I was unable to take this ep seriously when the ridiculous origin story came out - not least because the Doctor jumped to it so quickly as if it was obvious.

You can definitely tell he's got a slight accent, but that's pretty easy to explain away in the character with foreign nannies, potentially sent away to be educated or trained in combat.

Indeed- it's just never explained the root of his accent. Why would he sound so different from his family and the rest of his household if he grew up with them?

The best thing Game of Thrones does is group the characters' accents logically.

It's not so much that they're bad - though some of them definitely are - it's just that there tend to be only two of them. Cockneys and very posh Queen's English.

However it was also Guy Fawkes night last Thursday and, as it's not a public holiday, most of the big municipal fireworks displays are held on the nearest Saturday night so that people aren't at work.

You mean like the time he nuked a planet's atmosphere because he got sick of chasing after Eddington?

It's a great way of telling who's human in Britain during an alien invasion - say 'Union Jack' to any British person and there is a very good chance they'll come out with this 'fact'.

Meh, not really. If anything, Americans seem to really overestimate how much animosity there is between Britain and Ireland.

I think the ratings 'slump' is being overplayed. The first two episodes of the season were up against England playing in the Rugby World Cup, and so relied heavily on catch-up later on which isn't counted in overnights.

Exactly, these Vikings have horns because they're mimicking the fake alien Odin, who is in turn mimicking inaccurate historical depictions of Vikings that he has pilfered from Earth's history.

My grandma used to serve hers as a pudding with golden syrup

It IS a family show remember, lots of the kids in the audience probably wouldn't get it.

Really? I mean, sure, up until the Norman conquest this is very much true. But when has Britain been successfully invaded post-1066? Unless you count the Glorious Revolution in 1688, which was more of a civil war than an invasion as such.

Egghead likes his booky book, egghead likes his booky book!

Cardiff castle IS lovely, a hidden gem really, as it's not all that famous in the rest of the UK.

The doctor says he deleted the sign language protocol to replace it with semaphore.

We don't know enough about the local topography, but it could be that they dammed up the river that feeds a lake in order to drain the lake and use it for habitation/farming?

I think there was a small town down there, which was submerged by the dam bursting not so long ago. There was then an underwater military base there, until it was abandoned.

Michelle Gomez had a small part in the Channel 4 comedy Green Wing in the early-mid 2000s, and she played exactly this part.