Minor correction: the first actor to play James Bond was, I believe, Bob Holness (for UK readers of a certain age - yes, THAT Bob Holness) - on the radio in the 1930s.

She doesn’t need to be new. She could be a regenerated Master (with a new plot to cripple the Doctor with guilt and despair while she takes over the world), the surviving bits of the Great Intelligence, River bloody Song (although I might just shit myself with despair if that happens) or even (sigh) the Rani, doing…

I haven't got a theory on the Missy thing in terms of the plot mechanic, but I've got an idea of what they're working up to in terms of narrative/character stuff.

"Sew, very old one! Sew like the WIND!!!!!"

Is that the one Dennis Waterman was in? Yeah, that's utterly forgettable.

Huh. Didn't know that. Not sure it redeems the fact that the climax involves an elderly man getting tangled up in a hedge, but at least it has more of a rationale than I thought.

I'd say in terms of 'overtly sexual' it's somewhere at the mid-range if you include some of the later, more febrile works (Lust for a Vampire, anyone?)

Even his wierd, clearly-filmed-in-a-different-room cameo in Death Line is somehow indelible.

Come now - it may be retrospective irony but watching Peter Sallis of Last of the Summer WIne and, much later, Wallace and Gromit fame getting a stake through the heart is pretty amusing.

I refute you with Curse of the Werewolf (actually an excellent bit of filmmaking all round) and Vampire Circus (so, so wierd).

It sort of seems like Ralph Bates and/or Ian Ogilvy were in all of the 70s Hammer films - even, somehow, the ones they weren't.

The first one isn't the best, I think - it's a reasonably straight adaptation and a little staid. I find Hammer's stuff more fun when they drift away from the source material and start incorporating their own weird little technicolour Hammerverse tropes

Sorry, hadn't seen your comment before posting mine. The main problem with 'Satanic Rites', though, is the ending, where SPOILERS

Also, check out the trailer on youtube. The hairy, ugly band doing an inexplicably lengthy, foregrounded chugging rock number in the party scene are credited as 'And introducing… STONEGROUND', clearly with the expectation that this would be their big break…

You may care to seek out 'Satanic Rites of Dracula' which tries to do something similar - basically it's supposed to be Dracula vs. The Sweeney, which it doesn't quite manage…

I pretty much assumed it could tell between guilt about being in the bank and guilt about anything else, on the grounds that it would be constantly going after people for e.g saying something a bit unpleasant to a colleague earlier that day.

Four episodes is about a third of the way through, though - in the frantic days of Matt Smith we'd already, for better or worse, be neck-deep in enigmatic long-game shenanigans by now.

No promised land/Missy stuff this episode. Didn't miss it much - it feels a bit undercooked, like Moffat's heart isn't really in the whole story arc/big bad trope now that he's explained Clara and what happened to Gallifrey to his (if not everyone's) satisfaction…

In any case (and I may be remembering it badly - I'm not exactly a continuity obsessive either), isn't it just the Time War that's time-locked? If it means (as I always assumed it does) that you can't get into or out of the places and times where the Time War is happening, then pre-Time War Gallifrey should be fine,…

Jesus. So presumably Johnny Depp rang his agent and simply said "I wish to do a slightly ropy Terry Thomas impression in public. Arrange for this"