It also had its triumphs, namely Michelle Gomez as Missy – the Doctor's nemesis, The Master, reincarnated into female form.
I felt for the first time what a numbing terror a war really is, and how personal it is in its triumphs and losses.
Part of the reason we love it is that its conflicts, its violence, its triumphs and failures of leadership and governance and character, mirror our own.
Her life is different but it is equal in its weight, its frustrations, its triumphs.
Art (and fashion photography) that studiously tries to look like not-art has had its triumphs, to be sure, but in many cases it has merely proved that one can be almost as boring as the other.
Because state papers, previously closed, have now become available, it is possible to see the BBC in this era in a clearer light – its triumphs, its mistakes, the political assaults made on it and how it survived them.
And if there is any lesson to be learned from her being named the first black president of an Ivy League institution, she says it is that the scars of her life, and its triumphs, can surely serve as a living example to others.
For the UK, with all its triumphs and eccentricities, belongs to Scots as much as it does to the English even if increasing numbers of them seem ready to disown that glorious, hard-earned heritage, and to simplify their identities by stripping out one of those concentric rings.
In a nationwide vote watched with anxiety all over Europe, Marine Le Pen's deodorised far-right party failed to build on its triumphs in the first round on the previous Sunday, when it had topped the poll in six of the 12 newly drawn regions of mainland France.
A movement needs its triumphs too.
The new tablet's size is one of its triumphs.
