The BBC held a press screening for the upcoming two-part season premiere of Doctor Who.

While Slice of SciFi wasn’t able to attend, we have heard several reports about the screening from those who were lucky enough to attend.

First up is Metro:

Opening episodes of new Doctor Who series are supposed to do a couple of not-very-complex things: quickly get you up-to-speed with who and where the characters are, provide some kind of uncomplicated Earth-threatening danger, chuck in a couple of chase scenes and a few good jokes and then wrap it all up well inside an hour so we can get on with the rest of the series.

Naturally, Steven Moffat – the scriptwriting wizard now hitting his second series in charge of Who, who also managed to knock off Sherlock in his spare time – has decided to do the complete opposite of this.

It’s about five minutes into the first episode, The Impossible Astronaut, when the first jaw-dropping thing happens – and before the second episode, Day Of The Moon, is over, we’ve had at least two more series-changing revelations and a dizzyingly twisty, tightly-packed story that contains so many future plot threads, red herrings, teases and unsolved puzzles that there’s a chance its broadcast will actually make the internet catch fire.

Here’s what Den of Geek has to say:

What I can tell you is this. In 90 minutes, Steven Moffat has not only laid down a fascinating, intriguing path for the show to follow over the coming months (dying to tell you more there, but can’t), he’s also put together an opening adventure that’s quite brilliantly funny, narratively intricate, contains genuine jumps (it’s exceptionally creepy at times), and sets a very, very high bar for what’s to follow.

Enough superlatives for the minute, though. The Impossible Astronaut and Day Of The Moon mark the first time that Doctor Who has opened a series with a multi-part episode since it was revived back in 2005. Both episodes are penned by Steven Moffat, both share the heavy lifting between four main characters (the Doctor, River Song, Amy Pond and Rory), and both are set to have you screaming at your TV sets when the credits roll (both boast excellent cliffhangers, certainly).

Click on the links above each review to read the full review. And mark your calendars for April 23. In case you missed it the first 200 times I’ve posted it on Slice of SciFi, that’s when the new series debuts.