daibhidc | Doctor Who

Wow, that was pretty great.

After the brilliant dinosaur scene, the opening maybe dragged a bit - I think it was Phil Sandifer who pointed out that the problem with "regeneration trauma" is that there is only one thing people are watching a post-regeneration story for, and you aren't giving it to them, and in this case we seemed to have a Doctor who was not only partially amnesiac, but slowly realising that the previous body's manic gabble didn't work for him - but from the restaurant onwards we had a pretty good take on the new Doctor.

And he's interesting; I knew Moffat had talked about going darker, but the bit where he seemingly abandoned Clara totally took me by surprise (not least because I'd turned round to talk to my niece about "The Girl in the Fireplace", and when I turned back, I assumed they were on the opposite sides of the door, because that's what he does. Except he didn't). And yes, he didn't abandon her, but it really looks like he did. This gives Clara the opportunity for a lovely "faith in the Doctor" scene, even if she's still not sure about him.

Speaking of "The Girl in the Fireplace", I will concede that the actual plot was, to a certain extent, Moffat by numbers (The return of the clockwork robots! Uncanny valley automatons! Don't perform an autonomous function or you're dead!) But it all fitted together nicely, and gave Moffat space to develop the Doctor. (I was making a list of favourite lines as I watched, but I appear to have forgotten them all while waiting for my computer to respond. Ah, well. Let's just say there were a lot of them and leave it there.)

The Paternoster Gang were also nicely realised. I particularly liked Jenny being sarcastic about the fact that, somehow, she's still the maid, since I recall this being a criticism of their last appearance.

And "Missy" at the end. Well, obviously, I'll need more information before I know what to make of her, but she appears to be a Madame Kavorian character who's convinced herself she's actually a River Song character. I suspect she's probably "the woman in the shop", as well. I will be very surprised if she turns out to be Iris Wildthyme, although it would fit that scene perfectly...