Aside from the beginnings and endings of seasons, The Doctor's Wife by Neil Gaiman comes as close to a signature event as many of us are likely to see in Doctor Who-dom. With anticipation and the accompanying stakes running high, there was much to deliver on. What most came across, both in the story itself, and especially in the "Confidential" that followed, was how very much of a fanboy Gaiman is.
The reappearance of the 9/10 Console room was just one of the so many reveals and/or callbacks to elements both nu-and-classic that populated the script. If you boil it down, it's a pretty spare script for plotting and characters. House (wouldn't Hugh Laurie's voice have been a surreal treat here) is quite a bit like Omega from The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors in his motivation to cross over to the "real" universe. But Auntie, Uncle, Nephew, and Idris (wouldn't Astrid have worked better had it not been taken already) all worked wonderfully.
Having said all that, this is not a story for relatively inexperienced Doctor Who fans. This fans first viewing left us somewhat muddled, having the intellect satisfied but without the emotional punch other stories have been able to deliver. And that's OK… more than that actually. A second viewing left the THT Brain Trust feeling more fully satisfied. How 'bout you?
Images and caps for The Doctor's Wife are now online.
Also with four stories down we resuscitate the 2011 Dynamic Ratings Table.
Those longing for a more straightforward style of story-telling after two initial weeks of time-twisty Moffat-y goodness were hopefully not disappointed by 
It was also nice to see the Doctor getting his, for lack of a better word, comeuppance, not once but three times during the episode. The Amy arc was neatly and briefly positioned, notable that the only character in the episode with an eyepatch should be the mystery woman. We also kept thinking of Susan Oliver from the original Jeffrey Hunter led-Star Trek pilot back in 1964 when seeing Lily Cole as the Siren/Nurse (this just means we've been around the block several hundred times).
As for 
What is it about Doctor Who and spacesuits? It's hard not to think of 
Clearly Moffat takes his season openers more seriously than RTD did, and comparisons to previous years end-of-season arc cliffhangers feel right in terms of tone. We're all on board again, and isn't that nice to say.
Although you might think we here at the Tour should be used to it by now, the week leading up to a new season is one of immense anticipation for us, and we suspect you as well. One of the ways we get ourselves ready is to put forward a clear-the-decks site wide update. This one covers every corner of the site and adds approximately 6500 images while raising the overall image count to just under 112,000 images. As always to find out where the changes landed go to 
mages for each story will only appear after the story has been transmitted on BBC1. Caps for the episodes should appear the day after.
Nothing like a jaw-dropping trailer for whipping fans into a froth, 
As for The Tour, we're getting ready to drop a house-cleaning site wide update during the weekend of the 16th-17th to prepare us to plunge headlong into the the first half of this split season. After that we'll be in-season mode for a while.