Oh, I wasn't trying to make it sound like a fandom obligation to be up on this stuff or anything. It was more an observation on how big & confusing the quantity can be at first (but rich indeed).

Indeed, that was a great moment. And since there's more of that dark story waiting to be told, BF really is a much better venue for it.

True. Maybe it's because this year has been sort of a blur for me, so thinking back it seemed like they were announcing something new every other week. Sometimes I'd see an announcement and couldn't help occasionally wondering if the quality might suffer if they're spreading themselves so thin in so many ways, but the…

Wow, do you ever have a deep rabbit hole ahead of you….

I wonder if they ever saw Tom Baker's comment (in one of the early 4DA behind-the-scenes, IIRC) that he'd give anything to be 75 again.

The story was about the darkest point of our hero's life, and also had to be a big celebration for the whole fandom and a kid-friendly adventure. To be fair to Moff, that balance was impossible to really get right, and he leaned toward the right side of the line.

Churchill appeared in a so-so 11 episode, and a… let's say polarizing…. one. The second was just for a quick gimmicky cameo, though, so maybe it didn't need an equal mention.

I have no idea if anything relating to River was revealed

"A brand-new character." Well, he could mean a brand-new incarnation of an old character. "Not someone from the Doctor's past." Then it could be someone from his future that he's only gotten hints about (see also the tagline in the Season 9 promo poster).

he also lied about bringing back the Master

I think Deep Purple is pretty well-known to the public…

Thanks. I didn't know that.

She could be his daughter/Susan's mother. Sort of in the wheelhouse everyone's guessing at, but not as obvious as Susan or the Rani.

One phone call just wasn't enough.

I don't really like how explicit they make the love/hate relationship between the Doctor and him in the Saxon arc … but I kind of like his madness in The End of Time. He's fun, there.

I might quibble with that 'more' since I see that spacey out-there-ness in Tom Baker more than anyone else, but otherwise I'm right with you there.

I dunno, I think Twelve has had a few of those moments. Using Clara as a decoy to distract the robot in "Caretaker," for instance, or letting people get killed in order to study the killers in "Into the Dalek" or "Mummy otOE."

Obnoxious. That's precisely the word to explain the difference. Six had wonderfully complex shadings of the character - moral purity on the inside manifesting as blunt abrasiveness on the outside - but it was a mix the showrunners weren't nearly up to the task of pulling off well (despite some good efforts). Great…

Shouldn't he be happy that his home and his people are out there somewhere?
Well, he's always had a pretty deep ambivalence about his people all along. Ten made it clear that even if they were out there somewhere under a time lock, it was a necessary thing, maybe even a relief because of how corrupt and dangerous…

Woven Hand's "Ain't No Sunshine" is tops in my book.