Ok so now there are 3 episodes I like this year. OK so slight ” borrowing of ideas” from Logopolis and Fear Her (oh the shame!) but worked pretty well.
Marks taken off for another pointless boyfriend phone scene that took away from the drama, and one point if fir yet another annoying kid who takes aliens in his stride. But otherwise a nice linear plot with plenty of mystery.

I really enjoyed this episode. Certainly thought it was the best episode so far. I thought the young character played his part very well and seemed very likable. Still not sure about the relationship between the Doctor and Clara though. She done a great job but didn’t get much credit if any at all. Great seeing Missy at the end and there is no doubt she was the woman in the shop and shes put clara with the doctor. just need to find out why. cannot believe s8 is nearly over :( will watch the episode again but im giving it a 5/5

the highlight of that has got toe when the doctor puts his hand out of the tardis and pulls it off the train track that made me burst out laughing

Simon, I also burst out laughing as the Doctor’s hand pulled the TARDIS to safety. Actually, there were a number of times during the episode that I enjoyed some true laugh-out-loud moments.

I was also amazed at the incredible special effects work in this episode. The police officer being dragged down into the floor, the walls, the couch breaking down. The artist was a terrific character and so was the highly irritating no-imagination guard. That he saw nothing on the psychic paper was an enlightening moment.

Capaldi was absolutely fantastic! So was Jenna Coleman. Even though the two hardly worked with one another on this episode, that fact never came across on screen at all.

Perhaps the only part of the episode that I think was a little bit of a let-down, was the train. It looked like a toy to me. But that’s really nothing and can easily be forgiven, for “Flatline” is an utterly incredible episode of Doctor Who.

And the TARDIS not only shrunk in size (as it has in only a handful of previous episodes – Planet of Giants, Carnival of Monsters, Logopolis) but it also did something which it hasn’t done since “Attack of the Cybermen”. It changed it’s outer-shell appearance. The little TARDIS box reminded me of the box that Troughton’s Doctor put his thoughts into to send to the Time Lords, and the boxes that House used to tempt Smith’s Doctor in “The Doctor’s Wife”.

But besides all that… the Doctor squeezing himself out the TARDIS door was one of the funniest moments in all Doctor Who.

As great as I thought “Mummy on the Orient Express” was, I absolutely LOVED this episode and think it’s the best of Series 8. So far!

Best episode of Series 8/Season 34 so far. Full of humour and clever ideas. Two elements most of the previous episodes this year have lacked.

Sadly, I found this episode very disappointing. It did have a very great premise though, I love the idea of beings from another universe trying to understand 3 dimensions and it did have some pretty great moments such as the policewoman’s nerve system being imprinted on the wall, that worker being grabbed by the giant hand and the Doctor emerging from the TARDIS at the end to defeat the aliens was awesome!

But honestly, this episode felt like it had potential but it failed. It was just lacking something. The characters were SOO one dimensional, boring and irritating! A Complete contrast to the last episodes, whose characters felt like they had a real backstory to them.

Plus at times, particularly when we see the Doctor inside the shrunken TARDIS it felt like a comic relief episode.
I did find the scene where the Doctor using his hand to escape the train funny but It felt out of place inside a mainstream Doctor Who episode. It did have an intriguing ending with Missy but all in all I dislike this episode and the next one doesn’t look good either.

I have to admit to being confused, as I really liked this episode too after seven weeks of boredom and one decent episode.

Yes, there was a lot of humour, but it made such a difference from the darkness of the past eight weeks. It took me back to the Doctor Who that I know, which has a positivity to it.

The Doctor coming out at the end to vanquish the “Boneless” with an accompanying speech was very much the Doctor we used to know, IE: the 10th Doctor and the Sycorax and the 11th Doctor and the Atraxi.

I can understand Joshrr’s point though. Looking at the enemies in this episode, exactly what they were and what they wanted was never properly resolved and if the rest of the episode had been poor, it would have resulted in me coming away frustrated once again.

Flatline, however, had a lot of decent characters in it. It had lots of humour, not least the Tardis shrinking and the Doctor becoming Cousin It from the Adams Family to save the Tardis and the interesting way the siege mode produced a cube with Gallifreyan writing on it.

Clara has come under a lot of stick recently and not totally unfairly, but I thought she did a great job this week. The solution to paint a fake door on the wall and use the power (3D power as opposed to 2D power) coming through to charge the Tardis was a brilliant idea.

