Thanks - I missed that somehow.
The ocean is highly acidic, and thus, (more or less) quickly dissolves bone (and furniture); the calcium in the solution further accelerates the process (how? Uh, I could explain but… run!), until it reaches a saturation point, at which the skulls are dissolved at the same rate that new ones are added. That way, you have an initial buildup to a few layers depth, which then remains roughly constant. 
(I feel dirty when I fanwank…)
It’s just really deep water.
If the castle is built on the peak of an underwater mountain in a really, really deep ocean then maybe the lumps just keep slowly sliding down the slope.
In other words, it’s skulls all the way down.
Did time pass differently inside of the dial, or when he got out was it a couple billion years in the future?
Well, the stars moved - but I guess the pocket universe could have the same star map. Or it wasn’t a pocket universe. And even if 2 billion years have passed in our universe, he has a time machine: he’s been farther into the future than that before.
…oh well played Moffatt: I didn’t pick up where it was going until about 30 seconds before the reveal. That was brilliant. Best Capaldi episode yet.
This’ll have to be spoilered, even although it’s mostly just opinion:
I’m very happy with the send-off both Clara and Ishildr get. Cruising space and time together in a retro Tardis, oh yeah
Which reveal? This one?
I’ve got to agree, and it leaves the door open for a spin-off series.
Ehh… disappointed after the previous ep. Nothing really happened. But the not-happening stuff wasn’t nearly as interesting as last week’s not-happening stuff. And have I missed a lot of backstory? All that Matrix stuff, is that Old Who canon?
ETA: never mind, just reread Hamster King’s conjecture upthread. HK called it. All. Kinda scary.
So Clara can just wander around forever as long as she doesn’t revisit her death moment? Is she immortal?
I’m obliged to agree. From spoon to screwdriver, via sex change regeneration, it barely put a foot wrong. I might even watch the obvious spin-off (and there’s an obvious way they could guarantee I did…)
ETA: The xmas special looks dreadful though. It made wonder, surely he’s already done one? I couldn’t recall it all, had to look it up…at which the full horror of it revisited me. Some things are best forgotten.
Lots of Huhs for me. If I am missing obvious things please explain.
So no even weak-assed explanation of how the Gallifreyans got out of the pocket universe they were trapped in to set up the trap for the Doctor. Just that they were clever?
No Gallifrey in the ruins destroyed by the Hybrid, no clear answer as to which Hybrid was being referenced (although the Doctor did apparently mean “Me” when he said “the Hybrid is me” and no clear reason why the destruction was averted … maybe just that it will be so long as Clara eventually returns to the moment of her death.
Or maybe meant to understand that the Hybrid is the partnership of Clara and the Doctor as intended to occur by Missy as part of a long range plan so that that Hybrid could cause the destruction of Gallifrey, Missy who nevertheless tried to get the Doctor to kill Clara when in the Dalek, before such Gallifreyan demise occurred? Huh?
The Doctor pieced together the story of what happened on Gallifrey and of Clara enough to tell in all its detail … from wandering about in Nevada with no Tardis? Huh?
Nice to have turnabout on the Doctor for the fate of Donna, although his loss was handled with more compassion.
I’ve tried to commit to not overthinking the show but if they are going to make the twists be the fun then the twists really need be ones that are internally consistent within the shows.
ETA: Christmas special looks like fun. Will it end with the Doctor giving a sonic screwdriver to River as they say good bye? The one he knows he will need in The Library? Just finishing their arc with some closure?
That will probably be a controversial ending, but I liked it a lot. I was actually thinking that Clara would refuse to let the Doctor save her and go back to Trap Lane, but I’ll take that ending happily. That whole arc was probably what The Doctor’s Daughter should have been all along. And I’m usually disappointed by the series arc ending revelations, but I really liked it that the prophecy about the Hybrid was both completely accurate, and utterly irrelevant. The two possible Hybrids were sitting in the ruins of Gallifrey, but it didn’t even matter because neither of them did it, and basically the Time Lords were just a bunch of old women starting at shadows. A very deeply satisfying ending to this season. And the Dalek croaking “Exterminate…me…” was just scary and sad.
And Nancarrow, yeah, the Matrix was originally from The Deadly Assassin, a Tom Baker story which last week’s episode echoed quite a lot. It’s basically an online database uploaded from the memories of all the Timelords on their deaths: when we first saw it it was run as a Virtual Reality simulation to torment the Doctor.
And my brother has just explained something to me that I missed: the prophecy was that the Hybrid would sacrifice a billion hearts to heal his own. That’s exactly what the Doctor *did * do. The hearts he sacrificed were his own, each and every time he died in the castle. The prophecy was absolutely true, except that everyone misinterpreted it.
Are you actually suggesting Moffatt … knows what he’s doing!!?
The final line on the chalkboard is what got to me (she can no longer tell him to remember, which is what she’s asked for from one of her earliest appearances to right before her death).
It was brilliant. Well done, Moffatt.
There’s obvious cameos, or even whole plots, that herself can do. I just hope we get an episode at some point where she and Jane Austen prank each other.
And I would love to know how she knows Miss Jane is a great kisser.
I’d love to see a Clara & Me spinoff. But I’ll settle for scattered cameos in season ten.