Doctor Who reactions
Day of the Moon:
Vastly improved over The Impossible Astronaut, and while it didn't resolve all my issues with the first episode, it fixed enough of them to satisfy me. Still not thrilled with how the Doctor has gone from being a very close _____ of River's to being the CENTER OF HER EXISTENCE, but on the other hand I thought the kiss was much more endearing and heartbreaking than I expected to find it, since I'm not a shipper. Though I still think the whole concept of gay marriage is incredibly anachronistic for a person from 1969, I was amused at the way Moffat anticipated both the "he wants to marry a man!" and "he wants to marry a black person!" camps.
On the whole "is the Doctor too dark?" debate, Eleven is definitely darker than Nine/Ten in that it clearly doesn't bother him as much to resort to killing (or inducing others to kill for him), but he's hardly the darkest the Doctor has ever been, and I say that not having even seen any Six or Seven serials yet.
Curse of the Black Spot:
This was ... not a very good episode, but I have to applaud the strategic timing. I mean, if you're going to air a bad episode of Doctor Who, you could do worse than to put pirates in it and show it the week before an episode written by Neil Gaiman.
ETA: Also, Lily Cole was brilliantly cast. She's beautiful, but there's something a little uncanny about her features that makes her perfect for playing an alien (or alien program).
The Doctor's Wife:
Speaking of ... this was a great episode, probably the best we've seen this series and one of the best of the Moffat era. Great story which takes advantage of the long history of the show without being self-indulgent, incredibly psychological villainy, snappy dialogue, wonderful characterization of Team TARDIS (all of them, finally!). It was so satisfying to hear the perspective of the TARDIS at last and have all our fanon theorizing about the Doctor and the TARDIS' relationship made canon. Rory had a lot of great little moments (and died for the fourth time -- it's a running gag at this point), Amy got put through the wringer. Matt Smith handled the emotional see-saw the Doctor went through -- hope, then grief, then joy, then more grief -- with a much more delicate touch than I can imagine of Tennant or even Eccleston. (Granted, that's probably also Moffat's influence versus RTD's. And it was possibly a little too delicate in some places; IMO he didn't quite sell the Doctor's remorse over what he did to the Time Lords.)
Two best lines of the episode:
» "Did you wish really hard?" from Amy
» the exchange between House and the Doctor (paraphrased?):
- "Fear me. I've killed hundreds of Time Lords."
- "I've killed all of them."
Things I didn't like:
» Auntie and Uncle really grated on me and I enjoyed the episode much more after they died, frankly.
» Suranne Jones' performance in the earlier part of the episode was really over the top, too, so I'm glad it got toned down over the course of the story.
» I wish we could've seen more new bits of the TARDIS than just the corridors, but I suppose there were budgetary constraints. Hopefully we'll see more in the future, though.
Miscellaneous notes:
» We have (further, after SJA's Death of the Doctor) confirmation now that Time Lords can change genders between regenerations.
» Loved seeing Nine/Ten's console room and one of the Ood again!
» The end conversation about the bunk beds made me laugh.
» There's gonna be so much fic about this episode and that pleases me greatly.
The coming episode looks pleasingly creepy. Can it be next Saturday yet? Except, wait, we're already most of the way through this half season, and I'm not ready to wait until September...