Both! In league with each other!

"I am the one who VWORPS."

The showrunner comes up with most of the episodes premises and rewrites every script though, so Moffat's hand has been in every script in this and the last three seasons. Mathieson deserves the lion's share of credit, but this still reflects on Moffat too, especially the character arcs and direction they're heading in.

Yeah, they were aware of the mystery, and doing nothing about it, which felt so wrong. The disconnect here let's them have and eat their cake.

Ugh, a Clara/Danny breakup would be a huge gutpunch moment. I'd rather have him travel with them, not because he wants to, but to be the good angel on Clara's shoulder. Also because I love Anderson, and really want to see what he does in a companion role.

No, that's a great read. After all the posturing she did about lying, and how she resented it, she lies without a second thought in the end. That's how the Doctor's changing her, even if she doesn't realize.

That's about as crazy as the idea that Star Wars is one of the influences of Spaceballs.

Yeah, his Who writing really has hit a second wind. Instead taking the easy way and falling deeper into his quirks, it seems like he really did some self-evaluation and seems to really be focusing on both what works and pushing himself in new directions, while having the insight to remove some of his more problematic…

I'm hoping that Gus not being fully beaten was a set-up for his return later. It'd be a killer twist for Perkins to come back too and be the "face" of him as it were.

"Happy" is probably an oversimplification. I read it as her realizing that she can't deny the rush of being the hero, that do-gooder high you could argue the Doctor's been chasing for millennia. In the end she's literally begging for "more planets".

Yeah, that's kind of fallen to the way side, like all Who arcs do. The bright side is, the arc is unobtrusive enough (the characters literally don't know it's there) that ignoring it doesn't create odd character problems.

Girl has GOT IT considering she's dating the King in the North.

What a dork.

The way I see it, it looks like Alasdair is putting more weight into how the show is breaking new ground in complicating the Doctor-Companion relationship and the quality of those performances than how well the monster of the week story hangs together.

Yeah, loving the consistency of the soldier theme this season.

I read that he has a sense that Clara is pulling away (up until that last moment) and is desperate to have anyone else qualified there by his side. He knows he shouldn't be alone, but I bet there's a desperation due to how close he is to that situation again.

And with the companion(s) ending happy to still travel with the Doctor, which makes it even darker. Explicitly calling and depicting this life an addiction might be the most critical the show has been of the central relationship yet.

For a brief second I forgot all about casting info and spoilers and was deleriously happy Perkins was going to be a companion. Alas. We'll get our non-present day companion someday.

The premise is identical, sure (a bi girl leaving her LTR with a dude to be with a girl from her past) but I think all three characters are different enough that they can get a pass, looking at the same conflict with different points of emphasis and perspective.

Best case scenario: it's comparable to the Aladdin series in expanding the characters and mythology