This will sound insane, but this story — in my mind — is comparable to GONE GIRL in the way it left me literally reeling with the ending, defying my expectations and preconceived notions of these sorts of stories. They've made this Doctor a complex, dark character and it is brilliant.

Yeah, it might be a 4 tie between 11, 10, 8 and 12 for me right now. With 4 a close close second.

That. Was. Brilliant.

Ah see, for me it doesn't feel like a rehash, more of an homage and reinterpretation. But then again I think Capaldi has been nothing short of awesome.

I'm somewhere in the middle as well, but mostly because I find the concept of Doctor Who being solely a kid's show hard to reconcile with the very, very dark and mature stories of the original series. Now this might be due to the fact that the kid's shows I grew up were rarely as dark as Doctor Who was (though…

True, its why they didn't really acknowledge the "numbering" of the Doctors until much later on.

Yeah, I also miss the show's ability to let modern Doctors interact with past companions. Moffat's era does a lot with the Doctor's past, which has been awesome, but I wish he brought more characters back from other eras. (It was rarely ever done in the original series, but still…)

Part of me has always suspected that the two female Time Lords who held their heads in "End of Time" were Romana and Susan, (the latter of which was the woman interacting with Wilf). They kept it vague obviously, but man, it would have been great if they had just had the original actors come back and just not refer to…

Does anyone else feel they're trying to make a lot of parallels between 1st and 12th Doctor? Since the 12th is the First of this new Regeneration cycle, he seems to be hitting similar beats with his predecessor, ie. second story is a Dalek story, the return the school, two teachers that are (ostensibly) his companions…

It's pretty amazing and underlines how great Capaldi is as fan/Doctor.

I honestly doubt it. 11 kinda refused to look back in many ways; it always felt like it hurt him to look back.

Honestly that Farewell Tour was the only part of that two parter that made any lick of sense. I always felt that the Farewell Tour retroactively elevated "The End of Time" from eh to great. (Much as loved RTD's era, his finales never made much sense.)

Yeah, the 11th outrightly says he checked in on everyone when he was regenerating from 10 to 11.

I'm pretending it's canon.

I loved the reference. I get why they wouldn't get William Russell as cameo (there would probably be too much explanation needed for less schooled fans) but fuck, I just want an old companion to show up again. (Though I'm sure you've seen this: https://twitter.com/AdamLan… )

I'm planning on pre-ordering his 4th Doctor audios very very soon.

I'm just putting this out there… But Alasdair, you need to convince the AV Club to do an article on Big Finish.

Yeah, it was a bit of a missed opportunity, especially since 8th is kinda "forgotten." But at the same time, John Hurt was amazing, and 8th's legacy wasn't sullied as the one who committed genocide in the original timeline. Plus I kinda like the idea of 8th spending a significant amount of time having adventures…

I've listened to a few of them (thanks to those BF15 deals) but haven't listened to that one yet.

Yeah, I was talking about that with my girlfriend today. They can set up plot points in a 8th Doctor tale, continue it in a 5th Doctor story, pick up the plot thread in 7th, before crossing over with the 6th Doctor then concluding it in a 4th Doctor Adventure. (I realize this is basically what you just said, but I…