Doctor Who Roundup: Review of Today's Episode, Preview of Next Week's and a Quick Behind the Scenes

Look, it's a preview that tells you nothing about the next episode! Clara Oswald never existed? Oh, boy -- what a Moffat-y jape!







Meanwhile, the Guardian had its beleaguered TV writer, Dan Martin, clack out a review in record time in which he basically said that he kind of sort of knew that Missy was probably the Master but, you know, didn't mention it until after everyone else found out. To be fair to us all.



To explain why this twist is so significant, Martin takes us back through the old brouhaha surrounding the demand, pre-Capaldi, that the new Doctor be a woman. He then mis-attributes the gender-swapping Time Lord plot point from The Doctor's Wife as being Moffat's invention (rather than the episode's actual writer, Neil Gaiman). And finally he caps us off with the oh-so-patronizing suggestion that we should probably just be satisfied with a female Master -- as though that isn't exactly what Moffat is doing in the first place (even if Michelle Gomez is a God damn treasure).



Martin then fights with himself over whether or not Missy is actually the Master because Moffat said during a panel last Summer that there was no chance he'd bring the popular foe back to our screens during his tenure. Even though Martin totally knew that Missy was the Master before we did... if she is. Which she might not be. Even though she said she was.



Got it? Good.



Some boring stuff about Danny Pink dying and then Martin's assertion that the show has returned to an Eccleston-esque format of being more about the Companion than the Doctor, which is impossible because Clara is barely a character. Case in point? You know that old woman who barged into her apartment early on and asked how she was doing? That was her grandmother. Did you know that? Me neither. That's how little we know about her family life. Grandma has a key to her apartment, and we've met her like twice. But they're oh-so-close when necessary. Moving on.



Martin ends by trying to get us to believe that we may finally have a proper Cybermen episode on our hands, which I regrettably feel myself agreeing with -- it was a genuinely good twist when the tanks started draining and at least this is more about The Master than the Cybermen, which helps.



Below you'll find Noted Treasure, Michelle Gomez, giving us some behind-the-scenes extras from this episode.

Source, as interpreted by me.



So, ONTD, what do you make the "Clara Oswald has never existed" line?