I assume this ties in with the David Tennant flashbacks?

i really enjoyed it!

Ah, no: the flashbacks were meant to explain why the Doctor looks lie Peter Capaldi. Or more accurately, why the Doctor looks like Lucius Caecilius Iucundus - the Roman who the Doctor and Donna rescued in the David Tennant episode "The Fires of Pompeii". As the PC Doctor realises, he chose that face to remind himself that he saves people.

http://www.radiotimes.com/news...-earlier-appearances

IMO it's actually a clever touch: they've had several actresses appear briefly in the show in the past, only to come back as Assistants without explanation, so it's nice to see it built into the plot for once...

I've been doing a bit of reading and found one online review that comes close to my thinking 

"The Girl Who Died proved to be an underwhelming instalment."

"As stories go, it wasn't particularly strong or exciting - apart from the bit where the vikings were beamed up to the spaceship and put through a lethal version of the Crystal Maze complete with moving walls and deadly lasers. But aside from that, the battle was won too quickly"

"Then there were the baddies. Despite being one of the most feared races in the universe, fake Odin (David Schofield) looked like a camp villain straight out of Flash Gordon. While the clunky robots would rival the Fisher King in the tripping up stakes - it was absurd how easy it all was to defeat the belligerent aliens. "

"The big reveal about the twelfth Doctor's face proved to be another damp squib with a quick flashback to Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) and the tenth Doctor (David Tennant) in the Fires of Pompeii. 

It was all brushed to one side quickly as the Time Lord had a eureka moment - apparently he's the Doctor so he saves people. It was as simple that. There were no Impossible Girl type story arc that we would have expected from a rather large coincidence like this."

Even though I'm watching it, I still can't get my head around it. It's just not the Dr Who as I know it from when I was younger 

Yes, I know things move on but.......

We haven't seen the last of Maisie Williams in Doctor Who, She's coming back.

Article on DS today

Better than last weeks (I will give them both a second watch).

All this stuff about the Doctor and his companions - YES, we get it, not really necessary to have every other character do a psych analysis on the Doctors relationships with companions.

I do like the Zygons.

I don't know them myself   I'll watch it on catch up as it clashes with another prog I'm recording 

Here you go Sprout, a picture of a zygon. 

Ewww! 

This picture won't help if you don''t like ^ that one!

Nah, that's not nice either 

I found myself losing interest at first and I thought the analogies to Islamic fundamentalism a little bit heavy handed for me but maybe more of a thought provoker for children and young adults.  It pulled itself back from the slow start to end up being a good episode.

 good point.     I loved the episode overall (actually gasped out loud at the you know what bit!)   Can't wait for next week's episode now.

I have to admit that I had it on but was only half watching. The 'twists' I expected all the way along.

You're just too smart for this forum       

I wish I was, but unfortunately not. I think I have seen far too many shows now and you sort of get an 'inkling' (sp) sometimes as to what may be coming.

Capaldi's speech in last night's The Zygon Inversion the standout of the series. Makes it the best episode since Capaldi took over.

I'm loving this series so far.   Best ever and good timing for the 'message'.    

I love Peter Capaldi as the Doctor - more even than I thought I would. 

Any comments on this week's episode?     I loved it.    

Um....I don't think Clara's too well!

   Mistress of the understatement, fluffers!  

Classic and classy episode tonight with Capaldi in fine actor mode.

Was a good episode....I enjoyed it!

It was epic and Shakespearian.  I can imagine how it may go down with the targeted Dr Who audience of children and adolescences but I'd imagine not too well, but PC was brilliant in his exposition of 'The Doctor'.  I sound like a candidate for "pseuds' corner" apologies for that, but there you go!

Can someone remind me of the ending please.. .I have completely forgotten it.. I recall it was a constant loop around the same thing for a gazillion years so he could break thru that wall but once thru what happened?  I know my memory is bad but seems it didn't grip me enough to actually recall what the ending was

Can I also say I want the sonic screwdriver back. . Wayfarers don't do it for me.. please can they at least keep some of What Dr Who is about [a family TV programme] before going too arty farty 

the Tardis was on the other side of the wall, so he got back to it ..... I think.

Rivetted at the time, half a day later and the details escape me - must be me age

Thanks Bursar.. .glad it's not only me that has completely forgotten it. . clearly made a big impact on me 

Have to say I am not at all sure what the eck this series of Dr Who has been about... I usually watch it as a bit of light entertainment and don't expect to be intellectually challenged too much.. I feel this guy  or the writers have tried to make the series akin to the Royal Shakespeare company. . sometimes a bit of light relief is good. . no idea why he took the job at all, he clearly wants to showcase his 'talents'...  don't think a family light entertainment show is the place to do that

I'm with you Olls.... I miss the lightheartedness  

I've still watching but I don't really know why because I'm literally hating every minute of it. I think I'm only still with it out of misguided loyalty, just because I used to love it SO MUCH and it's hard to let go. 

