I think the common theme that unites Midnight and Heaven Sent is that they both uniquely show exactly why the Doctor needs a companion. Midnight shows that even a more romantically-inclined, 'human' Doctor like the Tenth Doctor is prone to coming across as alien to those around him, like the outsider (I felt Tennant's Doctor wasn't alien enough a lot of the time and it got too soapy on occasion, but Midnight was a nice exception to that that didn't feel like a betrayal of his character...in other words, great writing) and ultimately he's made vulnerable by ordinary humans who would likely have left him alone entirely had Donna been there alongside him. Then Heaven Sent shows how even with Clara dead, it's his love for her (love in the unique "try, nanobrain, to rise above the reproductive frenzy of your noisy little food chain, and contemplate friendship" sense) that drives him onward with an eternal task.

Also totally agree about Boom Town. You can have slapstick or near-slapstick characters as much as you want, but it takes decent writing to be able to so succinctly turn it around into something dark, or poignant or meaningful. RTD had a bit of a knack for it... with Margaret, or with Donna even, and to a lesser extent I would say The Master as well. I have to hope somehow Moffat can pull off something similar with Nardole.


Totally forgot about that, but yes - anything was better for having Toshiko in it. Probably my favourite Torchwood character.

Now the question is, what's Moffat's Love and Monsters?

I vote Witch and the Wardrobe.

Heaven Sent. Possibly his poorest AI rating since 2010 - a definite marmite episode.

It's almost spooky how much our who opinions are the same.

And they even dovetailed the appearance nicely in Torchwood by adding a line to one of the episodes to explain why Tosh, an IT expert, was there as a medical person ( I believe it was something alone the lines of Owen being sick and her having to cover for him)


At one time, I would have agreed, but now I would say the caretaker. An utterly pointless episode with no value whatsoever.

and if we were doing Gatiss as well I would say Night Terrors.

If we're judging by AI ratings, I would find Heaven Sent more comparable to The End of the World in that both were rather well-received episodes that still got lower than average AI scores (The End of the World got a score of 76, one of only three New Who episodes to score below 80).

And whilst we're judging by AI rating, it should be noted that The Curse of the Black Spot got the same score as Human Nature. And The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe got the same score as The Empty Child. Just a couple of examples that show the disparity between real reception and statistical reception.

Didn't know that about TEOTW. I know Sleep No More was under 80. Third was Love and Monsters? (I know I could google!)

Still, 3 out of, um, er, yeah, I'd need to google that too...not bad, C21 Who!

eta Yup, L & M. I can see, as Mullet said, 'Marmite' and more 'experimental' episodes getting lower scores, but TEOTW?

All seems a bit random, really.

All correct. Love and Monsters and Sleep No More are hardly surprising results, but I'm not sure many people would put The End of the World in the same category. And as Abomination pointed out, some of the less popular episodes score unusually high (I think Curse of the Black Spot was an 86). Not to say AI scores are irrelevant, but they do bring up such anomalies.

Only three episodes below 80 is impressive, though. It's nice to know C21 Doctor Who consistently scores above the BBC's AI average. Don't quote me on this, but if I remember right, the BBC's overall average is 81, where Doctor Who's average is 86.

Not sure I would say Heaven Sent was well received. Critically well received perhaps but not more generally. It is very marmite (as other threads here have shown) where as End of the World is generally liked, IMO. Certainly Moffat's lowest AI of season 9 and possibly his lowest for a while.

As a doctor who story I think it was absolutely fine