Sometimes Doctor Who has a plot so complex that I'm not sure I quite understand what's going on.

This post contains plot spoilers for "Heaven Sent," episode 11 of this season's Doctor Who.

I'm not sure what to think of this season's Doctor Who. First off, I'm actually not positive that I understand it either, but maybe that's the point? Last week we bid farewell to Clara Oswald, who (in being very much like the Doctor), had become reckless. Her death was uncomfortable, but I think the character of Clara had run its course so maybe this way was the best way to go forward? However, the result of Clara's death was the doctor being ensnared by Ashildr into his own confession dial, which (as it turns out) is a revolving castle where he's stalked by a monster that epitomizes his greatest fear.

The episode Heaven Sent (episode 11 of the 35th series of Doctor Who) was brilliant in its creepiness. There was the slow plodding monster that always caught up to the Doctor (82 minutes was as much of a lead as he could get on the thing if he ran from one side of the castle to the other). In order to open up new corridors, he needed to confess to the monster something deeply personal, which then caused everything to move as it does in Hogwarts.

Eventually, he'd find himself at room 12 which had some kind of wall harder than diamond and many feet thick (covering the way out which consequently led to Gallifrey--the doctor's home world which he kind of/sort of destroyed). He could hammer at it with his fists and make a small chip here and there like a bird pecking at a diamond. Then his greatest fear would catch him and...dying...the doctor would crawl back to a room where he would fry his own brain with an electrical charge to force a version of himself stuck in the hard drive of a computer to be born so he could start over again (have you guys ever seen the movie "The Prestige"? It's like that). After several billion years of doing this and repeatedly chipping at the wall, he finally breaks through to find Gallifrey. At least, that's what I got from it.

The episode was as creepy as Doctor Who gets too. It effectively used lighting and the loneliness of being trapped in this shifting prison (not to mention the buzzing flies which heralded the approach of the monster) to convey fear. And when the mystery of thousands of skulls buried beneath the water was solved (they all belong to the Doctor and his billions of reincarnations) the true horror of this place set in. Basically, the Doctor was trapped in his own hell and just like the journey the narrator takes in Dante's Inferno, he had to pass through the portal in the ninth layer before he could begin the ascent to some kind of redemption.

Anyway, the great reveal at the end of the episode is another confession from the Doctor: that he's the Hybrid, and I've got to confess I'm not really sure what that all means in the lexicon of Doctor Who. Any readers care to explain it to me? I'd be interested to know. This series continuously pushes the envelope of what I think I understand.

Doctor Who is at its best when an isolated group of people encounter something that's beyond their pay grade and the doctor swoops in to save them

In the third episode of Doctor Who airing just this weekend on BBC America entitled "Under the Lake," the Doctor comes face-to-face with ghosts. Now, I'm not an expert on Doctor Who, but from what I've gathered in the episodes that I have watched the Doctor does not believe in ghosts. Every time they've appeared before in the past, there has always been some explanation. "Aliens" is one of my "go to" answers, but essentially..."things that behave like ghosts" have always been explained away as being something else.

In "Under the Lake" it looks like we're getting genuine disembodied spirits, albeit, those that are being used by an alien life force to form some kind of a "soul transmitter." The signal gets stronger as people die because their souls are harvested for the alien broadcast. The sinister implications of such technology lead to at least one question: if a transmitter is designed to broadcast coordinates into outer space through using human souls, how can this (at all) be good for humanity? Naturally, the doctor is the one that comes up with the solution, but I have to wait until next week to see how the stunning cliffhanger resolves itself.

Yet, this brings me to a small point I want to make: I think Doctor Who is at its best when an isolated group of people encounter something weird and even horrifying and something that they cannot explain. Into this scenario the Doctor inexplicably appears and helps them suss out what's really going on and then provides solutions.

The history of Doctor Who is replete with examples of this kind of plotting: the weeping angels are one such example. There was also the artificial flesh episode that struck me as particularly memorable. Maybe its something similar to how George R.R. Martin sees the concept of evil: that being there really isn't "evil" per se. Rather we perceive "evil" because it goes against our self interest. In these Doctor Who episodes in which people encounter something horrifying, there is always some twist...some reason for the creatures to be doing what they're doing. It could be as simple as survival, but the reveal always has something to do with understanding that which previously was a mystery. And once the understanding happens, the monster ceases to be so scary.

When the BBC decides to play Bill & Ted with three Doctors you're in for some campy fun

The 3-D oil painting of Gallifrey was really cool. Steven Moffatt has to be
insane to come up with this stuff.

I've decided that when the BBC decides to play Bill & Ted with three Doctors from different timelines, you're in for some campy fun. As a reminder, for those who have not seen Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure in some time (pun intended), you may recall that they used time travel by leaving things that they needed (and telling themselves that) so that they could find it. Example: "In the future, I'll go back in the past and leave the keys over here behind this bush so I can find them right now. And look! Here they are!"

Well in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special, we got some of that and I liked it. The first happened when they were breaking out of the prison in the Tower of London, and the second occasion happened near the end, when they used time to start a calculation that would take centuries in order to remove Gallifrey from space so that the Daleks would annihilate each other. Clever and very cool.

I guess the huge "chip" on the Doctor's shoulders is now gone, because
he never started a holocaust. All's well that ends well, I suppose. Next
season has got to be all about finding Gallifrey though: an entire lost planet
of Time Lords just sounds really cool. Maybe that's how they intend to address
The Doctor's regeneration issue.

So the Day of the Doctor by all accounts was a resounding worldwide success. Simultaneously broadcast in 94 countries and screened by millions of Whovians, it was a pretty epic event that lived up to all of its hype. I'm glad I participated, even if the pre-show was kind of lame.

It does leave me with some questions though. You Whovians out there know that "The Day of the Doctor" addressed the decision made by the Doctor to destroy the planet Gallifrey (wiping out his own people in the process) because the Daleks had to be stopped. Now that this episode is over, and those events are changed, is the Doctor different now? I mean he'd have to be, right? For example, being responsible for a holocaust gave The Doctor an added depth that should be missing now that the holocaust didn't technically happen.

The painting of Gallifrey though was really cool, and I wish I had that to hang in my house.

So, did any of you watch "The Day of the Doctor?" And if so, what did you think of it?