When you’ve been plotting and writing
Doctor Who for as long as Steven Moffat has, you inevitably must stumble across an idea that’s so mad you have no choice but to see it through to its finish. What will the people who so often chant for Moffat’s dismissal from the series – those who claim he has run out of ideas – make of this intimately epic hour that delves deep into the psyche of the show’s central figure? Perhaps they will say that it is nothing more than a rip-off of
Groundhog Day or
Edge of Tomorrow or any of the myriad films or TV shows that have exploited the time loop gimmick in this manner. If it were done poorly, we may have cause to tear into it, but when it’s done to such aching perfection as this, we must stand back, catch our breath, and applaud. One of the most experimental episodes of
Doctor Who ever, “Heaven Sent” is surely also one of the best, and certainly one of the most revealing.
The Doctor: “As you come into this world, something else is also born. You begin your life, and it begins a journey towards you. It moves slowly, but it never stops. Wherever you go, whatever path you take, it will follow – never faster, never slower, always coming. You will run, it will walk. You will rest, it will not. One day, you will linger in the same place too long - you will sit too still, or sleep too deep. And when, too late, you rise to go, you will notice a second shadow next to yours. Your life will then be over.”
