War Games 8

Where the hell did Zoe get the locations of the resistance camps? Surely if the aliens knew that, they'd have wiped out the resistance by now!

Troughton's line: "Your reasons are only too obvious: power," is awfully Pertwee-esque. More foreshadowing?

A new order to the galaxy? A united galactic empire? I swear, that sounds awfully familiar.

The Russian says he saw the SIDRATs before, but is freaked by their appearance. Huh.

Other than that, this episode was entirely enjoyable. We finally got the Doctor/War Chief confrontation that we've been waiting quite a while for. The resistance movements have all come together, another thing that's been foreshadowed for quite some time. And the Doctor's pulling off one more epic gambit. I can't wait for part 9.

Oh, and this is the episode where it is revealed that the Doctor "used to be" a Time Lord. New Series, your attention please...

I suppose if I were going to continue my pacing quibbles, I'd whine about the fact that Arturo Villa or whatever his name is hasn't appeared or even been mentioned before this episode, considering he takes up a good chunk of its time. (The shadowplay when he first arrives is a particularly nice touch.) But the fact of the matter is that this was a shorter story that got blown up into both a 10-parter and Troughton's swan song, and under those circumstances it's really not bad.