Flatline kind of took the failed concept of Series 2 “Fear Her” and tried to improve upon it and for me, it produced an episode that I’m happy with and in this season, which had been largely unsatisfactory up until Episode 8, that’s quite an achievement.

The reappearance of Missy is interesting and again hints at who she may be, but not enough that we know for sure. I look forward to finding out who she is.

Much more of Episode 8 and 9 quality or better to end the season please.

i want the miniature lockdown tardis picked up off the train tracks, awesome. please please make this available to buy.

I really liked this one. It was an intriguing concept well realized. And there were definitely some lovely gags with the shrunken TARDIS. When the Doctor handed a sledgehammer through the door of the TARDIS, with the consequence that it basically emerged from her handbag, that cracked me up. And the Addams Family moment was priceless. Shame it didn’t work . . . the TARDIS having to go into siege mode was a surprise, and an interesting new touch. I liked the way it looked; will we be seeing a “TARDIS siege mode” toy now available? ;-)

And I was pleased there was a payoff to Clara’s lies at the end of the last episode. “What a tangle web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” She came clean with the men in her life once, and has quickly tangled herself up in a second web of lies. Will she be forgiven for this a second time? Some might dismiss that as “soap opera” stuff, but I think it’s important for the things that happen to actually affect the characters. They change from day to day. Some of them become better. Some become worse. And some are broken entirely. What will be Clara’s fate?

So that was amazing, absolutely loved the script and the special effects unbelievable (and by that i mean so believable its amazing) as usual! Great first story by Jamie Mathison hopes he writes more! So excited for the Missy mystery to be solved…someday!

Jamie Mathieson also wrote Mummy On The Orient Express.

Siege Mode must have been a separate system from the chameleon circuit. I suppose this is understandable as the chameleon circuit makes the Tardis blend in, whilst the Siege Mode is a defensive system.

Similar to siege mode, was there not a HADS – Hostile Action Detection System during the Troughton era? I really enjoyed this episode, in particular because of the locations used. Working for the railway, I’ve worked at Barry as well as spent time on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire line so it was nice to say “I’ve been there, worked there” etc etc. The special effects were some of the best yet, as was the plot. I imagined what Logopolis would have been like had the 4th doctor been able to open the doors and ask the Monitor and Adric for the new codes he needed to support the dimensioning sub-routine! Overall this series, the character of Danny Pink is lost on me – other than being potentially another Mickey Smith but not allowed anywhere near the action. Clara did really well to help the Doctor. Disappointed that the ratings were lower again – have all the girls who swooned over David Tennant grown up and buggered off? Still, the weekly chart positions remain favourable. Peter Capaldi is finding his feet and I like him as the Doctor.

Is it just me, or does the Siege Mode look like a scaled down Pandorica??

@martin, it’s going to take time for the ratings to com back up. The people who tuned into episode 1 were pretty appalled by how poor it was. And the next few episodes were also dreadful. There has to be a few really good episodes to get word of mouth going again (and probably a new companion as Clara remains smug and un relatable)

I’d agree with Tractator again. The first seven episodes of Series 8 were been pretty bad, to say the very least, and I was on the verge of giving up on the show myself.

I kept watching though as I hoped for better and we eventually got it, but it took eight weeks to get here. I’m a well-known 10th Doctor fan and it’s because of those years that I stuck with the show this series, despite how frustrated it was making me with such low quality episodes.

It wasn’t Peter Capaldi’s fault though, he’s had two good episodes to prove it isn’t. It’s just a shame that I feel that more than half a series has essentially been wasted and it’s his first series, which is a vital ingratiating time for a new Doctor.

I mean, in his FIRST series, Matt Smith had “Amy’s Choice” and “Vincent and The Doctor”, two of the stand-out episodes of his era for me. It set his Doctor up well and it’s a shame Capaldi hasn’t had that caliber of episode yet.

Still, four more episodes to go plus Christmas and then Doctor Who will be gone again for almost a year. Hopefully the last few episodes will set the 12th Doctor up enough that viewers (including me) will want to come back for more.

YANA! @Valcoor

@Tractator
That makes sense, I’ll stay tuned and see what happens. If we can endure the likes of Paradise Towers, we can stay with it through thick and thin!

Lol@martin! Very true.