Exactly. What he said is that he had sent the signal to direct the Cyberman’s weapon to reverse. He had actually sent that signal, as the Cyberman confirmed.
Did he not, later on, state outright that he had a plan, and then admit to Clara that he didn’t?
They were great in Blink. They were also special in Blink, a completely new and unique baddie with this very interesting way of “killing” you. Then they were baddies who killed you in very normal ways and were EVERYWHERE, including THE STATUE OF FUCKING LIBERTY. Meh. Moffat can’t get off this show fast enough for me.
Still, liked the Christmas special! 
The Silence best strategy is to move to a vantage point from which he can see the Angel and the Angel can no longer see him. At that point, the Angel should forget, and the Silence can then break observation of the Angel.
Those two are probably Moffat’s most iconic DW monsters, and I think this was the first time they’ve appeared in the same episode, though they had no scenes together.
Mark Gatiss! Although he’s a writer, not a director … .
I enjoyed the episode, but mostly it (and the 50th anniversary special) gave me great hope for the future, for multiple reasons:
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It tied up a whole bunch of plot lines that had been lingering around for way too long.
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The 50th anniversary special made fun of the “wave the sonic screwdriver around like a deadly magic wand” stuff, so maybe that’s a sign that its going to go back to just being a handy Swiss Army knife.
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The new Doctor is older so maybe we’re going to see an end to the stupid “flirt with the companion” stuff.
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I hope the Timelords are back for good. I want there to be a bunch of cranky, pompous authority figures for the Doctor to annoy.
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The new Doctor has an intensity that neither Ten nor Eleven could muster. His brief appearance reminded me of a mixture of Three and Four. (In contrast, Matt Smith felt like mostly Two with a little One.) I’m hoping for a confident, “man of action” Doctor without the emotional baggage of the most recent incarnations.
One thing that’s interesting about the way they got Matt Smith out: while the actor playing the Doctor is the oldest we’ve had in decades, within the show, this is the youngest he’s been in centuries.
In one of the David Tennant episodes, he talks about how he used to be an old, crotchety man, “like you do when you’re young.” That would make an interesting callback if it turns out that Capaldi actually is the first of a whole new cycle of regenerations.
Somehow, I just got into Doctor Who about a month ago. I caught most of one episode on BBC during Thanksgiving, and decided to ask my DVR to record every episode that flies by. It’s a bit random, and leads to a little confusion at times. It also gives me something to watch while on the exercise bike. 
I wasn’t sure if I should watch this episode now, or wait until I had a bunch more under my belt. But I decided I can’t live in the past. 
I liked the episode, but obviously didn’t understand the importance of many of the subplots. I thought the goodbye at the end was touching.
Matt Smith is my first Doctor, and he’s what I picture in the roll. But I’ve also seen a bunch of David Tennant episodes now, and like them too.
Did anyone catch what Clara said her name was when they first got to Christmas?
I had subtitles on and I don’t remember what she said so I assume it wasn’t anything surprising or I would have noticed.
Formerly bubbly personality masking bossy control freak.
…that you can remember! 
I thought it was much less self-indulgent than The End of Time, at least. Which also had the longest regeneration, taking several months as I recall it.
If anybody can do that it’s Peter Capaldi. Ye gods and little fishes, they grow them ugly in Glasgow: Capaldi, Craig Ferguson, and David Tennant. (Oh, come on, Tennant fangurlz. His face is a collection of miss-matched parts, he’s only handsome in a certain angle and a certain light, and it all vanishes in that rictus when he’s playing scared.)
In “Day of the Moon” the Silence was tricked into hypnotizing humans who saw them into killing them (the Silence) on sight.
How come Clara didn’t try to kill the Silence she saw?
Maybe she never saw the moon landing? Maybe getting the same subliminal suggestion over and over eventually dilutes is effect? Maybe at some point if the forty years between the moon landing and Clara’s birth, the Silence were able to edit out the subliminal message from most copies of the transmission, which are the only ones Clara has seen growing up? Maybe the Doctor edited it out himself, figuring that the Silence’s interest in Earth was past, and not wanting the newly space-capable human race to commit a genocide they’d never remember?
I wondered about it too. I mean, yeah, you can concoct a billion explanations easily, but with an episode as entangled in continuity as this one was, not addressing that point seems a bit out of place.
Though I do have this mental image of Clara shrieking some primal battle cry, rushing down the Slience, and brutally murdering it in cold blood.
Edit: If you want a really bad fanwank – somehow the suggestion only brainwashed people to kill renegade Silence, not the main-branch ones.
I find David Tennant quite adorable (or, more to the point, adorkable), but that’s just MHO.
As for Peter–despite the fact that he’s fifteen years older than me I see a little of the silver fox in him. It often depends on the shot and the circumstances, but he can be quite attractive in the same way as Hugh Laurie (with whom he starred in a Britcom)–not conventionally so, but something about him. Maybe the eyes have it.
But the thing is…I’ve seen some shots from the last days of The Thick Of It, which only ended last year, and he looked, I dunno, more robust, more filled out than he does in recent pictures and the end of TotD, where he seems a bit gaunter. Same with his previous appearance in “Fires of Pompeii”, which was only five years ago and that isn’t all that long. Has he been well?
I agree that this episode tied up some loose ends, but it created a sort of paradox. If the Doctor doesn’t die on Trenzalore, since the time lords hand him a regeneration, then his grave can’t be there, and then Clara can’t jump in his timestream and save him or whatever, and most of season 7 doesn’t make sense. Also, the confessional priest Silence wasn’t that well thought out because why would they be on Earth from the beginning of humans?
Nah, the doctor’s grave will still be Trenzalore. It just turns out he hasn’t happened to die yet.
My final continuity observation. Are we to assume that “The Day of the Doctor” got rid of the whole, he did what he did to keep the Time Lords from destroying the universe to become beings of pure consciousness?
And in “Time of the Doctor” no mention of “Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could-have-been King with his army of Meanwhiles and Never-weres.” getting loose if Gallifrey returns.
Basically we’re to ignore the episode “The End of Time”?