Ever heard the phrase “the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing”?

While we’re all feverishly anticipating the “game-changing cliffhanger” (and I’ll have more on my speculation/theories about the nature of that cliffhanger at some point soon) that’s known to be coming at the end of episode seven, “A Good Man Goes To War”, you may recall that The Grand Moff mentioned just before the start of the series that “You’re going to get several cliffhangers will end with an absolute cracker.”

That impression has been furthered by the news from Den of Geek that they won’t have an advance, spoiler-free review of “The Almost People” this week, because “the BBC are keeping this one under wraps”. That’s been confirmed also by the news that while some outlets have been given review DVDs, they’ve been specifically asked not to say anything anywhere about the ending.

All well and good. Were it not for the fact that the BBC themselves have already given away the end of the episode, courtesy of their official preview synopsis for “A Good Man Goes To War”. I won’t quote it here, I’ll simply link to it, but with the proviso that you shouldn’t read it if you don’t want to have a major plot point given away. I mean, I suspect there’s still more to the cliffhanger than what they’ve given away there (and I think I know what it is), but even so… that’s some fabulous internal communication there, guys.

Slow clap.

Okay, whoops, I was out again last night and forgot to cue up this beforehand. I’m presuming most of you have seen last night’s ep by now, but if you haven’t already talked it out on Twitter or anywhere elsewhere, feel free to get some discussion going while you wait for Ben to show up with his review later in the week.

It was almost exactly a year ago, when reviewing “Flesh and Stone”, that I said:
“The Pandorica?” he says, bringing this year’s plot keyword front and centre. “That’s just a fairy tale.” To which the only answer, of course – as Murray Gold’s lovely recurring bit of Harry Potter-esque score strikes up – is “Aren’t we all?” We know this is how Moffat sees Who (hasn’t he just hired the world’s foremost writer of fairy tales for series six?)…
Even when saying that, though, I’m not sure entirely what I expected of a Gaiman-written Doctor Who. Yes, his unique sensibilities seemed to fit perfectly with the sort of thing Moffat was doing on occasion last year – but even so, he’d be reined in a bit, surely? That Babylon 5 episode aside, he’s never really done “sci-fi” before, instead trading largely in (mythical and urban) fantasy. Sure, parts of Neverwhere – the parts with the Marquis de Carabas in – felt like a Who story that never was, but that was still very firmly a world away in voice and setting. Working on a time-travel adventure series rooted heavily in science and logic would surely require a shift in approach and tone – just to avoid the feeling that you’ve been shoehorned in just because of who you are, rather than because of your expected ability to write good Doctor Who – wouldn’t it?

Well, not if you’re Neil Gaiman. If you’re Neil Gaiman, instead of doing that, you turn out – wonderfully, gloriously, at least for people like this correspondent, who had their worldview irrevocably shaped by the discovery of Sandman in their mid-teens – the most Neil Gaimanish thing you’ve done in a decade. Good Doctor Who – great, almost peerless modern age Doctor Who – but also a great big fairy tale at the same time. “The Boy Whose Favourite Toy Spoke To Him.”

Pay attention, 007. This is fun.

Remember the “Bad Wolf” website game in 2005? Where, beginning with the “Who Is Doctor Who?” website, the BBC would update week on week with something new, dropping clues as to the nature of that big plot thread thing that turned out actually not to be any of the things we thought it was going to be?

Well, they’re at it again. Possible SPOILERS after the jump.

Sandman. Neverwhere. Stardust. American Gods. The Graveyard Book. Coraline. Anansi Boys.

The Doctor’s Wife? Find out tonight.

I’ll admit something here, I was already writing this review in my head a week before I saw the episode.  It was unavoidable.  I was all ready to waffle on about how these stand alone episodes are feeling increasingly out of place in a series relying more and more on complex story arcs.  I was resenting the mere existence of this episode before I’d seen anything beyond the trailer and I worry it coloured my fairly luke warm reception.  What I did get, though, were a few more plus points than I was expecting.  But not enough.

So, it’s an episode immediately following – but not picking up on – that cliffhanger, and immediately preceding one written by Neil Gaiman. Sort of on a hiding to nothing, really, isn’t it? Anyway, let’s put all thoughts of series arcs to one side, and this could still be enjoyable – pirates! Hugh Bonneville! Lily “Flatface” Cole! And if there’s no reference to Jack Sparrow anywhere in the episode, I’ll be very surprised.

As ever (except for last week when we FORGOT), post your chatter below and we’ll have a review proper at some point later in the week.

So when Julian talked last week about a sea change in what Doctor Who is and what it’s all about, I don’t think even he realised just how far that idea was going to go. Because now we’ve got the next step – stories that simply defy being written or talked about as individual episodes, that are inextricably linked with the bigger picture to an extent not yet seen in six years of the revived show. Just about everything worth discussing in “Day of the Moon” can only be discussed within the context of things we haven’t yet been shown or told – and the reaction coming out of the episode is so heavily buried in the frenetic excitement of trying to figure out what it all means, and what’s going to happen next, that I’m initially entirely unsure as to whether the preceding 45 minutes of television were actually any good in their own right or not.

The gripping conclusion to the opening story of Series Six leaves us loyal viewers with far more questions than answers. A stock take is clearly in order, and so we present Unlimited Rice Pudding’s scorecard of the issues that matter. And a few that don’t.

It feels like sacrilege, really. Attempting to review “The Impossible Astronaut” on only one viewing seems somehow inappropriate. On the other hand, however, it’s quite possible that even a dozen viewings would leave one under-equipped to convey the full impact of the next stage in the evolution of Doctor Who as a television programme.

Setting aside the TV movie, the train that leads from “Survival” to “Rose”, via a decade of original, mature-readership novels, is clear. The faster storytelling of the last few seasons of McCoy is built upon, and the increased emotional complexity of the companion character made the linchpin of the series, not a welcome bonus. The key element is the re-use of a chance inclusion, with something very similar to Ace’s Perivale council estate retained to provide a permanent and identifiable backdrop to the Doctor’s more outlandish exploits.