Part 1: The Barn of Mystery

In recent years, we’ve learned a little more about our mysterious, powerful Doctor (Peter Capaldi). Specifically, that when he was a young boy, he used to cry himself to sleep in a barn. Now, in big moments in his life, such as in Hell Bent, after he’s just spent four and a half billion years in an ashtray, he returns to said barn.

But here’s the thing: where’s the farm which utilises this barn? In fact, what could you farm in the desolate orange wasteland of Gallifrey? What gets stored in this barn anyway? Perigosto sticks? Shaboogan toboggans? What’s going on here?

Then, when the Doctor has returned to the barn, he’s greeted by a group of locals. Not Time Lords (no fancy robes, you see). Instead, they dress like extras from a spaghetti western. They gather in a clump to stare silently at the Doctor. Then they offer him one bowl of tomato soup. Which they insist he eats outside his barn. Well, you don’t want to risk spilling soup on your perigosto stick.

Again, just like there’s no farm, there’s no visible township from where these soup offerers have emerged. Where have they all come from? Why have they come at all? Where’s the bread roll? What’s for main?

Here’s my explanation. The Doctor’s barn is actually in a small but tightknit farming community. But the Doctor’s family farm, and all the other farms and buildings, have their chameleon circuits switched on so we can’t see them. The townsfolk have all taken a vow of silence until someone gives them all big collars. Their tradition is to offer newcomers one bowl of al fresco gazpacho. That’s my head canon and you can’t take it away from me.

Part 2: The Chamber of Dubious Utility

Having scared off an army and a despot with only his reputation and an entree, the Doctor heads off to the Capitol to kick some scarlet robed ass. There he demands access to an extraction chamber, so he can (he claims) consult dead companion Clara (Jenna Coleman) about the legendary Hybrid. In fact, he snatches Clara away from the point of her death and abducts her to freedom.

But, um, why do Time Lords need extraction chambers in order to whisk people away from death for a quick natter? Don’t they have complete mastery over time? If they wanted to talk to, well, anyone at any point in their lives, they can do so whenever they like. We might as well call it a plot advancement chamber.

Once the Doctor has successfully extracted Clara, punched a guy in the face and then shot him, he demands a “neural block, human compatible,” and a flunky grabs one from a nearby time/space cupboard. If they have “human compatible” ones on hand, how many other varieties to they have to keep in stock? And why do they keep these nifty little memory wipes in the plot advancement chamber? (Perhaps I’ve answered my own question there).

Part 3:  The Monsters who don’t.

Gallifrey, you would have noticed, is back. Although until recently, it was lost. Frozen in another dimension. This was a big ol’ thing. Tom Baker came back especially to tell Matt Smith to go search for it. Consoles were punched and tears were shed when Doctor Capaldi couldn’t find it. How did it get back into our universe? “They must have unfrozen it and come back,” shrugs the Doctor. Well, that clears that up then.

While we’re talking unanswered questions, let’s slip from the fictional to the real world: why create a monster you never use? Guarding the subterranean Matrix, are the spooky Cloister Wraiths. They glide around like Georgian state dancers and their faces are transfixed in eerie static filled screams. They can best Daleks, Cybermen and the Weeping Angels. They are a worthy addition to the Doctor Who Monster Book. And they do… precisely nothing. They don’t threaten the Doctor. In fact, they don’t do anything. They might at least have offered our heroes more soup.

Part 4: The Hybrid of Obscurity

It’s Orpheus in the Underworld, isn’t it? The Doctor descends into forbidden worlds to rescue his love from death, only to lose her again on the climb out. In doing so, he realises there are some things you can’t fight. It’s a great plot, the basis for many a retread. And that’s probably all an episode like this needs.

So given that Hell Bent has a perfectly serviceable plot, why clutter it with so much else? Why, for instance, do we care about the Hybrid? The Hybrid, it transpires, is not some big bad monster, ready to wreak havoc on Gallifrey. It’s far more theoretical than that. It’s the combination of the Doctor and Clara which causes them both to go to such extremes that the universe might end up as collateral damage.

The operative word being “might”. I mean, I can see an ending where the Doctor finds himself burning up whole star systems in order to keep Clara alive and realises that he has become the thing he always feared. But what terrible consequences have come about this episode from this dangerous combination? Well, one Time Lord was forced to regenerate and one TARDIS was stolen. Hardly apocalyptic stuff.

Also, why do we need that side trip to the Universe’s end to collect Ashildr (Maisie Williams)? Other than, of course, to collect Ashildr so that she can be Clara’s new companion. And I suppose, to resolve her relationship with the Doctor post her actions in Face the Raven, which this doesn’t really do. It’s at this point in the episode you sense events and characters moving into place, not in a natural way which sets up an inevitable conclusion, but instead in a contrived way to facilitate a pre-determined conclusion.

That pre-determined conclusion is the Doctor having his memory of Clara wiped (a fate some of her fannish critics may have welcomed). As heart-rending as this is, only a couple of seconds pass before the whole conceit falls apart. The Doctor can recall his experiences with Clara but not what she looks like… so this whole Hybrid threat might be back on again, if he happened to come across a picture of her, like, oh I don’t know, the one painted on the outside of his TARDIS?  In any rate the whole problem is fixed in Twice Upon a Time and the new Doctor, I boldly predict, will resist the temptation to track down Clara and form a universe-ending partnership.

By which I mean, she’ll just forget about it. And the barn, the wraiths, the soup and the whole bewildering affair. Must have taken one hell of a neural block.

FOREHEAD SLAP MOMENT. The General has just regenerated from male to female in front of us. The Time Lords’ gender fluidity finally and incontrovertibly proven! And then in the very next scene she says, “We need to block every exit from the Cloisters. Every available man.” Ah well.

LINK TO… Midnight. Both directed by women.

NEXT TIME… Eldrad must live as we’re offered The Hand of Fear.