Every Doctor Who Finale - Ranked Worst To Best
9. Hell Bent (Season 9)
This episode follows Heaven Sent, one of the greatest episodes in the show's history. Because of this, Hell Bent seems like a truly lacklustre conclusion to the series and a poor send off to Clara, whose character was always met with mixed responses.
The return of Gallifrey was confusing and undone much of the goodwill of the 50th anniversary special while the need to resolve Clara's arc in a positive way took up much of the focus. Having her end arrive in Face the Raven would have been a much more fitting and altogether shocking conclusion that would have added to the stakes of the finale.
Unfortunately, there were also a lot of inconsistencies similar to the finale of the previous season. Having The Doctor kill someone was a very shocking moment, but not in a good way. The ethos of The Doctor had always been not to kill, so having Capaldi go against this just to serve the confusing plot was a sign of bad writing.
The ending felt needlessly happy; having Clara go off in her own TARDIS was an interesting idea but due to her revival feeling unearnt her survival felt equally unearnt.