History YMMV / DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent

** Despite receiving near-universal acclaim for his performance, with more than one reviewer predicting acting award recognition, Creator/PeterCapaldi was snubbed by the UsefulNotes/{{BAFTA}}s, the only major juried non-regional UK award the series is eligible for.
** Due to a change in how the series is funded, this became the first ''Doctor Who'' episode whose script was submitted for UsefulNotes/{{Emmy Award}}s consideration and Capaldi also made the "long list" ballot for lead actor in a dramatic series, also a first for the show, but again there were no nominations.

* SacredCow: This episode has been near-universally hailed as not only one of the greatest post-2005 revival episodes, but one of the greatest ''Doctor Who'' episodes, period.

* BizarroEpisode: The episode has been pretty much described as this by the producers themselves: an episode with (for all intents and purposes), a single speaking role, the Doctor, with Creator/PeterCapaldi being tasked with keeping an episode moving and interesting virtually all on his own. Amazingly, it works and, while "bizarro episodes" tend to be head-scratchers that rarely add anything to the overall story, it ended up being one of the most dramatic episodes in the show's history, of vital importance to the Doctor's CharacterDevelopment (as well as being the middle chapter of a trilogy, though stylistically it resembles neither of the episodes on either side, which is remarkable when one considers the same writer and director created the third episode), and is usually seen as, if not just Capaldi's best episode, one of the best episodes of the entire series to date.

* ShockingMoments: Maybe you were genre savvy enough to guess the time loop premise partway through the episode and figured that after 7000 years of repeating, the iteration seen in the episode would be the last. But the number of years passed in the montage at the end just keeps getting larger... and larger...

* SpiritualSuccessor: With the Twelfth Doctor struggling alone in a strange world against a mysterious adversary, and the world's connection to Gallifrey, this could be seen as New ''Who'''s answer to the extended battle between the Fourth Doctor and Goth in the Matrix in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]". Especially since both are some of the few stories where the Doctor is absolutely companionless, not counting a group of Time Lords or an imaginary Clara.

* FanDislikedExplanation: The Doctor saying he originally fled Gallifrey because he was scared -- which, given the nature of the confession dial, would appear to be the truth -- isn't as popular a motivation with fans as the one he ''usually'' claims, which is boredom. Part of this is because the show will likely never reveal what he was scared '''of''', and if it did, it would never live up to the hype of something so awful to make the Doctor flee everything he ever knew up to that point in his lives.

** With the revelations of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren "The Timeless Children"]], we may have a ''very'' good answer to the question. Granted, said revelation is equally debated over

* HarsherInHindsight: With the The Reveal of the Doctor's real origins in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren "The Timeless Children"]] the Doctor's admittance of running from Gallifrey because he was frightened makes a lot more sense. The Doctor died and regenerated an untold number of times ''while still a child'' as they were being experimented on, a process that eventually led to/allowed for ''the creation of the Time Lord race'', '''and''' went through many subsequent adult regenerations while serving the Division -- all memories they lost at some point before becoming the First Doctor. Even if he might not remember that time during the series, it's possible that some subconscious part of him knew what the Time Lords did to him. Combined with what they do to him here, and you can kind of see why he isn't happy with them once he returns.

* ShockingMoments: Maybe you were genre savvy enough to guess the time loop premise partway through the episode and figured that after 7000 years of repeating, the iteration seen in the episode would be the last. But the number of years passed in the montage at the end just keeps getting larger... and larger... (And, as it happens, the next episode reveals that it ''literally'' ain't the half of it.)

* HarsherInHindsight: With the The Reveal of the Doctor's real origins in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren "The Timeless Children"]] the Doctor's admittance of running from Gallifrey because he was frightened makes a lot more sense. The Doctor died and regenerated an untold number of times ''while still a child'' as they were being experimented on, a process that eventually led to/allowed for ''the creation of the Time Lord race'', '''and''' went through many subsequent adult regenerations while serving the Division -- all memories they lost at some point before becoming the First Doctor. Even if he might not remember that time during the series, it's possible that some subconscious part of him knew what the Time Lords did to him.

