Being quite old I do understand the world a bit.

Clara, without asking the Doctor for help, just set about destroying the Tardis and threatening him..it was totally OTT in every respect...imo.

Really excellent stuff once again, been a great series!

Probbaly been answered but haven't seen, why did the Doctor not 'sense' a fellow TimeLord like we know he can?

Is this something we should be thinking about? There must be a reason Missy was able to go unnoticed?

Maybe because he's female now? Might not have made that connection. Also this Doctor isn't as whiney and emotionally charged as 10 was. He just may not have been looking for it.

The Master's 'new Who' timeline is pretty awful. No wonder he/she's mad:

He originally ran from the time war, and hid by using the chameleon arch - so escaping the Time War
He took on the High Council and ended up fighting them back on Gallifrey, in the middle of the Time War again
He survived the Time War a second time but ended up regenerating as a woman

Possible yeah. I never felt it was an emotional choice, just more of like a part of them, like a sense, you can't choose to have it. You may be right though, however I just hope it's addressed!

One criticism on rewatch. Nice homage to those iconic scenes from The Invasion, but it felt rather obvious in some shots how few Cybermen there were! Assume their just the advanced guard and it'll be mayhem next week?

Also want to reiterate yet again....Michelle Gomez is blinking brilliant.

Hmm true. It would be a shame if they just whitewashed over it. However if this is post-YANA Master then I'd be more interested to see how he came back from the dead. Probably something to do with that.

I thought the episode was verging on excellent. But:-

I was disappointed when what I thought was the storyline (Clara going mad with grief on the edge of a volcano) turned out to be an illusion, and the real story was something else. But that's probably just me.

I lost a bit of my involvement after that, though.

The real story was very well done, well acted. I'm one of the few who like Danny and I was touched by the way he made Clara cut him off to save her.

I agree with others that it's a con - he isn't dead, the screams were fake, etc - but I'm an adult and can work these things out. There is no way that this programme was suitable for children, imo. The poster upthread who said his son was scared and worried by it has my deepest sympathy.

I guessed that Missy was the Master, and indeed Ms Gomez did a wonderful job in the part, and the interaction between her and the Doctor was wonderful. But I am bitterly disappointed that Moffat has chosen to go down that route. The whole dynamic of the relationship between the Doctor and the Master is now altered irrevocably.

I just hope Moffat has left before the next Doctor is chosen, because given his egotism I don't think he'd be able to resist casting a woman in the part. Usually when Moffat gives us a brilliant episode like this one, I forget how he sometimes makes my blood boil, and decide I love him again. Not this time, though.

Just watched this episode again because it honestly brought up a lot of conflicting emotions for me last night.

There were some excellent parts - Clara's reaction to Danny's death, the grief , the Doctor/ Clara scenes where she betrays him. very atmospheric and haunting. Danny's memories of war , The Cybermen coming down St Pauls.I really enjoyed Capaldi's performance except for the shouting to people outside St Pauls where he seemed to be shooing them away and be ineffective

Then there were parts that didn't sit well with me. The meaning of the 3W three words
( absolutely horrifying to imagine and the image does linger ) and the Steve Jobs joke
( a bit bad taste but I got it ). I haven't fully brought into the Danny/ Clara relationship . Clara's declaration that she loves Danny & that she would die to be with him seems a bit desperate rather than heartfelt because Danny has been seen so little this season that we haven't really seen the relationship develop between them. All the 'I love you' s between were forcing the point and repetitive.

And the ridiculous : The Master is now a woman ( snogging the Doctor pleaseee!). Michelle Gomez is devilishly over the top and good. I don't dispute that but this character bears no resemblance to the Roger Delgado character from years ago or even Anthony Ainley. The doctor and the Master were friends then adversaries not anything else. Much better to have been a new Time Lady enemy.

Questions How did the Nethersphere even get to St Paul's ?
and how did the Doctor abandon the Master/ Mistress when last time he disappeared with Gallifrey ?

I know its a two parter so I really hope we get proper answers next week. I wish the climax had ended with the Cybermen coming down St Paul's & not with Danny's choice to delete . I think he needs to stay dead next week (his body is in a Cyberman suit from what I understood) and not have a miraculous resurrection to life or there to be a big reset which is what I suspect may happen

I didn't enjoy the episode last night as much as I wanted to but second viewing I found knowing what it was it was better to just roll with it. Need to see next week before I vote

Maybe it's part of DW lore (and having been behind a sofa for most of the Tom Baker and Peter Davison years) what is the signifance of the number of keys for the TARDIS? Loved the whole Mordorness of that scene.

i agree, she is good but for me, not as the Master and that particular aspect of last nights show left me very annoyed. So many other ways it could have gone but making Time Lords change sex is Imo not good for the show at all. If this opens the floodgates for the unthinkable then after 40 years, I'm checking out because I'm clearly too 'set in my ways'. I love modern Who but for me, Moff seems to be more interested in changing the fundamentals.

