When the Time Lords capture the Doctor, they interrogate him using a Confession Dial (which resembles a compass). The principle of a Confession Dial is that the prisoner is forced to confess in order to prevent being killed by a shuffling creature called the Veil. The Twelfth Doctor spent 4.5 billion years inside the dimensionally transcendental Confession Dial after his companion Clara Oswald was killed, although he believed that he was there for far less time. Heaven Sent is the most popular Doctor Who story of all time.

Heaven Sent

★★★★★

TX: 28/11/2015

Written by Steven Moffat   Directed by Rachel Talalay

The Doctor has been captured inside a Confession Dial by the Time Lords. He is alone in a giant puzzle box castle in the middle of an ocean full of skulls. He is being pursued by a creature called the Veil. The Veil shuffles from one side of the castle to the other. The Doctor discovers that the Veil can only be halted by confession, which is the purpose of the Confession Dial. The Doctor discovers many rooms inside the castle. During his 4.5 billion year stay inside the Confession Dial, the Doctor mourns the loss of his companion Clara Oswald and grieves over her death. In Room 12, the Doctor finds a passageway to a wall made of diamond. The Doctor has to punch his way through the wall over and over again across billions of years, being killed by the Veil each time and re-spawning continually. The cycle continues for 4.5 billion years, but the Doctor believes that he is there for far less time than that. Eventually, the Doctor breaks through the diamond wall and finds that he has made it back to Gallifrey, he got there “the long way round” (The Day of the Doctor). The Veil disintegrates and the Confession Dial closes. The Doctor reveals that he is the Hybrid. Most of Heaven Sent was filmed at Cardiff Castle. I got a Doctor Who tour of Cardiff Castle from the late, lovely Deane who was also a huge Doctor Who fan and he had watched the show since the Jon Pertwee era, which was his childhood. Some of Heaven Sent was also filmed at Caerphilly Castle.