It's pretty clearly a riff on that. Note that although Sarah Jane's last story made it clear the Doctor had left her in the wrong place, the episode which actually established that the Doctor had left Sarah Jane in Aberdeen was the new series episode "School Reunion," which was written by…Toby Whithouse, who wrote…

I think the first commandment of Doctor Who watching pretty much has to be "Do not attempt to construct a coherent timeline of the future history of humanity."

Yeah, I was basically not counting them. Katarina is a companion the way Adam was a companion. Sara Kingdom was a companion the way dozens of guest stars have been, except that Daleks' Master Plan was ridiculously long and featured a couple of episodes having nothing to do with the main story.

I think that should be "Just because it's generally only…Adric who get[s] killed doesn't mean it can't happen to a popular [companion]." Adric is the only companion who's been killed.

Perhaps instead of insulting someone, you could answer the question. If it's so obvious, you ought to be able to provide multiple answers to the question, no?

What the fuck is the "core concept of the show"? fiorentina5 saying s/he doesn't understand what it is makes sense to me, because the show is a complete shit show. My sense of the core concept would be "a show where absolutely awful people doing absolutely horrendous things constantly, with no end in sight." Is that…

The most serialized show on TV? I mean, that is clearly nonsense. Game of Thrones is literally structured like a daytime soap, most notably.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a good procedural. Law & Order type shows still work, I think. The problem is the weird procedural/serialized hybrid type show, and I don't think that format really works anymore. A show that is a straight procedural is fine, because the twists and turns of the case of the…

The assholes, I'd think, are the (so far entirely theoretical) people who would complain about the lack of spoiler warnings in an article recap discussion thread. If you're reading the recap, you should either have watched the episode or be willing to be spoiled.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

Surely the best 11 two-parter is Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon.

Is there any expectation that you need to give spoiler warnings when discussing things that happen in the episode that this article is recapping? That seems like absurd overkill.

Only once with the Daleks. But he also got betrayed, if we're speaking broadly, by the Nestene, by the Keller Machine, by the Axons, by Azal, by the Sea Devils, and by the Chronovore. Certainly the Nestene, the Axons, and the Sea Devils fit pretty clearly into this mold.

Chekhov's will-that-can-only-be-read-after-you-die?

Doctor Who was pretty big in 2010, and they cast Matt Smith, who was a complete unknown everywhere. And Capaldi is arguably "some rando British character actor." His most prominent role before this was "scene stealing supporting character in a BBC Four series."

Her mother was in Rings of Akhaten, though, and was an important part of that episode.

He always dressed for the occasion.

It's not like the cliffhangers in Classic Who were flawless. They were very frequently "The Doctor and his Companion are in deadly peril!" Followed by "Oh wait, they're totally fine."

I don't know if it was a scheme to kill Clara so much as a scheme to see if the Doctor would be able to figure it out. If Clara dies, she's outsmarted the Doctor, which is nice, but perhaps makes her a bit disappointed in the Doctor for being so thick. So I don't know that she has a strong vested interest in the…

Surely we can easily imagine why she might lie about it? It doesn't seem particularly less plausible than "A lawyer made up a completely false story about a third party which he knew would be immediately repudiated."