Did one of the levels of the ship — during our first view of it panning up past the windows — look like the planet in "Smile"?

Subjectively speaking. But there's no objective flaw in "telling without showing", especially when it's involves a difficult to visualize concept like a hypothetical time-traveller. (What does a hypothetical time traveller look like? How do you cast such a person? Better left to the viewer's imagination in order to…

Another great "showing us someone telling something while not showing us what is being told" scene is Quint's Indianapolis speech in "Jaws."

1) Showing us Peter Capaldi as the Doctor tell the Beethoven paradox is still showing and is still compelling television. Just like showing Christopher Walken's character tell the history of the gold watch in Pulp Fiction is compelling cinema. It's fun to see Doctor Who try different storytelling techniques 52 years…

1) Showing makes it better? Why? We heard about Metebelis III from Three for years without seeing it until his last episode, and then seeing didn't necessarily make it better.

I wonder now if Four's typical laughing in the face of all death threats was Tom's choice or the writer's? Only the Dalek's threats seem to evoke a similar reaction from the Doctors of NuWho.

Beethoven was the vessel through which the bootstrap paradox concept was delivered. Just as the tale of the fifty android assassins chasing the Doctor was the vessel through which Missy delivered the concept of using weapons to recharge a teleport device.