I find myself agreeing with most of the sentiments from fellow Whovians, especially as regarding Capaldi. "Am I Scottish? I am Scottish, oooh I am Scottish!" followed by the conversation about his face and identity was a lovely bit of callback.

Clara cannot hold a candle to Martha and River nor Amy and Rory Pond ;) but I like her as much or more than any of the rest of the companions from the new Who.To clarify, I don't consider Jack Harkness just a companion since he evolved into his own character in so many key ways.

Any time the Paternoster Gang are involved is a good one, with Strax my clear favorite. Madame Vastra is awesome but I feel like she's never given enough to do, I'd really like to see that much-talked about spin-off with the gang solving crimes in Victorian England.
Edit:I felt sort of bad laughing at Strax hitting Clara with the newspaper, but I think it was just her nonchalant line delivery followed by being laid out flat that got me.

I thought some bits were heavy-handed, like the conversation in the restaurant near the end (won't say more because of *Cues River Song* Spoilers!) but overall I am excited to see where this Doctor takes us. We saw some of the new dourness of 12/13 and then the last few minutes...good stuff, even if a bit sappy.

Congratulations to RWarehall too:).

Yes, but if that was the case, I wish the plot was much much *simpler*. This kind of episode is not about complex monsters and stuff, it's about establishing a new cast. I mean, that "escape pod"? What the heck?

Same with the ending, the series-long story arc should be something incredibly mundane and minor (like a crack in the wall) that keeps getting more significant... not whatever this was.

Eh, every series has its ups and downs. I just expected a lot more from this episode.

Yeah, I always knew he was some kind of relative, but when we (my partner is a huge Who fan too) heard he might be the next Doctor last year we were so excited :)

I've not liked many of the new series companions, mostly just Donna (who was brilliant). But Amy and Clara I can't stand. They just don't feel real. They also feel like just massive plot points in Moffat's bizarre story arcs rather than real characters. Like all the stuff with Amy and River and the Flesh, or Clara being the impossible girl. I'd rather the companion's just be ordinary people whisked off by an eccentric alien then being tied to the fate of the universe or something (although that being said, I suppose Donna and Rose fell into that category too).

Anyway, I hope the news of her leaving is true.

I totally agree. The plot was a bit all over the place. I kind of liked the not knowing what happened (I won't spell it out in case of spoilers, but you'll know what I mean if you've seen it), but the ending was bizarre and a lot of it felt jumbled. But I absolutely loved Peter's performance, so hopefully he can carry a bit of poor writing like Matt did.

I find it funny that you want to yack someone out between the words season vs series. Even the BBC America and BBC is calling the new show season 8. The old show of the dvds tend to state example : The tom Baker YEARS. When they rebooted the show they started off with season one... its just how it is.. Right now no one is wrong when they classify it as seasons or series it just comes down to what people want to call it.

“Some people live more in 20 years than others do in 80. It’s not the time that matters, it’s the person.”
The Tenth Doctor, The Lazarus Experiment –