I personally think what constitutes a 'classic' is entirely subjective and depends upon the individual. Slightly off topic, I think Anthony Newley's Strange World of Gurney Slade is a TV masterpiece. It was shunted into a 'graveyard' slot after 2 episodes!

Perhaps more relevantly, I think 'Kinda' is one of the all time great Who stories; an absolute classic. That was met with much confusion and finished bottom of the DWM Season Survey poll. Then there was the whole 'The Deadly Assassin' was so poor from certain people at the time.

Back off 'Who'....'It's A Wonderful Life' was a bit of a flop when released! Maybe some things need to 'mature' and stand the test of time before they are judged fully. (Bit pretentious.) But ultimately, and slightly less pretentiously, it's whatever floats yer boat as an individual for me! If you think something's a classic....it is.

Exactly.

The Wire had average reviews when it launched, now it is regarded as one of the best shows ever and as it should.

Classics can only be determined years down the track, as honestly every story released gets brilliant reviews these days when its released. In every show

I remember, back in the 80s, Doctor Who Weekly/Monthly used to refer to every old story as a classic. I think the criteria very simply was that it had to be at least five years old, and that was that.

That's not 'exactly how', though.

The 'exactly how' that you thought was so obvious was explained by Missy. Everybody knew they hadn't died - and most people would have worked out they teleported - but how could they have done? It was working out how they transported that was the mystery. And I doubt you managed to do that - as it was a new conceit to the show. Therefore the 'exactly how' wasn't obvious.

They Teleported, doesn't matter how they got the energy to do it, they escaped via teleporting.

So then you weren't bothered by the 'exactly how'? And wasn't obvious then.

In hindsight it's very easy to say these things to put something down, whether they were actually completely true at the time. It's most likely that people guessed at them having teleported, as there is no way they would have been killed off. There wasn't anything 'obvious' about them teleporting - even down to the traditional skeleton showing when hit by the extermination ray. And the fact that the ray didn't carry on - it must have been absorbed somehow, otherwise it would have carried on unimpeded - made it look like they had been killed. But where did that ray go? If they can't be killed because they are the other two main characters, but the ray got them, how did they teleport?

That wasn't an obvious answer once we got it.