I would have to agree — though I liked "Knock Knock" quite a bit. I liked this a lot more than "Pyramid", which is going down as one of the worst Capaldi-era episodes, but my enjoyment was in spite of its flaws.

I've also read a comparison with the ending of "Rings of Akhaten" — the Doctor can't defeat the parasite by giving it all of his memories, but Clara can by providing it the infinite possibilities of what her mom might have done had she lived.

She's a fun person in reality too. She was at last year's Chicago TARDIS convention and just great with everybody, vamping it up for pictures and the like.

A lot of fans are wondering if there isn't something more to Bill at this point, so maybe this will be revisited. (Her mum fixation does seem kind of odd at this point. What about her dad?)

Also, the Doctor not being upfront with Bill caused the final crisis in "Pyramid", but his deceptions were what paved the path to saving the day here! Kind of hurts the intended point of "Pyramid" being that his hubris and fear of admitting the truth was his downfall…especially when it could have just as easily been…

Nardole is bringing it every week at this point. It's nice to have a companion who is by-and-large competent but can be the stooge as needed. Reminds me of Harry Sullivan in the Fourth Doctor's first season.

I think there are a lot of running motifs this season — eyes, villains who aren't really evil, mothers, truths and untruths, the preciousness of individual lives. I think the Doctor is being set up to make a huge, selfless choice as the season wraps up, and proving the depths of that compassion and virtue.

I really am wondering what they're trying to hide for the final four episodes with such moves, since the press and BBC themselves spoiled John Simm coming back for the finale.

Yeah. What would have been cool would have been to have the Doctor actually be brainwashed, but the sort-of-regeneration restored him to his factory settings as it were, calling back to "Smile".

I strongly suspect this storyline was originally conceived as a season finale until it became clear Capaldi wasn't staying for Series 11 and Moffat and company realized they would need to go bigger to give his Doctor a proper sendoff. Prior to this, the revival's never done a mid-season three-parter.

Right. As Wilkins noted, this episode was largely covering territory the show already handled in the return of the Master trilogy, "Turn Left", "Wedding of River Song", etc. Nothing new there, and there was so much to get to, so they skimmed.

Oh yes. So much potential and it was never made clear why they wanted to enslave humans in the first place. It's a shame too, because this is the only all-new long-haul threat this Doctor ever had; all the others were either old enemies or easily defeated in one or (for the Fisher King) two episodes. I suppose some…

Yeah, this wasn't great and missed a lot of potential, but the acting was amazing and I ended up liking it more than "Pyramid at the End of the World". So with this three-parter we had a great soup course, a steak that needed more time in the oven, and a dessert that was a bit half-baked but did leave a sugar rush.

Well, he DID forgive Clara over her murder-suicide "attempt" in "Dark Water". But yeah — lovely as the second-to-final scene was, the Doctor and Bill should have also discussed everything they'd come through — him not being upfront about his blindness, the harsh test he put her through, and her resorting so quickly…

Yeah, even going into this one knowing the big twist, it was shocking how powerful the confrontation between the Doctor and Bill was — and then how wacky the resolution. If I'd gone in completely cold, just going on the official advertising and not advance reviews and the like that noted the sea-change in the story,…

Yeah, it's inconsistent. Kind of like how only Cyber-Danny and Cyber-Brig had enough love for others to rebel against their emotion inhibitors in "Death in Heaven". All those other dead people had loved ones; there should have been a whole crowd of them swarming on Missy and dumping her in the Thames or something.

I don't know, I think a lot of us were bugged by this story in a way we weren't by, say, "Heaven Sent". While I watch that or other really good/great episodes for the first time, I'm caught up in the moment and emotion so much that I don't think about the little things. (And "Heaven Sent" has quite a few, mostly…

Another good point. Maybe the Monks were kind of "helping" him out here? I think that's a problem with having them be so powerful — how many of the mistakes and such that happened in this episode were really humanity and the Doctor's fault? How do we know that the Monks weren't helping things along? Which makes…

Yeah, the Monks are bum villains as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather have a memorable, cunning villain with vulnerabilities and a sympathetic reason to stalk the Earth. (Bonnie the Zygon was a good example of that.) And I agree, the Capaldi era has a lot going for it, but the lack of exotic new worlds for his Doctor…

Clara and Me are pretty much just off the table now, story-wise. The Doctor isn't allowed to be with the former because they got so codependent, and thanks to the mind wipe he doesn't remember why he loved her, just that they had adventures together.