Time Heist is one of my favourite Doctor Who stories. I’ve not watched or read many other heist stories, but I do love the way this episode commits to that style of story, particularly with the music. I especially love this because it’s given a twist: the main characters aren’t there to steal, but to rescue two oppressed creatures. I think this the perfect way to do a heist in Doctor Who: it’s not motivated by greed but by a desire to help someone in need.

One of my favourite things about the episode is the Teller. Firstly, it looks good and is quite intimidating as soon as it’s revealed. The Teller’s powers make it even scarier, putting the main characters in danger as even feeling guilty is a risk. But it’s also very easy to sympathise with it: it’s imprisoned and forced to torture people. When we find out the reason it’s there – the second Teller held hostage – it becomes even more tragic. It’s an intelligent creature that’s being exploited. I think the Teller is used very well: at first it’s a cool monster, then we realise that the whole episode revolves around it.

But there’s lots of other interesting characters in this episode. There’s the Doctor and Clara’s fellow bank-robbers, Psi and Saibra. Both are characters with cool abilities that serve not only as tools to break into the bank, but as their motivations: they have both experienced tragedies and need help. The heist is a rescue mission for them as well as for the two Tellers. And in some ways Karabraxos, the villain, is also rescued by the end, as we see her regretting her actions at the end of her life. She’s a great villain: we can see she does awful things, but we learn that over the course of many years she changes and learns to sympathise with those she harms. I think that’s really nice.

I also like how the episode uses time travel. The characters perform a heist and work out why they want to do a heist out of order. The heist is prompted by a future Karabraxos and planned by a future Doctor, who has to keep his past self in the dark to preserve the timeline.

It’s not a perfect story, of course. The Doctor is able to work out the identity of the Architect by the logic “I hate the Architect in the same way that I hate myself, hence the Architect is me”. This is nonsense. But the episode is fun enough that I don’t mind.

Yeah, it’s just really fun. That’s my main message. I had fun watching it and then it stuck in my brain and became one of my favourite episodes.