Doctor Who: Series 9 Episode Titles And Plots Announced

1. Episode 12: Hell Bent

Doctor Who Steven Moffat
BBC

The season finale, written as we'd all expect by Steven Moffat, has been confirmed as "Hell Bent". My first thought was that the Tenth Doctor referred to Gallifrey and the Time War as "hell" in The End of Time, so... the Twelfth Doctor is Gallifrey Bent? That seems highly plausible.

Moffat also gave out an exchange of conversation from this story. The obvious reading of this dialogue is that Clara is leaving. But we've seen these fake-outs before - remember Rose saying "This is the story of how I died?" in Series 2's Doomsday? Oh, how showrunners like to mess with our emotions. Here's the dialogue in question, so you can make up your own minds:

“Is it a sad song?”
“Nothing’s sad till it’s over. Then everything is.”
“What’s it called?”
“I think it’s called Clara.”
“Tell me about her."

The plot summary also hints that Clara's going to die:

If you took everything from him, and betrayed him, and trapped him, and broke both his hearts... how far might the Doctor go? It is time, at last, for the Doctor's confession.

After all, what else would break his hearts? Well, that's what we're supposed to think, at any rate. More interesting than the never-ending back-and-forth over whether Jenna Coleman's Clara is being written out is the mention of the Doctor's "confession". What, exactly, does the Doctor need to confess? And can we wait three months to find out without exploding with frustration?

What theories do you have after reading the new plot summaries and quotes? Let us know in the Comments section!

Contributor
Contributor

Mike has lived in the UK, Japan and the USA. Currently, he is based in Iowa with his wife and 2 young children. After working for many years as a writer and editor for a large corporation, he is now a freelancer. He has been fortunate enough to contribute to many books on Doctor Who over the last 20 years and is now concentrating on original sci-fi & fantasy short stories, with recent sales including Flame Tree, Uffda, and The Martian Wave. Also, look for his contribution on Blake's 7 to "You and Who Else", a charity anthology to be released later this year. You can find him on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/culttvmike