I'm in total agreement with you.  I [really] liked Ecceleston's portrayal of The Doctor, but didn't really enjoy the plots or characterizations all that much during the RTD era.  It was enjoyable, but not much more to me (however, there are a few exceptional episodes).

Crimson Horror is leagues above NIS. Leagues!

What the hell is your problem? Dial it down a notch buddy, you're coming off right mad.

What @avclub-b9a25e422ba96f7572089a00b838c3f8:disqus  and @avclub-1922cc1dc1286b56a2d99b7f1aa0630c:disqus  said.  Start with series 5.

I thought they did just enough setup via the wide-angle, to close-up, to wide-angle, shot sequence.  It foreshadowed what would happen so that the viewer could build two seconds of dread, and so that it didn't come out of nowhere.

Oh, I agree with you @avclub-a1967e6de4ca99fb2635d94b99453928:disqus .

This episode is frying my nerves.  Solid A.   That was fucking ten minutes of solid, engaging, high-level tension at the end.  How can the show pull that off?

I'm also leaning towards each iteration knowing who The Doctor was, although I'm not sure if they just appeared there or if they warped reality and were integrated into that time naturally.

@Scrawler2:disqus , Clara's narration literally says "The Doctor is safe now", and whether or not that's reliable still doesn't affect the relativity of the various timelines she entered.

I disagree.  Clara's default is crazy curiosity, that's why she stood in front of a door with a flashing red light, listed all the reasons opening it was a bad idea, and then opened it.  That's why she read a book while being stalked by a monster.

In this assumption, The Secret is the existence of The John Hurt Doctor, not what he did.

As if he's literally The Doctor's "shadow self", representative of all his dark deeds, rather than an actual iteration of The Doctor?

I assumed that the genocide of the Time Lords and the Daleks was what he did?

@avclub-f5fc0943a2d597c869afec4103a54605:disqus , I might normally agree with you, but the GI's glowering against the old-quality footage reminded me immensely of how old school villains often used to act in that era.  The mysterious, cold, blank glower – set against a menacing score of course – is a trademark of…

I totally agree, that's why I still loved the episode.  I'm just a nerd for story-structure, so it's more about the plot fitting together for me, than it is about the mythology itself.

"Ooh, ooh! And since it looks like Ten is really the Eleventh, it might not even be talking about Smith. Wheels within wheels."

It also depends how much of Clara's narration we should consider canon.  She actively narrates what happened when she chased The Doctor "I called to him, but he never heard me."

Agreed.  I absolutely loved it.

You think that they're just going to jump away from Eleven and Clara and focus on John Hurt from now on?

The Doctor doesn't pull her out "right away".  We don't have any perspective as to the relativities of the various timelines.  The only thing that we know is that, by the time Clara hits the bottom of the tunnel,  all of her alternate realities have successfully done what they needed to do.