Heaven Sent

Episode aired Nov 28, 2015
TV-PGTV-PG
55min

9.6/10

10K

S9.E11

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Adventure Drama Family

Trapped in a world unlike any other he has seen, the Doctor faces the greatest challenge of his many lives. One final test. And he must face it alone...Trapped in a world unlike any other he has seen, the Doctor faces the greatest challenge of his many lives. One final test. And he must face it alone...Trapped in a world unlike any other he has seen, the Doctor faces the greatest challenge of his many lives. One final test. And he must face it alone...

9.6/10

10K

Director
- Rachel Talalay
Writers
- Steven Moffat(showrunner)
- Sydney Newman(uncredited)
Stars

Top credits

See production, box office & company info

See more at IMDbPro

Peter Capaldi

The Doctoras The Doctor

Jenna Coleman

Claraas Clara

Jami Reid-Quarrell

Veilas Veil

Director
- Rachel Talalay
Writers
- Steven Moffat(showrunner)
- Sydney Newman(uncredited)
All cast & crew
See more cast details at IMDbPro

The Doctor, alone and depressed, finds himself inside a nightmarish castle seemingly created to terrify him. However, as the Doctor soon finds out, everything is not quite what it seems to be. The Doctor must solve the riddle of his prison in order to find out where he is and why he is there. —Matthew Adams

gallifrey castle mind palace confession dial confession 19 more

Trivia
The full quote from "The Shepherd Boy" in the book "Household Tales" by the Brothers Grimm is:

The King said, "The third question is, how many seconds of time are there in eternity." Then said the shepherd boy, "In Lower Pomerania is the Diamond Mountain, which is two miles and a half high, two miles and a half wide, and two miles and a half in depth; every hundred years a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on it, and when the whole mountain is worn away by this, then the first second of eternity will be over."

Goofs
In the graveyard scene, the Doctor says to the Veil, "Physics of a triangle, you lose!" In the Series 9 DVD, the subtitle for this is given as "Fifty-seventh time, you lose!"

Quotes
[first lines]
The Doctor: [voice over] 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.

Connections
Referenced in The Chronic Rift: Time Loop-de-Loops (2018)

Soundtracks
Doctor Who Theme (Series 8)
Performed by Murray Gold

Top review

10/10

Best of the season, with a brilliant performance by Peter Capaldi!

There is still, as of the time of writing this, an episode to go (and the Xmas special), but what a season this has been! There's been some really standout episodes in the past runs, but no season has come close to this as a whole.

Honestly, the only episode this year which was a bit of a misfire was Mark Gatiss' "Sleep No More", and it wasn't even bad. It was a perfectly standard episode of Doctor Who which just didn't match the same level of excellence of the other installments around it.

Seriously, just between "Heaven Sent", which is undoubtedly the Twelfth Doctor's best thus far, and his speech in "The Zygon Inversion", Peter Capaldi had better receive a BAFTA award for this series!

This episode was just brilliant. It was dark, atmospheric, introspective, and clever. And it's almost better upon repeat viewing, picking up all those extra little nuances.

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