Doctor Who, Hell Bent, review: Four-and-a-half billion years later, series reaches emotional finale

If you’re a Doctor Who fan and you missed Saturday’s series finale, you had better stop reading now because I’m about to reveal all about the Time Lord and his Tardis-travelling, century-hopping, sidekick-resurrecting ways. Or at least I think I am, but bear with me because the ninth season’s final episode had more twists than an Ood’s face.

The conclusion to the two-part finale, Hell Bent, began where last week’s Heaven Sent left off – with the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) re-emerging on his home planet of Gallifrey, having been trapped inside his confession dial experiencing his own death over and over.

He was understandably pretty angry – especially when it emerged he was in there for four-and-a-half billion years – and he was, er, hellbent on saving sidekick Clara (she died last week, keep up now).

“Four-and-a-half billion years? Why would you even do that to yourself?” asked a tearful, glossy-haired, Bambi-eyed Clara (Jenna Coleman) after he travelled back in time to snatch her from the jaws of death. The Doctor delivered a characteristically controlled response: “I have a duty of care.”

Duty of care? Most people interpret that as to feed and water, not trap oneself in a private hell for near eternity – but each to their own.

Clara, however, who was now living on borrowed time, was the least of The Doctor’s worries. With rumours of a two-race hybrid that prophecies said would destroy time itself still rife and The General (Ken Bones) on the warpath (he may have had a point; The Doctor did kill him, causing him to regenerate as a woman) he had one hell of a busy day ahead of him. Although I don’t know why everyone was so worried about the hybrid – there was one of those in Jekyll and Hyde the other week and Richard E Grant took it out with one bullet.

There was also a return for Maisie Williams, as Ashildr/Me. The allegedly 18-year-old actress didn’t look a day over 12 – which was good going for the daughter of a 9th-century Viking.

Underneath all the action, this was an emotional and humorous episode. What with Clara constantly welling up and a Harry Potter-style realisation that they couldn’t all live, I nearly felt myself going a few times – and that despite not understanding about half of what happened.

There were some very moving moments delivered expertly by Capaldi, who has proven himself an incredibly restrained actor. If ever there was a time to go all-out Malcolm Tucker this was it, but he refrained.

Adding to the emotion was the fact that much of the episode was told in flashback by The Doctor himself to a waitress in a Nevada café. He had been forced to wipe Clara’s memory, he said; she would not remember him. But the flashbacks told it differently and The Doctor appeared sketchy on the details of his much-loved sidekick. “There’s one thing I know about her,” he reassured the glossy-haired, Bambi-eyed waitress. “If I met her again, I’d absolutely know her.” This was perhaps the greatest twist of all.