallifrey and Ohila's role doesn't go beyond commenting on events.
There are many unanswered questions raised by this two-part story. One question is why the Confession Dial was left in the Gallifrey desert rather than in the Capitol. This allows the Doctor to go into hiding and wait for the Time Lords to come to him. He goes to a barn (presumably the same barn as seen in The Day of the Doctor and Listen) and meets a woman who recognises him. Again this is not explained: does the woman have some connection to the Doctor which enable her to recognise him in every regeneration? There is some suggestion she may be his foster mother. The Doctor is greeted as a returning hero by the locals who admire his refusal to co-operate with the High Council. The Doctor is presented as a man of the people who has no respect for the class system of Gallifrey.
The Gallifrey military also respect the Doctor having led them through the Time War and he uses their loyalty to overthrow Rassilon and take charge in the Capitol. It is then that the Doctor's true motives become clear: he is not concerned about the threat of the mysterious "hybrid", predicted to destroy Gallifrey, and plans to use the situation to save Clara. Using an extraction chamber to pull Clara out of time, just before her death, the Doctor breaks his own rules. Fans who remember The Waters of Mars will know that is not a good idea for theDoctor to interfere with a "fixed point in time" and this is a sign that he is losing his lost his rationality and ethics. A particularly shocking moment in when the Doctor shoots the General forcing him to regenerate. This allows Steven Moffat to show us a male to female regeneration on screen for the first time (T'nia Miller taking over from Ken Bones). She recovers very quickly: perhaps only male Time Lords suffer from post-regeneration sickness!
The Doctor and Clara escape into the Cloister at the base of the Capitol. The episode's only monster moments are provided by brief appearances of a Dalek, Weeping Angels and a Cyberman which guard the Matrix. Having evaded these and the Time Lords, the Doctor manages to steal a TARDIS from the workshops. The use of the original white TARDIS console room is a great fan-pleasing moment and director Rachel Talalay films around the set with style, a contrast from the multi-camera set-up of the classic series.
The Doctor travels to the end of the universe where he meets Ashildr/Me. This is another baffling plot development. It is not unclear whether the Doctor was expecting to find Ashildr there and if so, how he could possibly know she would be. The Doctor and Ashildr discuss three theories of what the hybrid is: Ashildr (half-human, half-Mire), him (half Time Lord, half-human?) or two people - the Doctor and Clara. The answer is never provided. The hybrid is what Alfred Hitchcock called a "MacGuffin" - a plot deivce which ulitmately proves unimportant.
The Doctor plans to wipe Clara's memory so the Time Lords will be unable to find her. However, Clara has "reversed the polarity" of the neuro blocker causing the Doctor to lose his memory of her. This is a clever reversal of the conclusion to Journey's End when the Tenth Doctor had to wipe Donna's memory. The final TARDIS scene between the Doctor and Clara is a brilliant emotional climax, superbly played by Capaldi and Coleman.
The final scenes back on Earth are not quite as convincing and raise more questions than answers. It is unclear why the Doctor is left in the Nevada desert and where he gets his guitar from. It is also a huge coincidence that the Clara TARDIS disguise is based on the diner featured in The Impossible Astronaut. The conclusion to Clara's story seems an uneasy compromise which allows her to part from the Doctor but not be definitively killed off. We don't know for sure whether Clara is returning to Gallifrey to be returned to her death (which we have been told she needs to do to save the universe) or whether she is going on new adventures with Ashildr. However, it is fun to see the duo fly into space in their diner-disguised TARDIS. Also enjoyable is the sight of the Doctor being reunited with his TARDIS and receiving his new sonic screwdriver. Hell Bent therefore concludes this rather dark series on an optimistic note. Despite the plot holes and frustrating unanswered questions, it is very strong end to an excellent series: one of the best in the show's history.
Spectre will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on
February 22nd. 