I had decided to watch till Clara left, just to finish off her story line and then give up, but I was curious about this episode because of a few things I'd heard, so forced myself through the pain again.

I found the concept interesting once it was revealed towards the end.... bit of a long bloody wait though, I felt every second of the 2 billion years... but I find the current style of writing/directing/acting so so so SO boring. Then up pops Gallifrey and now I'm gonna be forced to watch it again next week.

And then of course I'm going to have to watch the Christmas special cos you know, River and all that. 

I don't think I've ever watched a show I hate before. It's a weird experience. 

  I've just watched it - so it's fresh in my mind.   We were led to believe the Tardis was on the other side of the wall, but in fact, he stepped through it.. it all collapsed into a little model of the castle which sealed itself up inside his 'confession dial'    A little boy came along and he said to him 'go to the city - tell them I'm back and I know what they did and I'm coming - tell them I came the long way round'  Then he spoke to 'whoever' in the confessiond dial and said 'I lied, the Hybrid isn't have time lord, half dalek, the person destined to conquer Galifrey is MEEEEEEE'

I liked it.   I think he's a great actor - not easy to carry a whole hour on his own with only some flies and a dusty old sheet to interact with..

Ducky I'm with you, every week I say to myself why am I watching this.. what makes it worse is the people that have kept you watching mean nothing to me as in I've no idea who they are, well apart form Clara I think..

Kaffs thanks for filling me in. .I remember that bit now..  I will probably forget again tho

I don't doubt there is a slot for what this has become but I doubt it is early evening family time. .  maybe I feel that way because I hate this 'look at me being all lovey and up my ass and pretentious' writing and acting thing when all I want is a bit of light entertainment and escapism to shut my brain off for a while 

I know what you mean Olly.  It's become far too sophisticated and psychological, I can't imagine that young children enjoy or understand it much at all now, (or perhaps I underestimate them).  The original fans, having grown up and come out from behind the sofa, just want a bit of early Saturday evening nostalgia- I don't want to have to work out the mysteries of space and time relative to a nonsense programme, I need to conserve my brain cells for more pressing matters

I have to say that my over-riding impression during this episode was that they had used up the budget on previous extravagant episodes and needed a cheap one with few actors and a small simple set.

I do understand what you're saying Olly. I enjoyed last night's episode, but it was very intricate, and was part of a trend this series of dealing with quite deep philosophical and logical ideas. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I do wonder how much of the audience is able to follow them (even when the Doctor tells them directly to "Google it", as he did WRT the Bootstrap Paradox in Episode 4!   ).

Oh and BTW: I thought I saw a paradox in last night's episode...

See when I stop to watch TV of an evening PC and internet get turned off... so some character telling me to google something would get short shrift with me. .  [the Google it bits seem to have gone over my head anyway. . ]

it's up to the writer to put info needed into a show if required and that's laziness possibly couched as 'humour' to not even bother.. ..  I have my own recorded shows that require a bit more thinking and which I love.. this one was not on the list of that sort of show and doesn't engage me enough in the first place to draw me in to even bother 'thinking' cos it's not meant to be a highbrow show and is not the frame of mind I sit down to watch it with..

I'm with you all the way Bursar... not being a fan in the past and then getting sucked in with the Doc before last and the storyline having some meaning and continuity, beyond Quantum Physics, I do wonder why I carried on, even after last year with that dolt.. 

Go on..?

OK, but remember: you did ask.

[Note: obvious spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen Episode 11 yet.]

It was the Doctor's clothes. Remember that he comes out of the water soaking wet, finds a set of identical clothes drying by a fire and changes into them, leaving his clothes to dry instead.

This is classic time-loop stuff: the key is that the Doctor we are watching is not the first to arrive in the castle, but rather he's some 7000 years into the cycle. The clothes found by the current Doctor were left by the Doctor's previous iteration, and "our" Doctor leaves his own clothes for the next iteration.

So far so good, but the problem is this: what happened when the very first Doctor came out of the water 7000 years previously? There would have been no previous Doctor, so no drying clothes waiting on him, so what did he change into? No one-else would have left clothes for him, as they wouldn't have expected him to dive into the water, and the first Doctor must have left his wet clothes behind otherwise the cycle wouldn't have started. So what did he do? Did he just run around the castle naked?

[I'm not an expert, but I think this is another example of a bootstrap paradox...]

Oh - well spotted, Eug!   I feel i should say more, given that you've gone to the trouble of typing all that out - but there's no more to say really, is there?!    

( I want to know why the skulls survived by the rest of the skeleton didn't?)