‘The tree won’t hurt you.’ As we head towards the end of Capaldi’s first series, we get a slight return of the Matt Smith fairytale, and particularly The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardobe, with a magic forest full of living lights, and a young girl pointing the way to the solution. I’ve seen this story heavily criticised for embracing fantasy rather than science fiction, but this doesn’t overly bother me. Seeing the 12^th Doctor surrounded by children is great (‘Has he even been CRB checked?’), and the little scream he gives when Ruby declares Maebh is going to die is perfect. I’ve also seen this criticised for its attitude to medicating children with health conditions, which is harder to defend.

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‘So that’s what I sound like.’ The simmering story arc of Series Eight starts to come clearly into view, as Clara takes the lead in what’s practically a “Doctor lite” episode. With Capaldi stuck on the TARDIS set like Tom Baker in Part Three of Logopolis, Coleman gets to take charge, posing as a Doctor, mustering the survivors of the Flatland invaders and turning the aliens’ powers against them – all while fending off her boyfriend’s concerned/controlling (YMMV) phone calls. After passing the “terrible choice” test in Kill the Moon, she’s now auditioning for the main role. The Doctor seems to have mixed feelings: she makes a mighty fine Doctor, but goodness has nothing to do with it. Missy seems happier with the outcome.

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‘Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose.’ This plays like the other half of a diptych, picking off where Kill the Moon left off, with Clara sticking to her guns about leaving the TARDIS, but consenting to one last trip to avoid parting on bad terms. Inevitably, it’s a trip that ends in chaos and destruction with an invisible mummy taking 66 seconds to hunt down and kill each victim, and an equally invisible mastermind hoping to nefariously harness its powers.

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‘That was me allowing you to make a choice about your own future.’ The one where the Doctor condescends to allow Clara to make a Day of the Doctor (or perhaps Genesis of the Daleks) choice of the lesser of two evils. The Moon is disintegrating, the Earth is in chaos, giant spider germs are swarming across the lunar surface consuming the astronauts sent to destroy the Moon before it destroys the world, and the Doctor, Clara and Courtney have dropped in for a school outing.

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‘He’s not the caretaker, he’s your dad. Your space dad.’ The third in Gareth Roberts’ Deep Cover Doctor trilogy. Mostly, I think it’s as funny as The Lodger and Closing Time and gifts Capaldi some much-needed chances to be whimsical and childish (sometimes). Much as The Lodger helped to define Matt Smith’s future approach, this points the way towards the kind of 12^th Doctor we get more of in the next two series (the sushi-eating sequence in The Return of Doctor Mysterio springs to mind), as he grins that massive, Tom Bakerish smile when he thinks Clara has fallen for a bow-tie wearer; flits about attaching electronic gizmos everywhere; is delighted to meet a fellow ‘disruptive influence’, and gets confused about whether there really is a play.

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‘Could you trust someone who looked back at you out of your own eyes?’ Stephen Thompson’s third, final and best script drops the Doctor into a Hustle plot. It’s about five years too late to be topical, but a lot of the visual style – the crew walking into opulent surroundings, the use of slow motion, quick cuts and flashy editing effects all look like they could belong in a Mickey Bricks adventure.

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In which Clara becomes the monster. And not just any monster, but the one that has haunted the Doctor through his entire life (depending on which Timeless Child was suddenly deemed no longer the most important single being in Gallifreyan history and consigned to a barn). This is a Moffat spook story – the title and some of the dialogue (‘Look away. Look away now. Don’t look at it.’) is deliberately invoking Blink. And because it’s a Moffat script, there’re a bootstrap paradox, lonely children and romcom.

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‘I’d last a lot longer than this desiccated man-crone.’ Third time lucky. This is like The Mark of the Rani, going for whimsy rather than sadism, remembering the Doctor is never cruel or cowardly. Capaldi responds with a performance that’s still spiky, but with Pertwee Moments of Charm™, and his relationship with Robin Hood comes across almost like two Doctors meeting and trying to outdo each other.

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‘Am I a good man?’ The first time I saw this, I found parts of it despicable, particularly ‘She cares so I don’t have to.’ Second time around, I can see many more things to admire – not least doing a cross between The Invisible Enemy and Dalek, which is such an unlikely mash-up I’m vaguely in awe.

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‘I don’t think I know who you are any more.’ Peter Capaldi arrives in an episode that’s as long as The Day of the Doctor, sequelises The Girl in the Fireplace, and includes a cameo from the 11^th Doctor during The Time of the Doctor. I guess for the growing BBC America audience, this might have been the first regeneration – which explains the heavy reliance on the familiar surroundings for the new Doctor, and the oddly tentative nature of much of this.

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