not that spoiler-y. We hear the lizard line from Strax and the rest don't really tell us anything new.

i CANNOT wait for this episode! Season 7.2 had several good episodes, and several bad ones, ie the first few episodes up to hide. Post "Hide", the episodes have been relatively good, and has intrigued me again! This final episode better be a better finale than the one to 7.1!

what? nonsense? Bells of St. John is one of my favorites of the whole Series and Cold War was a great Alien like horror story.

Yeah, okay, I didn't explain my opinion anymore than you did, but nevertheless, I just couldn't let your so obviously wrong words stand! ;)

I think Series 7 stands up very well so far in comparison to the rest of Doctor Who. It's not the best, certainly, but there's lots to love, even in the very flawed stories. One thing this Series does exceedingly well is its execution of the show's central premise. This time we truly had a brand new exciting adventure with each episode, every week somewhere entirely else than the previous one. It's just what you would expect from a show that has a mad man with a box as a main character who can travel anywhere in time and space.

The main flaw of the Series, though, is the blockbuster dictate. Blockbuster movies are always longer than 45 minutes, at least twice as long, so naturally the script writers try to cram a story in less time than they ought to have. While it was exciting to see a brand new place and world with each episode, you kinda wish you could soak it in for a while longer. This concept of a blockbuster every week should have been tied to a longer running time, like 60 minutes.

I disagree. This season has been a bunch of random nonsense that has been very light on plot and high on camp. There's a good reason why RTD introduced an ongoing season "arc" in his era...you couldn't tell a decent story in 45 minutes blocks of explosions and running around. Moffat's attempt to make each weekend a stand-alone "event" has done a lot to show just how limiting the 45-minute episode really is. The preview of the finale has to be the most uninspiring thing I've seen in Who in years...RTD knew how to build up to a season finale. So did Moffat, once. But this "season" of stand-alone yawnfests has done nothing to create the same excitement of previous years.

ah so excited! some idiot on imdb has already given away who clara is but i don't care im still gonna enjoy the anticipation of seeing it on screen!

I disagree with your disagreement then. :P If I learned one thing on the internet, then that it is useless to put any effort at all into comments. Because it's not like anyone would care about arguments. ;) And a discussion is always too fleeting for the effort to be worth it.

For you it's a yawnfest, I on the other hand had lots of fun and thought this was the most exciting series of New Who yet. Well, who's right now? We both? Not one of us? ;)

I guess subjectively you simply didn't enjoy the series so far, fair enough. But I don't think that's exactly proof that the series was bad. I don't enjoy the music of Bach, Schönberg or the paintings of Paul Klee all that much either. And what a snoozefest that movie Solaris was! What does that say, though? It doesn't mean that these works are badly made, certainly? It may just mean that I have no access to them. Craftsmanship is something which can be more objectively, though not entirely, talked about than personal enjoyment. But if you don't like something, then the question about the quality of craftsmanship might just as well not matter to you.
Maybe I'll write an essay about the craftsmanship that went into this series one day. Not today. ;)

Also disagree with you about the preview for the finale. I feel it suggests that we will be in for something special. Uninspired is pretty much the opposite of the word I would use. "Uninspired" is rarely the word I would use to describe a Moffat episode in general. "An incoherent mess", on the other hand...
I'm sure there are good reasons why you perceive the series in such a contrary fashion to me, but I wouldn't know which they are. Oh, mysterious human nature!

I wonder though why 45 minutes were rarely enough this series, but were enough for many stories of past series. Blink, Midnight or The Doctor's Wife weren't any less standalone. Like I said, it might have something to do with trying to go for a blockbuster feeling, with trying to cram a whole movie into the 45 minute format.

I saw a picture of Clara dressed differently in the TARDIS with the shillouette of what looked like the 6th Doctor! What?!