They did the thing too many shows do: they made him way too evil to walk back from, which makes their attempts to do so at best weak and at worst really disturbing. I mean, holy hell, the whole plot with the preying on vulnerable teenagers and murdering them in order to sell their brains to rich people. (And also the…

I think I'd probably argue that RTD is the construction, and Moffat is the deconstruction, but just for the reasons you describe. Because the RTD stories were mostly from a point of view removed from the Doctor himself (whether that was his companions or someone else) they didn't linger on the damage except when it…

There's always a chance with the whole "Watergate with a Russian twist" thing could take him down, too.

I get annoyed at people who actually managed to get off their asses and get to the polls, and then held up their hands and said, "oh no, I couldn't possibly sully myself by making a choice between Trump and Clinton."

Aha, okay, I can see that.

Yeah, I had that thought too. But if so, I don't think it was in a petty way, as much as it struck me as riffing on earlier elements and playing around with them, or just diving deeper into unexplored areas. Actually, a lot of stuff in Moffat's run strikes me that way - like he'd kind of had a notebook of things that…

I suspect the GOP would show amazing unity and work to get some truly horrific things passed in November 2018 - January 2019 were the Democrats to crush them in the midterms.

I'd say the long term griping is about the Poles, but that always struck me as being more along the lines of resentment (they're taking our jobs, but also our unemployment benefits!), rather than the "brown foreigners INFILTRATING us to take us DOWN from WITHIN (and also they're taking our jobs and also our…

Was it meant to be a game changing revelation?

About Rory and Amy, I don't think they get stuck in New York until after that episode is set. It's supposed to be like five years in their future, right? But don't they have their 10th anniversary party in one of their episodes?

I love that everyone's reactions were exactly the same.

Danny would like a word.

Yes. I feel most sorry for London.

Well, they'll just keep putting off the women-lead films until everyone's sick to death of the MCU, and then when they tank, they'll blame them for killing the franchise.

I'm not sure I'd actually argue about him being primary, ever. He gets close enough that I hesitate to call him secondary exactly, but he's never front and center, beyond his importance to Amy. But he SHOULD have been, because he was great, clearly.

Narcissist really seems like the wrong word. Hubris, or know-it-all, or smug, or maybe a bit self-centered (not selfish, but self-centered). Kill the Moon was generally a weird weak episode, but that ending bit where Clara just absolutely tears into the Doctor for how he acted when he comes back in expecting to do his…

These are the elements that made it feel especially RTDish to me.

I kind of love that "a thing happened" is sort of the go-to explanation, because it seems so Doctor-ish rather than just mysterious. (And it's basically what he told River when she asked how he got more regenerations).

I am definitely in the same boat.

Oh, damn, you are right. Urgh. That is so going to happen.