I agree with most, well played Moffat. I hope you step back as showrunner soon and continue to focus at what you’re good at; Writing good episodes. Sad that the new paint job fell off the tardis at the end, I thought it was cute.
All that was missing was to say that the Hybrid was “no man of woman born”, or that the Hybrid wouldn’t strike until Birnam Wood came to Gallifrey, eh? 
Overall, I liked it a lot. It was no “Heaven Sent,” but what could be? I liked the fact that they made the distinction between the Machiavellian council (and even the General was sympathetic) and others on Gallifrey (the villagers, the army) who respected and revered the Doctor. Gives one hope that their sort could change Gallifrey for the better, now that it’s returned.
And throw Captain Jack into the mix to make it even more interesting.
Well, Twelve did tell Ashildr Jack would “get around” to her. 
That shot was utterly perfect, though.
So, is the second Tardis “greasier on the inside”?
And whatever John Simm’s Master did to Rassilon in The End of Time, it broke him from being a boomingly autocratic Timothy Dalton who vapourised people for disagreeing with him, to a bitter and impotent old man whose army won’t obey him. Go, Master!
Was I the only who appreciated him dropping the spoon when he was told to drop his weapons? I assumed it was a deliberate callback to the (rather risible) Robin Hood episode.
So what did the Doctor forgetting her accomplish? Why was it necessary for one or the other to forget?
Nope, loved it too 
Yeah, that seemed kind of arbitrary to me, too. Just a contrivance to wring some unearned emotion out of a situation that didn’t really seem to merit it.
But maybe someone will come along and explain that Time Itself Would Have Fractured!!! if one or the other didn’t lose memories. (aka ‘the usual’ for Moffat’s Who.) sigh
I’d accept it if I understood, within the logic of the Whoniverse, why?
Meanwhile I suspect that Clara and Me are more likely to make guest spots on “Class” than on the main show or have their own spin off. Maybe in a first ep as a draw?
Think they’ll ever revive the Orson Pink plot hole?
It was necessary for the Doctor to forget Clara because his memories of her were driving him to do things he shouldn’t. That whole “Time Lord Victorious” thing he pulled at the end of time where he said he had to answer to no one - that’s never a good sign with the Doctor.
So, by forgetting her he lost his passion for saving her/avenging her and stopped mucking around with time and Gallifrey and got back to being just “the Doctor” rather than “the Doctor of War” as that one Gallifreyan soldier called him.
His reconstruction of her - his piecing together things about her based on the hole she left behind - enabled him to know something about her without actually remembering her and re-awakening the sort of emotion that could lead him to spend 4.5 billion years punching through a wall or risk fucking up time and the universe. Really, that’s an unhealthy level of passion for either the Doctor or the rest of the universe.
I have a fantasy where Me, Clara, and Kate Stewart all get together one afternoon to compare notes on the Doctor, with Kate being in on what Me and Clara are up to and helping them keep knowledge of that from the Doctor.
Just an idle fancy, that’s all.
The barn was a callback to the John Hurt Doctor of War episode, wasn’t it?
I think a lot of it was an examination and redo of the Donna ending, where the Doctor blithely wiped her memories and wandered off to angst about his loss. I loved Clara’s “nobody is promised tomorrow” lines, where she would far rather die well than surrender her best memories. The Doctor had no right to usurp her decision, and she called him out on the lengths on which he was willing to go to “fix” things, including turning his back on everything he’s always stood for.
And the episode “Listen”, when Clara ended up seeing the Doctor as a child in his bed. It’s the same location, the Doctor’s childhood home.
I appreciate the deliberation that went into that answer; it’s certainly an improvement on the “it had to happen to keep the very universe from rupturing!” cliché. But how does all that fit in with the ‘either Clara OR the Doctor must forget’ bit?
If the choice was a real one–meaning that Clara’s losing her memory would have served the purpose just as well as having the Doctor lose his–then the explanation about the Doctor having to get over his unhealthy level of passion becomes pointless. To wit: If Clara had lost her memory, the Doctor would still have been just as enraged at the Timelords for their ‘find out what the Hybrid is’ gambit (which got Clara killed). Unhealthy passion: still fully intact. Point of Clara forgetting: none (that I can see).
But if the choice was fake–if it was always going to be the Doctor losing his memories, so that he’d get over the unhealthy passion, etc.–then what was the point of putting Clara through the “you, Clara, will have to lose your memories” anguish? Seems kind of sadistic.
I’m still not seeing this as being good writing. (Though I won’t deny that most of Who fandom seems pretty happy with it.)
I think this does makes sense as an explanation of why Moffat would want to write it. But I still can’t see that it makes any kind of sense in-story.
Me, three
This! Very much so!
Brilliant! And since Coal Hill knows Clara has a UNIT connection, having Kate appear periodically works.
If they travel along Coal Hill’s timeline, they could. But somehow I think they won’t.
Yes, and Listen
That is the Doctor with no limits, acting like a more typical Time Lord rather the Doctor - look at what Rassilon has done over time, turning power-grabbing Time Lords into stone figures on his tomb, torturing the Master into madness, and so on. Between Doctor Two and Three the Time Lords forced him to regenerate and mind-wiped his companions. As the Doctor once said, a good man needs no rules, it’s not a good day to find out why he needs so many. The Doctor is not inherently nice, he’s nice because he works at being nice.
So yes, it was kind of sadistic, but that’s the Doctor being a dick.
The Doctor losing his passion about Clara meant he’d stop being a dick.