Thoughts and responses:

• "Apparently Toby Whithouse really likes his Tivolians idea" -> to the extent of making it overtly sexual, which I thought seemed beyond a wink to the adults watching Doctor Who, into perhaps slightly unnecessary territoy.
  
• "4th-wall breaking intro" -> did not like. I feel like having the Doctor directly address the audience makes him a little too approachable, which I don't think he should be. I think he should always retain a little of what Thomas Sangster/Tim Latimer called him in "Family of Blood": "He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun." Fitting "he carefully explains things to the audience" into that feels jarring to me. On the other hand, Peter Capaldi played that guitar part correctly and didn't have it dubbed over, and gets serious props from me for that.
  
• "Clara's character is like the anti-Donna Noble, and I increasingly think she's a bad influence on the Doctor's character" -> This is probably a more explicit explanation of why I've felt that her and the 12th Doctor's chemistry is just not there compared to, say, Donna and 10, or Rose and 10.
  
• I'm glad that there was some actual time travel, and actual "interference" with established events. I was happy to be saved from endless fantasy storylines with some harder scifi-ish stuff, especially with a plotline that addressed one of the classic time travel paradoxes.
  

TBH, I didn't actually pick up on the BDSM overtones until I saw other people pointing it out.

I didn't read the lecture as "carefully explaining things to the audience" so much as "eccentric nerd out session", which is definitely in line with his character, but I would have preferred he were lecturing to characters, and not just breaking the 4th wall. In terms of narrative construction and good storytelling, there's the whole "show don't tell" thing, and the Doctor's "but where did I get the idea? " at the end would have been sufficient.

That's honestly what I thought he was doing at first.

I liked the episode. The whole Doctor in the casket thing was reminiscent of Rory in the cube. As soon as I saw The Doctor leaning over the open casket I and then the timer counting down I realized he was inside but I thought he was pushed in by the King rather than got in willingly. I'm still confused about his whole Ghost thing. Was it real? Or was it a projection?

His ghost was a hologram, that he setup in the past when they went back to the TARDIS to put that one guy to safety, before he faced off with the king. And I pretty much called it at the beginning of the last episode, when they showed off the stasis chamber. Still a good episode, though.

I haven't been posting much here because I've been discussing elsewhere. The last few episodes have had a few flashbacks to other seasons, which I think is great.

Found this on reddit, apparently the filmed the outside the Church scene in yesterdays episode at the same place the filmed Trenzalore.

I really like where this new Zygon episode has been going, though the whole drone-striking a terrorist-occupied middle-eastern village thing was perhaps a bit too on-the-nose for effective sci-fi. The Doctor was also shockingly complacent about the whole guns and bombs thing, as compared to say, the end of The Christmas Invasion.


On the previous two parter with Ashildr, I quite liked the first half, for all it was strongly reminiscent of a certain Stargate episode, but the second half needed a slightly stronger alien threat than glowy lion man.

Can I just stop you here. Is that what he was saying? I kept understanding it as "A Shielder" because I don't know why. By the end of the episode I thought he was saying it because she "shielded" the town from the aliens. I don't know where my mind was, maybe because Ashildr is not something I'd think to be a name and instead broke it up into the most logical combination, A Shielder.

Yes, it's a fairly apt viking name.

I found yesterday's episode utterly forgettable, and I just finished watching it a minute ago. Despite the explicit introductions of the people at the beginning, I just know there was the leader lady, the heroic clone-grown guy, and then a bunch of interchangeable solders. So patient zero was the doctor who invented the technology himself, I guess? But then why was he in the casket thing being kept warm at the core of the space station, and who was the doctor-looking person who was making the video? Why was the station's AI (?) evil and basically Discount GLaDOS; was that supposed to be relevant to the story in some way? Are we supposed to assume that this 38th Centry "great catastrophe" is going to be relevant, or is that just another throwaway piece of future history?

I still don't know who Patient Zero was. We just know it was someone who hasn't slept in five years. Did I miss where he said he hadn't slept in five years?



I appreciate that we're getting more "backstory" on things but I must admit that it feel like this was entirely all filler for part 1 of a 2 part story. If things were brought up more organically, such as the first part was getting to know the crew and witnessing the party and the reprogramming of the AI then part 2 was the dark side like we saw here then this clip would have made sense. But that goes with more of the tidbits too, folks would have been dressed in a Japanese wardrobe - and admittedly the stations professor, Gagen Rassmussen, was dressed in a kimono or something? - but I didn't get any of that atmosphere from the episode.

It could have been great, we know the Doctor is terrible at time. (Or was?) When he picked up Karen/Amy Pond, he came back like 15 years later. Clara and the Doctor could have stopped by the station in Part 1 and attempted to fix a small disaster but had to head to the TARDIS to move it or something. Unknowingly also jump so many years into the future and are situated with this.

Anyways, back to the episode. Gagen basically used the crew, more specifically the Doctor, in his plan. I didn't get the impression that the Professor was this quick witted. I'll admit it was clever because the screen had regular glitches throughout the episode and he did say something along the lines of "pay close attention."

