My old school chum (our parents were poor and couldn't afford to send us to a new school) Paul van Campenhout asked me what I thought of Asylum of the Daleks, and this is what I said:

My first reaction was wow, this is a really blatant two fingers up to George Lucas, with a few clear stylistic nods to Star Wars that seemed to say "This is how you do it, George. Remember when you used to not suck?"

I tend not to like Dalek stories. Daleks are not sparkling conversationalists, which makes them rather dreary antagonists. Failing to get dullards to listen to reason is my day job^*, not my entertainment of choice.

However there is no such thing as a bad Steven Moffat script, and he's wisely left the Daleks with little dialogue and lots of being very scary, as well keeping the horror over the idea of what it is to be a Dalek on the simmer.

Speaking of which, I didn't see the twist coming and was honestly befuddled for quite a while right up to the reveal. A twist which is obvious in retrospect, and makes perfect sense in terms of all the little details that have been clearly laid out for you, but startles you all the same, is a bloody good twist.

Don't care about where this all fits into Dalek lore, nor the misgivings others have had about the plausibility of the Pond's matrimonial problems. Doctor Who is neither serious science fiction nor serious drama, which is why it's so good.

I'm hoping the forgetting of "the Predator" or "the Oncoming Storm", as well as various statements Moffat has made recently, means the Doctor is no longer a Colossus bestriding the universe, and returning to being a wanderer intrigued and delighted by the universe. Mind you, I thought that was what RTD was doing by destroying Gallifrey and the Daleks with his Time War, and we all know how tiresome that turned out.

^* A joke. Not entirely true.