"Doctor Who" season 9 is going to be the most epic yet

On the contrary, I thought that was a nice interpretation of how we've seen him carry on several times before a regeneration when humans would have already been dead, even though his fate was sealed -- happened with 1, 3, arguably 5, and definitely 9 and (oh for such a long time!) 10. Of course, he resets the whole thing before the actual regeneration starts.

I do believe the intent was to force him into giving up the identity of the hybrid in exchange for his freedom/not dying.

We're not really clear yet on the full intention, but as others have said, the setup only makes sense if the solution he chose was one intended possibility. Otherwise, not only should the superdiamond have reset along with every other room, but it and the exit behind it shouldn't have been there in the first place. So I take it that while they wanted a confession, they also wanted him to get out there - or at least, someone who was able to change the puzzlebox did. (Missy?)

I try not to put more thought in an episode than the writers did, which lately has been extremely limiting.

That was good!

So... The finale.

Yeah. Extremely Moffatty, including the faults, but so well done that I think I am game with it.

I think Den of Geek has the right of it:

"...it's fitting really though that Doctor Who series 9 has ended on a note that's going to please some, and upset others. Because that, for me, is what good storytelling should do. And I think we've been treated to an awful lot of good storytelling these 12 weeks.
Hell Bent - and I liked it a lot - wasn't quite up the level of last week's, in truth, but then Heaven Sent was quite special. In fact, several episodes this year have really, really stood out.

I've adored the boldness of this series. I've adored how fearless it's been, and I've adored how Peter Capaldi has put in a shift that's given me goosebumps four or five times.

As he stood by his TARDIS at the end of Hell Bent, looking at the dedication to Clara, with a guitar over his shoulder? That man. We'll be talking about his work in this show for years.

Family drama, they call this. They're damned right. But it's family drama that treats every member of the family as someone with a brain. Hell Bent, fittingly, takes the Doctor off stage left, with barely a compromise in sight. It was creepy, moving, funny, and bristling with confidence, just as much of the series has been. What's more, there's a new sonic screwdriver and a high standard set for next time around. Doctor Who goes on, and thank goodness for that."

True (very) about 10, I'm not sure I'd say so about 9. I can't speak to the previous numbers since the only Classic Doctor I know (or care) anything about is 4.

I just about jumped out of my chair when I saw...

Hmmm...

The second device was used on the sacrifice in Ashildr's second episode.

Of course, there ought to be lots more around somewhere.

Incidentally, after several billion years, not only has the basic look of the TARDIS remained unchanged, the Chameleon circuit still breaks on the first trip. Talk about a complacent society.

Well, yes. It's not actually several billion years for them, though, only the Doctor. They just moved Gallifrey to that point in time.

Well, not those several billion years. They did go through the Time War. Then again, I guess Clara and the Doctor both would have reasons to go for the old model, which might well be found beneath the archives. So fair enough.

That works. But the Time War was only a portion of the Doctor's life, so only a few hundred years at most. Whilst the Type 40 has been described as "antiquated" by the Time Lords before, they are also technologically stagnant by purview of being the most advanced race but also now dull and unimaginative, so new developments take a long time. IIRC, the novels had them use their knowledge of the future to prophecise new tech developments.

Still mulling, but I will say this: the flaw in writing characters who are all but immortal is that humans aren't immortal. We have no idea what it would be like to live the life of a Time Lord, and our imaginations can only stretch so far before they snap back on us like rubber bands.

It's reminiscent of conversations about an afterlife. Well, if it's not clouds and angels and harp music, what could it possibly be? We create Valhallas and Tir Nanogs out of our own experience on Earth, or we contemplate reincarnation (which is close enough to a Time Lord's regeneration) because at least then we wouldn't be bored, would we?

A longevity that's akin to immortality seems to have an entropy of its own. Time Lords become mentally and physically ossified (those idiotic neck pieces). They're petty and boring because they're bored.

More later...

The novels also have the suggestion that most Time Lords are trained to be as dull and unimaginative as possible because otherwise they might grasp just how much power they have, and go insane through the realisation. All of the interesting Time Lords are bonkers, in some manner (well, possibly not Romana until later in the audios), and dangerously so in the case of Rassilon, Borusa and the Master/Missy.

The Doctor channels his madness, but its a close-run thing some days... Which is the point Ashildr was making about how far he'll go for Clara.

If this was Mage: The Ascension, all the renegades or great figures would be Marauders, not Technocrats (Even the Etherites).

I just remembered how I thought that it was almost a shame Jenna Coleman wasn't leaving after all last year, because the send-off scene with the reverse firecracker was so perfect in the Xmas Special. I have to say now that Moffat really managed to not just improve upon it, making the whole season basically about fearing the loss and then experiencing the loss of Clara, but he even gave it more poignancy by showing how she never grows old this way, for better as well as worse.

Thanks for the background info, @matthunter! Are the novels considered "canon," or are they like Trek novels - fun to play in the universe, but put everything back where you found it when you're done?

Silly question: Is Clara's going off on adventures with Ashildr (if this were a U.S. show, there'd be the inevitable spin-off series; so glad they're not trying that here!) the reason she ends up in the Dalek asylum episode?

No, the asylum one was one of the many shards of Clara from when she stepped into the Doctor's sutured time stream in Name of the Doctor.

Thanks. I'll get it figured out one of these years...

The beauty of Who is that you could consider all of it canon, since alternate timelines and whatnot. Some of the novels/audios have filtered into the show, which makes their original stories now suspect. For example, the audio Spare Parts had the Fifth Doctor stumble on the birth of the Cybermen as Mondas was knocked out of our solar system. Bits of the story were later adapted into the Tenth Doctor episodes "The Age of Steel/Rise of the Cybermen". Portions of the audio Jubilee (a captive Dalek which "befriends" a sympathetic companion) got recycled for "Dalek". And pretty much the whole of the novel "Human Nature" got converted into the two-part episode "Human Nature/The Family of Blood", having originally involved the Seventh Doctor. We got mentions of the Eighth Doctor's audio companions (C'rizz, Lucy, Charley) in the minisode "Night of the Doctor", implying that some of the audios have "happened" as far as the show is concerned.

In one of the novels, they make a point of the Doctor's "biodata" (kind of like temporal DNA) containing 23 different contradictory timelines. I think we're supposed to apply the MST3K mantra to the Doctor's past... After all, he does.

I guess... it all was just totally underwhelming.

Nothing involving Clara has any impact on me at all, and I hate all these immortals that the show is creating.