Are you saying 99 posters are a good cross section of the people who post?
I know that is higher than some polls but they can never be that definitive!

Whatever that poll says, there's obviously a "market" for an earlier thread. If people like chatting about the next episode, why not?

I don't think it matters as long as it's someone reliable like tiggerpooh and lotrjw who starts it, and not a fly-by-night like Kane Smith (if that's his name - Can't quite remember).

From the "next time" trailer, Reece Shearsmith's look puts me in mind of a Buggles-era Trevor Horn.

I therefore submit that the line: "You must not watch this. You can never unsee it."
refers to this

I don't care who creates the threads, but please just get the poll options right!

1) Excellent (or Very Good)
2) Good
3) Average
4) Poor (or Bad)
5) Awful (Very Bad)

Don't care about the exact wording, but, in fairness, there should be an equal number of +ive and -Ive options plus a neutral one.

tiggerpooh, your polls skew the result in favour of the positive, which makes a comparison with other episodes' polls impossible.

Metro preview (teasers rather than spoilers)

I try and give more options, but I will attempt to balance +ive and -ive though!

Something like this:
1) Excellent
2) Very Good
3) Good
4) Average
5) Poor
6) Bad
7) Very Bad)

Sleep No More was shown last night at a special screening in New York.
Here's a brief and very positive (and only very slightly spoilery) review on reddit -
https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/c...ep_no_more_my/

Writer Mark Gatiss did a Q&A afterwards where he apparently said that Moffat has already asked him to write a sequel to Sleep No More. (More Sleep No More? No Sleep Till Hammersmith?)

Thanks, but I'm not so sure that 7 options are needed. The Romans used to get by in the arena with just two options: thumb up or thumb down. There's something to be said for that simplicity.

Maybe we should have a poll to decide how many poll options there should be!

Well... that's not actually certain.
The latin phrase pollice verso means turned thumbs and was used in relation to gladiatorial contests but it's not actually clear anywhere in the historical record whether thumbs up or thumbs down (or if the thumb was concealed in the clenched fist) meant to live or to die. There's a painting from the 1800s which popularised the thumbs up to live and thumbs down to die gesture but there's actually no proof that was what the Romans actually did.
See, I knew that degree in Ancient History would come in handy one day!

More granularity would certainly give a more accurate representation of people's feelings on an episode but the drawback would be that it ceases to be quite as comparable to previous polls.

I did actually appreciate the three good options this time round as I felt it was better than good but not quite perfect enough to be excellent so I wouldn't mind the greater choice.

As much as I think they should be laid to rest for a while, it just occurred to me how great a Weeping Angel found footage episode could be...

After seeing Reece Shearsmith live in Hangmen back in September I am incredibly excited to see this. He really is an outstanding actor.

Yet another "popular" and "well known" historical "fact" shot down!

I just knew that reading The Bluffer's Guide to Ancient History wouldn't be enough to fool anyone on this forum.

You aren't by any chance are Ricardian too?

He seems to be Marmite. I personally find his episodes routinely to be the worst in a series, his best efforts marked only by their ascent to mediocrity. But there's definitely a full spectrum of thought.

His worst? Victory of the Daleks, probably — too much disbelief-shattering filler "You are the Daleks! I am the Doctor!" plus the bomb resolution is just one sin too many. Or maybe Robots of Sherwood. I enjoy a well-formed light episode like The Lodger but his scripts are simply not as funny as they believe themselves to be.

His best? I guess Night Terrors was fairly inoffensive.

I don't think he's ever bettered The Unquiet Dead, but I do love The Crimson Horror too (on a completely different level!)

The Unquiet Dead wasn't too shabby. I'd probably give it 6/10, even as a constituent from the Gatiss-hating side of the argument.

Bolded the two bits I entirely agree with. I actually thought Robot was one of his better efforts, Night Terrors was inoffensive but also dull as ditchwater, barely worth remembering, let alone rewatching. (All IMHO)

Actually, my name is Richard, and I do think that, even for a suspected child killer, Richard III has had a bit a bad press... Though since he was dug up in that car park his reputation seems to be improving slightly.

Waay off topic: Well worth a visit to Leicester. Damn Tudor propaganda!

After a visit there recently it occurred to me that it would make a good "historical" for the Doctor to "drop in" on Richard III on the eve of the Battle of Bosworth Field to find him a decent, honourable man. What a fate awaited him...

I don't really want to stoke the polls discussions but I think whether you use 5 or 7 options you should always have equivalent options either side of neutral. Poor and Bad are basically the same thing so this list is lopsided.

You could have good/bad, very good/very bad, then F*cking sublime/Dia-bloody-bolical.

Seriously with 7 options it makes more sense to have Quite Good, Good, Very Good/Excellent with the same for Bad. GDK's 5 options is probably better I think, though.


As for this episode, after AAISAT I am more than willing to be positive about Gatiss who I have tended to not like much (writing Who). The previews sound interesting (as do the teasers for the rest of the series) so I am definitely looking forward to this one. I also like Shearsmith as an actor so that adds to my anticipation.

I fear sometimes that Gatiss just isn't able to play to his strengths when it comes to Doctor Who. He knows what scary is. With the reigns of a 'family show' taken off he can do something truly terrifying but within the confines of Doctor Who it restricts his talents too much so the episodes feel compromised and fall flat. Not to say he hasnt done some great episodes. I think he has. But he will never truly excel I feel with Doctor Who. I am looking forward to it but with alot of reservations because while all the elements are in place for something truly scary the execution will I fear remain rather tame.
Its just such a difficult balance to get right. RTD has done it. Moffat has done it. No one else springs to mind who has found the perfect spot between family show and true nightmare fuel.

I think a 'proper' historical would be absolutely terrific - no aliens, no immortal Viking girls. just the Doctor caught up in some historical events. Why not?

The trouble I have with Richard III is that due to The Black Adder for the last 30+ years I simply can't imagine anyone but Peter Cook playing Richard III... really.

Yeah it is, an he can also read these petty flipping comments, pipe down!

Unreliable and touchy with it - who'd have thought?

I quite agree. A pure historical would, at least, be an interesting experiment. Let's meet some Vikings without horned helmets!

Black Adder - brilliant historical comedy and at the time quite original.