I liked that a lot of the resolutions (the truth about Transilor, addressing the Doctor's name by dealing with the relevance of his chosen title rather than revealing his "real" name, etc.) were elegantly straightforward rather than overly convoluted, and I loved both that Clara is an entirely original presence in the Doctor's life (as opposed to being his child/River/whatever other theories have been tossed around the internet) and that the whole business was entirely her choice, even if the memories of her displaced replicas are incomplete. I did feel that there was a lot of slight-of-hand and loose ends that will probably never be resolved (what was the point of the Silence, anyway?), but overall I was satisfied. The episode definitely delivered on the pomp and circumstance that is ultimately Who's best asset, and there weren't any overtly horrible lines. And yay for explicit Vastra/Jenny affection!

Was anyone else bugged by the "Is is an evil spirit?" "It's a woman." exchange? From another writer and with another delivery it wouldn't have been an issue, but with Moffat's history of "tongue-in-cheek" sexism it just rankled, besides smacking of LULZ-monks-are-uncomfortable-with-the~wily-wimmins~ humor. I'm not an expert, so I can't speak to the accuracy of the 13th century monk making the sign of the cross at the mere mention of a woman, but the inclusion of the gesture in that context was just gross and unnecessary. Aside from that, though, the episode was solid and I enjoyed it. The alien storyline was straightforward and the resolution made sense, so that's always a plus.

oh god I FEEL LIKE A HUGE JERK. I literally only saw this right now... there's a long, boring story involving switching phones and not getting IntenseDebate notifications anymore and stuff. BUT ANYWAY you're very sweet and I would have loved to meet up and can we retroactively pretend that we did?

I will for sure be in Dallas oh my gosh this news totally made my day you have no idea

Hey good point. We kind of did. Bummer. :(

Re: the "mine aren't" line; first of all, I'm so sick of the Doctor/Companion sexual tension angle that I almost don't care about the social implications any more. I don't care who's checking out whose ass.... just stop it. But beyond that, there's the fact that he told her outright to stop, and she refused. No means no, regardless of the genders involved or the "innocence" of the sexual attention. So yeah, it did make me uncomfortable.

Yeah. If you go back and look through the first four seasons, Rose, Martha, and Donna are all introduced face-first. Then we hit Season 5, and a really uncomfortably long pan up Amy's kissogram-clad legs. Episode four, and River gets introduced stilettos-first, which is then followed by a pan up her legs and a shot of her behind, long before we get to see her face. (I get that the latter was done under the conceit of concealing her identity from the audience, but it doesn't make the technique any less problematic.) Oswin/Clara has escaped this treatment so far, which is definitely a step forward, but ten bucks says we get at least one body-pan from at least one of her identities before the season is over.

Additional note: I think that the integral issue behind the show's rather skewed gender dynamics is probably that, regardless of the sexual orientations of the men producing the series, we invariably end up with men writing women. A glance at Wikipedia will demonstrate that out of the approximately ninety-four episodes of New Who so far, only four have been penned by women (or rather, by one woman: Helen Raynor). There have obviously been no female showrunners, and, in my mind, those statistics cannot change soon enough. More female voices in television, plz.

2. I don't want a male companion unless we've got multiple companions. Male Doctor and male companion is too much maleness for me. I require a female lead.

I'm actually the opposite on this subject right now. Not that I don't love a good strong female lead, but Moffat has been failing to deliver on that front and I'm getting so sick of the Doctor/sole female companion dynamic that I could scream. Back when it was Davies delivering that dynamic I didn't mind as much, since, as a socially conscious queer man, he did a good job of presenting the female companions as independent human beings with highly individual personalities and narrative presences. Moffat is coming across to me more and more as an icky straight dudebro whose primary goal when creating the female companions is providing the Doctor a hot chick to have ~sexual tension~ with... character development and individuality be damned. (Allow me to cite here the oft-commented-upon change from Davies' insistence on introducing the female companions face-first to Moffat's much more problematic upward body-pan... shift in priories right there, folks.) Davies, in my opinion, was always pretty consistent about having the Doctor form emotional connections with folks of all ages and genders, which is really a pretty integral and established part of the Doctor's personality. Eleven, however, only seems to become emotionally invested in Moffat-approved Sassy Flirtatious Ladies, which limits the Doctor and the narrative scope of the series no end. At this point, I'd like nothing better than to see a male companion if it meant breaking that really unfortunate trend.

I think I enjoyed it, even if it didn't add much to the main plot, because I enjoy wordplay and I liked Clara's rapid-fire one-word responses. It was fun trying to anticipate the words she'd choose and attempting to decide, before she spoke, which word I'd use if asked the same question. I especially liked the imagery of the greenhouse around them; it was very evocative and felt heavy and calming, which, when added to the unique nature of the dialogue, made the scene feel almost hypnotic to me.