The bit with the sand acting as "eyes" was a bit weird. Ya, that one guy never entered a Morpheus pod so he didn't have sand in his eye but neither did the walls but yet there was sand there. I feel like they could have expounded on that idea early in the episode before the Doctor made that observation. Whatever the sandmen touch, their footsteps, etc, can be an eye. But no, it was strictly based off whether or not you went into the Morpheus pods so how did sand get into various parts of the ship?

I love Doctor Who, I'm really warming up to Capaldi but my god are the stories really hit or miss; Part 2 better be phenomenal but I'm admittedly loosing interest in the series over this.

Patient zero wasn't even real, afaict. The whole episode was just a troll by the station doctor to infect you with some brain reprogramming. This was basically the brain virus from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash meets the germ spiders from "Kill the Moon" meets rick-rolling.

Also, Kerm, I think 474 was a female character.

474 was indeed female.

I side with elf on this. It seems he was more into it for the "story" which was his intent all along. The fact the the Doctor showed up wasn't a huge inconvenience. As a good story would draw in more viewers and thus infect more people.

My mistake about 474, thanks (and by the way, am I the only one for whom "474" started echoes of "456"?). Relevant to the discussion of the flow of the episode and how well it pulled the audience into the plot, my department's administrator, who happens to be one of the fervent fellow Whovians, sent along the following link to me. Insightful look into the mind of the writer and what the episode could have been, or apologist's attempt to salvage the best of a flop?
http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2015/11/doctor-who-13-things-you-may-not-know-about-sleep-no-more-by-mark-gatiss/

One, that last episode didn't continue through to this weekend like the rest of the episodes would have lead to believe.

Two, that was the longest death scene I've probably ever watched.

I still have mixed feelings about her death. I definitely think it's time to bring someone new in, but she was actually getting to a point where she was being truly useful. Just meh.

Oh hey, River is coming back for Christmas, supposedly!

inorite? But seriously, I felt that that was sufficiently protracted that it's unlikely it's one of their usual "psyche! She didn't actually die" scenes. I watched the episode with elfprince and elfprincess at the elfcastle, and elfprincess was the sole of the three of us that thought it wasn't a real death (and mostly because she wasn't aware that Clara's contract was due to be up at the end of this season). Other than that, the episode was fairly lackluster, in my opinion. The tattoos were a cool concept, the special effects on the Raven were cool, and the methods of tricking your brain into noticing where the hidden trap street was were interesting components, but I felt didn't add up to a blockbuster whole. By the way, can we just talk about how annoying it was that they never picked up the dropped phone?

I had no idea her contract was up. I knew she was leaving at the end of last season (or something?) but ended up staying on (but no idea for how long). I try to keep cast knowledge on a minimum, makes for a more interesting viewing. Such as I had no idea Clara was going to leave and especially like this, so that was a welcomed twist/shock/surprise. But I don't have hopes she'll be back just because the Doctor was more focused on revenge than on getting Clara back. So

Last nights episode was phenomenal. Why couldn't the previous episodes be like this? Is the rest of the season going to be this great? I still have a few qualms but wow, this was great.

• He mentions that he knows he hasn't time traveled but yet he's 6000, then 12,000 then 2 billion years into the "future." So, does time travel have some sort of after-taste?
  
• I realize the transport was instant and he keeps making a copy of himself over all those years, so I assume that for his copy the travel seems instant since he's just reenacting what his prior self felt. So, the first copy says "I haven't time traveled" and when he looks up he confirms this to be true. But over centuries the stars move and thus the "That can't be right" when he looks up at the night sky.
  
• I also realize he becomes aware that he's a copy but I forget the exact moment he notices. I think I yawned during that part and missed what he said.
  
• He finds the skull in the first room but no other bones. When we first see the hand pull the lever it vanishes, why did the skull stay? It couldn't have been because it was "plugged in" right?
  
• He see's the word "Bird" written in the sand. I know the Doctor is really clever but I found this to be a bit farfetched. I feel like the writers should have found a way to weave all these episodes together. Like in a previous episode, repeatedly over the season or, even with the raven we correlate birds with pecking repeatedly at something so at least the audience can feel clever right there with the Doctor. If not that at least look back and say "Oh, that's why he knew what to do."
  
• At the end it looks like he was on Gallifrey? I think he confirmed that in his end dialogue?
  
• Remember at the start of the season the Doctor left Missy (or Clara?) a disk and Missy was all "Oh, he's going to die." Wasn't that the disk he gave Me before he was teleported? Then wasn't the island in the disk when he stepped out? If so, how did the disk get from Me to Gallifrey? Shouldn't he have stepped out where ever the disk was, such as right next to Me on Earth? Was that a decoy disk he gave her then?

Also, it seems that this was the second highest rated DW episode after "Don't Blink."

So what did you guys think of the latest episode. I'm happy that the screwdriver is back. Also, something I'm confused about: The memory block was configured for a human. Could it affect the Doctor in any different way? Maybe not, since he's half human.

Charlie Jane, over at io9 summed up my feelings pretty well on the end of season. I'm confused by the relationship by the Sisterhood of Karn and the Timelords, although apparently it's been a thing since way before Moffat. Overall I thought this season was a lot better than the last one, barring that sonic sunglasses nonsense. Also, the Doctor was definitely way overplaying the "it took me billions of years to get here" thing, since he doesn't remember more than, what, the last 12 hours of it?