Live Review: S9.E11 - Heaven Sent

Shortly Before this series began, there were rumours that the Doctor would be on his own in episode eleven. It was already known the Jenna Coleman was leaving and hinted that she might not make it to the end of the series, so these rumours seemed to hint that episode ten would see Clara's departure. The alternative was that episode eleven would be a 'companion light' episode but there haven't been any of those for a long time and it surely didn't make sense for one to crop up now and be followed immediately by her exit. Of course, we know now that episode ten was indeed her exit which added heightened anticipation that what was to follow may well see the new companion unexpectedly introduced in the series finale! That really would be a coup in a world where such revelations are expected much earlier than they used to be and are generally forced to happen when they starting filming... but this would be the perfect cover, just another actress filming in the final episode, no reason to suspect... Bigger than this in the discussions however, was the suggestion that the Doctor would literally be on his own in this penultimate episode, with nobody else to play against!

Well, that was just bonkers, surely taking the 'on his own' part too far. Or maybe the alien creatures he encounters are non humanoid and potentially non speaking so from a script perspective he is essentially on his own... It's going to be odd even if the latter is true...

Live Review: S9.E10 - Face The Raven

As the pre-title sequence kicks in, we are once again dropped in at the end of another unseen adventure. Once again it is one that sounds more exciting and bizarre than the ones were are used to seeing on TV; Clara is enthusing about a "Giant sentient plant thing that was about to..." when the Doctor interrupts her with "It wasn't going to eat me!" in a way that says there was a threat, but that wasn't it. The Doctor then complains that they've been to the second most beautiful garden in all of time and space and they can never go back because Clara decided to... We'll never know what, because the phone rings. It's a special moment when the TARDIS phone rings because, as the Doctor points out, very few people have the number and it's only given out for emergency use. There's no surprise then that the Doctor is dismayed when Clara reveals that it is Rigsy (you, the graffiti artist who saved the day in last year's Flatline when the Doctor was trapped inside a shrinking TARDIS) and his emergency is that he has a tattoo he doesn't remember getting!

The tattoo, however, is simply the number 538 that inexplicably changes and Rigsy explains it is counting down... but to what? The reckless fun of the unseen adventure is over and the drama and mystery of this episode is now centre stage. [Roll Titles]