Moffat Era Rewatch: Notes on "Time Heist"

·      This is probably the weakest story of season eight so far, although that’s more of a reflection of the generally high quality of season eight – this episode is far from unenjoyable, and is instead a fun way to pass 45 minutes. But it’s visibly weaker in both direction and scripting than the previous offerings from season eight. The characterisation of the guest cast is limited to a scene where team not dead briefly separate so that Psi and Saibra can tell the Clara and the Doctor their backstories, and the chases through the corridors are pretty uninspired in both directing and acting, with it being too visible that what are meant to be different parts of the vault are just the same corridor set in different lighting.

·      But overall, “Time Heist” is still a good story. It’s mostly well paced and fun, and while Psi and Saibra aren’t the deepest of characters, they are distinct enough, a have a nice group dynamic with the Doctor and Clara. The plotting’s also very smoothly done (Moffat’s influence is clear here). The steady reveal of the nature of the heist: the solar flare, reveal of the teleporters, and the moment the Teller searches the Doctor’s memories to reveal how the heist works, and what the Doctor and Clara have come to find, unfolding in a very satisfying way, making for a successful “Doctor Who does a heist movie” series seven blockbuster episode throwback. Ultimately, it’s easily the best plotted and most thematically coherent of Steven Thompson’s episodes, and fulfills its role in the series nicely.

·      The central metaphor of the story centres around Team not Dead’s descent into the bank to find their deepest desires: the journey into the bank becomes a symbolic journey into the characters’ subconscious, a classic use of the setting as a metaphor for the characters’ internal world.

·      This journey into the subconscious is embodied in Psi and Saibra’s desires, another iteration of Moffat era themes of memory and identity: Psi wants to restore his lost memories, while Saibra wants to be able to make physical contact with people without taking on their image as a result. heir faked deaths are crucial to their journies: when he sacrifices himself to save Clara, Psi admits that he doesn’t see the faces of anyone flashing before his eyes: he wants to restore his memory of his loved ones, to not die empty, thinking he’s alone. Saibra, meanwhile, says that she’s left it late to meet “a good man”, a statement that ties into the fact that her ability stops her making personal connections. They have to sacrifice their lives, letting go of their desires, in order to understand and then realise them.

·      The descent into the subconscious theme is also reflected in the “professional detachment” clash between Psi and the Doctor following Saibra’s apparent death. Clara (correctly) states that “underneath it all, he isn’t really like that”, a statement that ties into the metaphor of the vaults, emphasizing the idea there is more beneath the Doctor’s surface appearance, and as we go deeper into the vaults, we see this is true: his “greatest desire” reveals that he does care, deeply about things, being willing to break into the most secure bank in the universe to save an endangered species. But Psi’s response is also an interesting and important note for Clara’s development: “You’ve gotten good at making excuses for him” he says, and it’s true: Clara is becoming more accepting of the moral ambiguity that comes with adventuring with the Doctor, a part of her psyche that she has currently buried and hidden, only for it to be unearthed and acknowledged in her journey beneath the vaults.

·      Also buried beneath the surface for multiple characters in this story is a sense of self loathing. Madame Karabraxos hates her own clones, burning them alive for not living up to her standards: her external actions reflect the self hatred that lead to her dying full of regret. This is explicitly paralleled to the Doctor’s hatred of the architect, which turns out to be another expression of his own self hatred: he is disgusted by the way his future self has manipulated the events of the episode. Saibra, meanwhile, is a mirror of self hatred, summarized by her quote “could you trust someone who looked back at you out of your own eyes?” If eyes are the windows of the soul, with Saibra, they become mirrors, reflecting other people’s self loathing back at them, meaning people are always on guard around Saibra, and that she struggles to make connections as a result.

·      The parallels drawn between Saibra, Karabraxos, and the Doctor, also lead to some interesting parallels to regeneration. “I’ve had a lot of faces, I’m good at reading them” says Saibra, drawing a distinct contrast to the twelfth Doctor, who’s had 13 different faces, but currently struggles to remember where his own comes from, and frequently fails to understand the emotional signals of peoples’ expressions, and cannot tell how old people are. This is perhaps due to the different ways they acquire new faces: Saibra takes on other people’s identities, better at understanding them, whereas the Doctor has had his own identity rewritten on multiple occaisions. Meanwhile, Karabraxos burning her own clones is fascinatingly prescient of the parallel to regeneration in “Heaven Sent”, where the twelfth Doctor wonders how long he can keep “Burning up the old me to make a new one”.

·      Also nicely done is the way the Teller’s true nature is crafted into the story: it’s often accused of being rushed and half hearted, but is actually well crafted. The first clue comes during the first mind eating scene, when it pauses after Delphox says “Dinnertime”, only consuming the man’s mind after its handlers pull at its chains, a visual clue that it only works for Karabraxos under duress, a clue confirmed in the “everything has a price tag” dialogue after the Doctor and Clara are captured by Delphox, which confirms that it is being coerced, before the eventual reveal that the Doctor has come to rescue it and its partner to save the species.

·      And ultimately, this episode is the most straightforwardly heroic the 12^th Doctor has been so far. In spite of Psi’s criticisms, he is visibly pained at losing Saibra: it’s clear that his “professional detachment” is not detachment, but a mask. And saving The Teller is, as discussed above, an unambiguously heroic cause. While it’s not fully clear yet, as the twelfth Doctor’s heroism is a thing that unfolds deliberately slowly, his brand of “Doctorishness” is taking a clearer shape.