Sunday 29 November 2015

Heaven Sent (time shift)

We are what we repeatedly do.
- Aristotle

Or, if you want to be all obvious about it:

"Just you think about it," said Crowley relentlessly.  "You know what eternity is?  You know what eternity is?  I mean, d'you know what eternity is?  There's this big mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every thousand years there's this little bird-"
- Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens

Me:  What did you think?

Him:  I think it's a terrible name.  What did you think?

Me:  About the Doctor's descent into the Underworld?  I thought it was really good.

Him:  Yeah.

Me:  Even having seen Cube, Triangle, The Prestige, Timecrimes and Dark City.1

Him:  Oh, you'd already written down The Prestige?

Me:  Yeah.

Him:  Before I told you it?

Me:  Uh huh.  I think if we're just going to say positive stuff we need to talk about Peter Capaldi's performance...

Space Badger!

Him:  It was...  Yeah...  I can't even put it into words.  He...  He just had to talk to himself.  But he did it really well.  

Me:  It was great.  The moment-  Oh!  Groundhog Day. 

Him:  It gets away with the Groundhog Day element though, because it uses it in a different way.

Me:  Yeah. 

Him:  It uses it in a really clever way. 

Me:  It was good, wasn't it?

Him:  Yes. 

Me:  I think Steven Moffat should get...  Well.  Some praise, or maybe an award, for that. 

Him:  Really?

Me:  Yeah.  That's the one he's been building towards.  It's the one he wants an award for, isn't it?  And next week, with Gallifrey being back and everything...  So, the Hybrid.  Did that come as a shock?

Him:  That was a very big surprise.

Me:  Ha!  How long've we been predicting that now?  Eleven weeks?2

Him:  I think I'm going to have a heart attack and die from that surprise.

Me:  And that's why he left Gallifrey, and it'll turn out he's half-human on his mother's side...  Do you think he's going to regenerate next week?  Who's regenerating, do you think?

Him:  Probably Clara.

Me:  Ha!  Also...  Fair play to Murray Gold. 

Him:  Do you think he did well in that one?

Me:  I thought the music was really good, yeah.  I liked the little tiny moment that sounded just like-

Him:  That sounded like Peter Davison stuff?

Me:  Yeah, that callback.

Him:  Sort of keyboard, synthesiser type music.  As opposed to the orchestral music.

Me:  So, I suppose technically I was right, and it was a multi-Doctor episode. 

Him:  Yes, with many, many, many, many Doctors.  I liked the way that episode starts about a third of the way through. 

Me:  Seven thousand years in-

Him:  Seven thousand years, but...  It doesn't start at the start. 

Me:  No, it doesn't.

Him:  Because it wouldn't have been as effective. 

Me:  But then, the film Triangle doesn't start at the start either. 

Him:  No.  But you said the trailer spoils everything with that.

Me:  Yeah, it does.  I'm looking forward to next week now.  There's not much else we can say beyond that, other than that it was great.

Him:  Yeah.  Something...  I'm glad they didn't show it as well. 

Me:  The Veil?

Him:  The Veil.  Because...  there's something a lot scarier about the unknown. 

Me:  The thing you don't show is more frightening.

Him:  And I loved the concept of being able to see what it sees, but not being able to see it.  There's a boss in Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass that does that, but for such a short period of time that you wonder why they even did it.  It's an invisible crab thing, but you can see what it sees on the top screen-

Me:  Oh, right.

Him:  -and you have to try and line it up.  I really liked it, but it lasts, like I said, for about ten seconds.  Heaven Sent did it quite effectively, because he's got to spend ages figuring out how it all works, where it is at all times, how you can get away from it for the maximum amount of time...

Me:  Yeah.  You don't remember the butler from Tomb Raider training levels?

Him:  Sadly not.

Me:  Okay.  I don't think there's much else we can say here.  We'll have to wait until next week now really.  It's the middle part of a three-parter. 

Him:  What was with the bit with all the arrows pointing to the sand? 

Me:  I'm not hundred per cent sure about that.  He didn't seem to do anything with it, did he?

Him:  No.

Me:  And we didn't see him drawing the arrows.  And we don't see who wrote 'I am in 12' either.3

Him:  Well, he must've written it. 

Me:  And then buried it?  'Cause it resets, doesn't it?

Him:  Yeah.  But...  Which is weird, because why did it reset and leave that written under there?  If that room with the arrows reset, why are the arrows still there?

Me:  I dunno.

Him:  And why...  It doesn't entirely reset, because, for instance, the clothes were still there.  And like I said, at one point, the very first Doctor to've gone there must've been wandering around naked after leaving his clothes there.  It's the only way they could've been left by the fire.  But it was cool how they repeatedly traded them off, so it does explain why they didn't rot or anything like that.

Me:  Yeah.  It's an ongoing process that just goes on and on and on and on.

Him
:  I feel that falling into the lake would... not exactly have been a terrifying experience for the first twenty or so of them.  Until the skulls started becoming visible.

Me:  Yeah, it was clever.  Steven Moffat's kind of declared that the one he's written for Christmas was going to be the final story he was going to write.  So, I think what we're going to see here - even though he's still going to carry on, because he's been 'persuaded to stay' or whatever -

Him:  This is going to be what he's always been building up to.

Me:  Yeah, this is wrapping it up.  This is really the end of the Time War. 

Him:  Well, that was...  That was brilliant.

Me:  It was, wasn't it.  It was excellent.  I'm hoping next week's is as good.  And seeing as -  You were saying about the magic beans and...  I think the money's being spent on next week's episode.  And I think that's why this series has had so much talking and everything. 

Him:  The talking's been effective though.

Me:  It has.  It's good.

Him:  We haven't even commented on the harder-than-crystal wall.  That is... amazing.  It's really clever.

Me:  Just bashing his way through it over time.  Speleogenesis: making a cave. 

Him:  And after seven thousand years, there's still been no dent in it.

Me:  And on that bombshell.

Him:  Yeah.

1.  And Moon - forgot about Moon - amongst many, many others. 

2.  It's ten.  It could still turn out to be Ashildr, but I think that's thinking too small for Moffat.  The half-human and Valeyard trap-doors still need to be shut...  

3.  Who's in 12?  Gallifrey?  The Hybrid?  The Valeyard?
 

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