I liked the last episode up until the point they got to pyramid and then it became bizarrely bad.

Bad but in a WTF am I watching sort of way.

I presume the evil planet thing is another iteration of The Great Intelligence (same face as the snowmen and the Amy Pond's apple).

The eighties stuff was really good, the alien market was okay but I thought but the whole complicated mess of subduing thing a) with item b) via slow moving whispering baddies d) and in failing via a battle with blue lights resulting in item c) waking up and needing to be overfed with singing, memories and items of a sentimental value......?????????

In the round as bad as the worst things RTD could throw together.

The Moff is a great writer and handled the show very well for the first two series of Smith's tenure so I can only assume that the undisclosed internal politics of the BBC are the real issue here.

Half a series last year and half a series and a special this year??

It's shaping up to be the worst 50th anniversary party evar!

I appreciate he is in charge of Sherlock as well but that's three episodes a year.

With an evil two faced Tory government and Doctor Who in peril it really does feel like the 1980's again.

RE: missing stories I have been recently been watching Loose Cannon's reconstructions in conjunction with the existing episodes and it works. I saw Marco Polo, The Wheel In Space and The Faceless Ones for the first time (sorta) last weekend and they were grand.

Oh and anyone slagging off Pyramids Of Mars can take a long walk off a short asteroid.