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...
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe 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."
- GoofsWhen you see The Doctor appear in the teleport machine for the second time, the teleport "special effect" is missing and The Doctor is briefly visible just standing in the chamber waiting for his cue to start coughing. This is not how the effect was seen in the beginning of the episode and subsequent scenes.
- 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.
- ConnectionsReferenced in The Chronic Rift: Time Loop-de-Loops (2018)
- SoundtracksDoctor Who Theme (Series 8)
Performed by Murray Gold
Not in Heaven Sent.
In this episode, the Doctor is quite literally alone: No TARDIS, no companion, no clue as to where exactly he is or why he's there. He's watched his best friend die before arriving and thinks nothing can get worse... But they sort of do: everything straight from his nightmares is either around him or following him very VERY slowly and in order to escape he has two options: confess his darkest secret, or avoid such confessions and spend four and a half billion years in his own personal Hell, constantly dying and being reborn, constantly living in fear.
This episode takes everything we expect from a typical Doctor Who episode and throws it away, and instead hurls us into the unknown, taking the Doctors friends away from him and pitting him against his own nightmares. Literally. In a few words: It is the greatest thing ever published in any form of media ever, and I'd give this episode a hundred out of 10 if I could; It is absolutely breathtaking.
BEST SCENE: watching the Doctor constantly live through his own Hell over billions of years, and slowly watching the Azbantium wall being punched away. The music in that scene couldn't be more perfect.
Capaldi's acting is flawless, Moffat's writing is on point, and Talalay's directing is perfect. So few actors in this episode, yet it is perfect. And I mean PERFECT
- harveypeirson
- Jan 11, 2016
Details
- Runtime55 minutes
- Color