On the subject of Osgood going for a bowtie now instead of a scarf, I think that's more to do with her actually meeting 11. He's kind of 'her Doctor', so it'd make sense for her to start wearing a bowtie. Not anything to do with 11 being a Moffat Doctor.

I get how it makes sense for her character, it's just that among all of the 'Eleven's the best, you'll cry your eyes out' and 'The Rickest Rick the doctoriest doctor' (not word-for-word, the quote being "We've got enough warriors. Any old idiot can be a hero." "Then what do I do?" "What you've always done: be a doctor.") it stands out as another appearance of Moffat patting himself on the back (and technically Moffat indicated -- in a really creepy answer to the question -- that Osgood had been given her scarf by the Curator, which means that she likely had some awareness of him being the Doctor too). I suppose it could be matter of updating it to the most recent Doctor she's met, but I guess we'll never know for sure if she would've done that for Twelve because they had to go and kill her because that was obviously completely necessary and not just for shock value.

Cybermen upgraded, with the help of Missy and her genius and timelord tech. It's not like they've had that ability forever.

I loved the freefall bit. It has nothing to do with anything I just wanted to remind you how cool that was

also how did the master actually escape gallifrey... did I miss that or was it another plot hole?

Not so much a plot hole as left intentionally ambiguous; the Doctor wanted to know but Missy was not about to tell him. It provides proof that Gallifrey is still out there and accessible.

that was cool, but the way the doctor said the cybermen thing heavily implied (if not outright stated) that this has always been a feature of cybermen, especially given his already being aware of it

well, there's a very thin line between 'intentionally ambiguous' and lazy writing, and i think it lies at about the point where we weren't even shown as an audience what happened... missy not telling the doctor is a character motivation, but moffat not telling us comes across as not knowing yet, given his tendency to think things up on the spot because they'd be cool without really planning around them (for example, making the daleks forget the doctor and then having them get all of that information back from tasha as soon as they next show up)

Osgood included for apparently no reason but to kill her off (and reference to the fourth doctor ditched for a reference to one of moffat's doctors) - check

Meh, I thought that was good. She was a character who people had grown attached to thanks to her role in Day of the Doctor. Nobody thought she would actually be killed off, especially in the rather brutal way that she was. It was a (un)pleasant surprise and it made Missy's character all the more fearsome because of it. It created a true sense of danger, now you know that Missy is capable of slaughtering anyone at anytime. Also, just because you think an 11 reference is Moffat patting himself on the back, doesn't mean that it is. There's no point demonising everything he does.  

seb killed off 

Yeah, this was a good thing in my books. Quirky characters who are quirky for the sake of being quirky are generally painful. If he asked for "Permission to squee" around me, I'd have blasted him too. My one hope was that he had a bigger role in the series than was first suggested and that clearly wasn't the case in the end. 

THE POWER OF (heterosexual) LOVE SAVES THE DAY ONCE AGAIN

Shouldn't the issue be that the power of love saves the day? No matter what orientation the two parties are, it's still dumb. It was bad enough when the Cybermen's one weakness was gold. Now thanks to this and that horrid episode with Craig, love seems to be a factor too. 

seriously though what were the chairs in Dark Water made of why haven't they explained this

Organic material. Probably wood. I don't see how it's a big deal. 

missy still having apparently just changed gender alongside sex, because obviously they're just the same thing

Time Lords change both physically and mentally when they regenerate. This is no big surprise. 

well, there's a very thin line between 'intentionally ambiguous' and lazy writing, and i think it lies at about the point where we weren't even shown as an audience what happened[/size]

It seems silly to tell the audience but not the Doctor. I understand just as well as you do how terrible Moffat can be when it comes to making stuff up as he goes along (see: Everything about River and the war of Trenzalore), but in this case I'll let him off because there's no fun in watching if we discover things before the protagonist. The point is that all we know about Gallifrey is that it was saved and is somewhere. Showing that The Master was able to escape serves as a tease to both us and The Doctor, by showing that with enough effort individuals are capable of passing back and forth. We don't know how, and showing that would be giving too much away so early on. While Moffat is guilty of lazy writing on multiple accounts through his longer-than-necessary run, this is not one of those times. It just means that now he's treading on very thin ice to deliver a satisfactory resolution.

- I'm sorry but I can't agree here. Not only was her death included solely for shock value, but based on the character traits we've already seen I find it impossible to believe that she would fail to respond in any way to finding that set of handcuffs in her pocket apart from 'oh look at that handcuffs isn't that curious'

and also the the guards failed to do anything during that scene

a death that outlandishly ridiculous in set-up barely lands within suspension of disbelief, nevermind 'fearsome'

also, it is a fact that the reference to the Fourth Doctor was ditched in favour of a reference to Moffat's Doctor. Osgood didn't choose her own outfit, because she is a fictional character, written by Moffat, which means that Moffat chose to replace a reference to a Classic Who Doctor with a reference to a Doctor that he wrote and created. Do you see the problem? I fail to see any way in which that couldn't be considered patting himself on the back, especially given his track record for doing so. I stated a fact, and then I provided evidence from Moffat's past that explained my reasoning for believing that yes, when you remove a reference to something that preceded you and replace it with one to yourself it shows a degree of egotism, and this is in a context of such things already having happened in the past.

- 'permission to squee' was a cringey line that frankly didn't really fit in with the previously established character, and honestly his whole presence in that scene seemed shoehorned in so that they could remove him from the plot

to be honest i found him a far more engaging character than missy (chris addison played affably evil perfectly, and i still love the scene in which he offers the darker side to his character ['we've got a thing for that']) and i really think that he should've had a bigger role, with more scenes which showcased that darker element his character

- The power of love has saved the day, and that's an awful resolution. What makes it worse is that this is not the first time, and that in every instance it has been heterosexual. There's nothing wrong with the statement that the day was saved by heterosexual love again, because it was, and I feel that given Moffat's whole 'mothers are amazing' and 'gay couples can't kiss unless they need to in order to survive' context, yes, that's another element of the issue.

- no but there were metal plaques in there

metal plaques

with the names

- Y'see, I'm sorry but that's bull. Gender and sex are not the same thing, and that's not changing mentally, that's a huge element of personal identity changing with no explanation given and in a world where we've come to a point where we can recognise that gender identities outside of cis exist, it seems very ignorant for a character whose sex has changed to suddenly comply with that sex. And to use my favourite word again, 'context': Steven Moffat does use the words 'gender' and 'sex' interchangeably. This is not a matter of mental change, this is a matter of ignorance.

- How is that silly? Missy doesn't want to tell the Doctor, but why shouldn't we as an audience know how she escaped when it's relevant to the story being told? That's something that's very easily accomplished in a visual medium, and is a pretty big element of storytelling. To use previous events connected to the Master: the Doctor didn't witness the ring being picked up from beside his pyre, or the (kinda sketchy) way in which he was brought back to life. Do you think that we shouldn't have been made aware of those? The issue isn't showing too much too early, it's actually knowing that she came from somewhere and that this isn't just going to be handwaved or thought up on the spot. All we needed was a glimpse, just something, however small, just the tiniest quantum of evidence that Steven Moffat wasn't pulling this out of his arse same as he always does.

And I do think it's an example of lazy writing, because he has done the exact same thing in Sherlock and refused to provide resolution (see the end of the first episode and Sherlock surviving after the fall). Context. When someone uses the same set-up for something and every previous time they have done so it's ended the same way, there is nothing unreasonable in presuming that they will follow the same pattern. (it's also worth noting that in the few cases where Moffat does provide resolutions for things, he deliberately prolongs them in the hopes of detracting from how weak they are, which is also lazy writing)