Agree 100% Granny. I have sort of accepted Missy as The Master but am utterly hoping that he's a woman because he could only find a female body to steal when he was escaping from wherever it was he was escaping from: clearly Gallifrey because of having two hearts. In the Telegraph today Moffat has said "I put the dialogue in the show to make a female Doctor possible but there won't be female Doctor through politics, when I think "Wow what about that person and it happens to be a woman will it be woman!" Which basically confirms your fears about his ego. There is a reason why "he put it into the dialogue" and that reason is that he wants it to happen.

I don't think there was, I think it was just dramatic licence.

This bit peed me off to be honest, I was really hoping Clara would dump the final key and the Doc would say something sarcastic about Clara needing to pay attention and then click his fingers to open the door.

Kind of ruined the scene with the "it was all just a dream" trope instead

Am I alone in hoping that Missy sticks around and is not killed off Immediately in the last episode

Anyone have any terrified kids with them? Two of my nieces are staying with me for a few days and I instructed them to shut up under pain of death when this episode was on. They did but one of them hid behind a cushion for most of it. Nice to know it still puts the fear of God in small children

It won't be Doctor Who once it stops scaring children, will it

Is Missy really The Master? She was telling a few fibs to The Doctor and the kissing scene seemed a little Riverish and Tardisy.

LOL! Anyway, according to other sites, a lot of 6 & 7 year olds play Grand Theft Auto and Call Of Duty. I'm sure they can handle this!

I do agree and for me that is a bit of a problem - it needs to remain a family show and that part of the plot wasn't suitable for children. Not because it was 'scary' (scary monsters like the Mummy are great for kids!) but because it was too emotionally disturbing and the kind of thing a child would dwell on. If they want to make it a show for adults then they're going to need to improve the character writing an awful lot otherwise the show will be stuck in a no-man's land - not suitable for the younger audience and lacking the depth expected from an older one.

I hope next week has a bit of action/adventure to add to the drama. I do feel like the show has lacked that in this series and possibly why it's felt flat at points. Needs a bit more a mix.

I'm bewildered by all these comments about how brilliant the episode was.

Granted it had an interesting start with Pink's death and Clara holding the Doctor to ransom but it completely lost it's way after that.

Missy being the Master was just lazy and unremarkable except for the dubious honour of turning a genuinely scary foe into a slapstick comedy character. I half expected her to burst into a chorus of Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious.

The 'epic' cliffhanger was a handful of Cybermen stomping around St Pauls without so much as a flick of a wrist blaster. It was about as exciting as a cold.

I want to like this series so much but it's just dull and tired. Maybe those people who are saying it was exciting and the best series ever have just set their expectations very low.

I'm almost too scared to watch the season finale for fear of being even more disappointed.

Loved the episode!

I particularly enjoyed the Malcolm Tucker reference when Doctor Chang saw a Government ID covered in swear words.

"I have a lot of internalised anger".

Yes, exactly. There is a great difference between "fun" scary and emotionally unsettling. DW should be fun primarily. The adult bits should be sub text, not in your face.

You put your finger on what was wrong with Torchwood. Neither one thing nor the other and bad at both. I hope DW isn't going down that route - I did see the later airing time as a bad sign.

The Doctor was right, In the Forest of the Night has been forgotten already

I love how DW changes it's direction in extremes, sometimes.

I enjoyed the episode, especially Michelle Gomez who was fabulous in every scene. I could see her as the Doctor quite easily - mercurial, brilliant, thrilling.

What I didn't enjoy was the idea of the dead enduring the pain of their own cremation. There must have been thousands of kids watching this who're at the age of going to the funerals of their grandparents and other older relatives. Many of those deceased will be cremated. Putting it into the minds of children that their granny is about to endure horrific pain is cruel and irresponsible, to my mind.

I'm sure the idea will be debunked in the next episode, but there's no guarantee that the same kids will watch that. The concept needed to be thrown out in THIS episode.

I think some people would love to forget ItFotN.

I take your point, however - and I do love the way the show can change from comedy to tragedy; farce to philosophical, from week to week. Part of it's strength.