I'm glad to hear this ended up resonating for you!

I realize my main argument is a hard sell and, honestly, I am going to try not to sell it too hard to avoid making an annoyance of myself. But I do feel very strongly that Clara is going to be absolutely central to events going far, far back, that the continuity is going to remain heavy, that there will be no strong break between the Pond era and the Clara one, and that Moffat is going to continue to repeat himself as much as ever (and that all of this is a good thing).

I saw someone compare Moffat to Bach once, and I think the insight is spot-on. You don't go complaining that Bach just keeps repeating the same notes over and over again. If it bores you, fine, that's perfectly legitimate, but to say that he shouldn't be doing it at all is to miss the point altogether.

And yes, I'm finally going through a whole bunch of peoples' commentary and meta now. After way too long and after the second half of the season has started.
I am so far behind on reading and responding to meta it is shameful. Hopefully I will rectify that at some point :-\

Oh, I miss my Ponds. I have yet to work through that.
Well, maybe the show will do something about that : )