* SpiritualSuccessor: With the Twelfth Doctor struggling alone in a strange world against a mysterious adversary, and the world's connection to Gallifrey, this could be seen as New ''Who'''s answer to the extended battle between the Fourth Doctor and Goth in the Matrix in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]".
* UnexpectedCharacter: Clara appears in the Doctor's MentalWorld, following her death in the previous episode. This fact, along with the [[TheCameo cameo appearance]] by Creator/JennaColeman herself, was successfully kept secret prior to broadcast.

* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: The Doctor being reborn billions upon billions of times allowing him to smash through the hardest wall in the entire universe, with each punch perfectly aligned to Murray Gold's score "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXo47CIUuFg The Shepherd's Boy]]"... if that's not awsome, nothing is.
* WMG/PoisonOakEpilepticTrees: There's a reasonably popular fanon that makes things even worse by speculating that the dead woman whose memory inspired the Veil was the Doctor's '''own mother'''. (Though it's probably not the case, as that would require that The Woman from "The End of Time", "Listen" and "Hell Bent" be someone else.)

* UnexpectedCharacter: Clara appears in the Doctor's MentalWorld, following her death in the previous episode. This fact, along with the [[TheCameo cameo appearance]] by Jenna Coleman herself, was successfully kept secret prior to broadcast.

** This episode lost the UsefulNots/HugoAward for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) to the ''Series/JessicaJones2015'' episode "[[Recap/JessicaJones2015S1E13AKASmile AKA Smile]]".

** Despite receiving near-universal acclaim for his performance, with more than one reviewer predicting acting award recognition, Creator/PeterCapaldi was snubbed by the BAFTA Television Awards, the only major juried non-regional UK award the series is eligible for.
** Due to a change in how the series is funded, "Heaven Sent" became the first ''Doctor Who'' episode whose script was submitted for Emmy Awards consideration and Capaldi also made the "long list" ballot for lead actor in a dramatic series, also a first for the show, but again there were no nominations.
** This episode lost the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) to the ''Series/JessicaJones2015'' episode "[[Recap/JessicaJones2015S1E13AKASmile AKA Smile]]".

* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: The Doctor being reborn billions upon billions of times allowing him to smash through the hardest wall in the entire universe, with each punch perfectly aligned to Murray Gold's score "The Shepard's Boy"... if that's not awsome, nothing is.

* MomentOfAwesome : The Doctor being reborn billions upon billions of times allowing him to smash through the hardest wall in the entire universe, with each punch perfectly aligned to Murray Gold's score "The Shepard's Boy"... if that's not awsome, nothing is.

** Did the Doctor spend more time with Head!Clara inside his mind?

* WMG/PoisonOakEpilepticTrees: There's a reasonably popular fanon that makes things even worse by speculating that the dead woman whose memory inspired the Veil was the Doctor's '''own mother'''. (Though it's probably not the case, as that would require that The Woman from ''The End of Time'', ''Listen'' and ''Hell Bent'' be someone else.)

* BizarroEpisode: The episode has been pretty much described as this by the producers themselves: an episode with (for all intents and purposes), a single speaking role, the Doctor, with Creator/PeterCapaldi being tasked with keeping an episode moving and interesting virtually all on his own. Amazingly, it works and, while "bizarro episodes" tend to be head-scratchers that rarely add anything to the overall story, it ended up being one of the most dramatic episodes in the show's history, and of vital importance to the Doctor's CharacterDevelopment (as well as being the middle chapter of a trilogy, though stylistically it resembles neither of the episodes on either side, which is remarkable when one considers the same writer and director created the third episode).

* HolyShitQuotient: Maybe you were genre savvy enough to guess the time loop premise partway through the episode and figured that after 7000 years of repeating, the iteration seen in the episode would be the last. But the number of years passed in the montage at the end just keeps getting larger... and larger... (And, as it happens, the next episode reveals that it ''literally'' ain't the half of it.)

** This episode lost the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) to the ''Series/JessicaJones'' episode "[[Recap/JessicaJones2015S1E13AKASmile AKA Smile]]".