Good heavens, that was a lot to take in. Baker. Capaldi. Piper. A Tardis powered by a Spectrum computer. King Doctor I of England. My measily human brain is yet to make sense of it all, but here are 10 things we now know about the Whoniverse that we didn't before.

1. The Moment isn't a moment



Just like The Silence turned out to be a religious order rather than an absence of noise, so the Moment, assumed to be the point in time when the Doctor committed genocide of the Daleks and the Timelords, turns out to be not to be a time, but a weapon (a weapon that looks remarkably like iPad game The Room).

The Moment is so bloody dangerous that it's staffed by a conscience - which takes the form of Rose "Bad Wolf" Tyler. This was one of the classiest touches of the episode. It would have been weird to steal Rose back from the alternative universe with her plaything lover boy Doctor, but it was Rose - when she became Bad Wolf by absorbing the Tardis's energy - that finished off the Time War for good, so it makes sense that she should be the gatekeeper of its destruction.

2. The Doctor was responsible for the fall of Arcadia



"I was there at the fall of Arcadia, some day I may even come to terms with that," was a throwaway line from a few series ago. Back then it sounded like just another Doctor Who boast - I danced with Tutankhamun on a solar flare, I stood side of stage at the last Girls Aloud show - but now we know that the fall of Arcadia was the Doctor's doing and the key to the ending of the Time War. I also love that Arcadia is Gallifrey's "second city", meaning this whole episode was basically about the destruction of Timelord Birmingham.

3. Derren Brown is U.N.I.T.'s go-to Doctor Who cover story



Just like Buffy the Vampire Slayer used to tell bite victims that they'd pricked themselves on barbecue forks, U.N.I.T. also have a prepared excuse for the Doctor's showy arrival - they claim it's a Derren Brown stunt. Well, can't harm ticket sales for his live shows I suspect.

4. The Doctor can regenerate backwards



There were two cheeky appearances from Doctors past and future: a brief flash of Malcolm Tucker's eyes - which seemed a little disjointed from the plot but caused screams in the cinema where I saw it - and some slightly nutty rambling from Tom Baker, introducing the idea for the first time that the Doctor can revisit his old bodies. I appreciate that for fans old enough to remember Baker's legendary turn as the Doctor this was an emotional moment. Bur for me it only made me think that if Baker's body is the one that the Doctor chooses to retire in, as is suggested, it would certainly lend credence to the idea that the Face Of Boe is the Doctor in the deep future. They bear a striking resemblence

5. The Doctor is a polygamist



Of all the big ongoing mysteries in Doctor Who that could have been answered, it's brilliant that they chose to answer this one. Almost every incarnation of the Doctor has hinted at having a relationship with "Good Queen Bess" but it was Tennant's Doctor who suggested they might be, not only lovers, but lovers in the middle of a break-up. Elizabeth I briefly pops up in The Shakespeare Code, immediately recognises The Doctor and, like any wronged mistress, orders his execution. There have been hints as to why - he tells an Ood rather laddishly that Elizabeth, or the virgin Queen, "can no longer be known by one of her epithets" - but now we know. He proposed to her thinking she was a Zygon, then had to follow through on his commitment. She probably wasn't best pleased when he jilted her after the wedding, and I wonder how River Song, the Doctor's other wife, feels about all this.

6. Everything seems to be hunky dory for previously presumed dead Clara



Now for a couple of moans. At the end of the last series we left Clara and the Doctor in the bowels of their own existence, with hologram Doctors scurrying about and John Hurt casting a long shadow over himself. Both the Doctor and Clara had jumped into the Doctor's time stream, fracturing themselves through space and time and, according to the Doctor, killing themselves, existing instead as mere shadows. Yet when The Day of the Doctor begins, Clara is a happy-go-lucky motorbiking teacher at Coal Hill School (also the location of the first ever Doctor Who adventure). How did that happen? The only fairly half-arsed nod to what's going on comes when the Doctor says that Clara has met the War Doctor before and she responds that she doesn't really remember. I know Moffatt likes to leave gaps but there's definitely some explaining to do here.

7. He didn't answer any of the big questions



I think a lot of Who fans assumed that this was the episode in which we'd discover the Doctor's name, why the Silence wanted to destroy the Tardis, why the Doctor has to die at Trenzalor, and how Clara managed to stay alive while being spread throughout the Doctor's timeline. We learned nothing about any of that, although that final conversation between Tennant and Smith suggests there's a lot of Trenzalor chat still to come.

8. It's going to be a different kind of show now



When Moffat talked about "a big change", I assumed he meant a rewriting of the rules, maybe an increased danger of morality or a limit to the Tardis's powers. But instead we got a thematic change. No longer is this the show of a wandering loner, travelling the universe without purpose - he's now got a destination, he's trying to find a way home, back to the Gallifrey he ended up saving in a parallel universe. This is an interesting reimagining of the Doctor's purpose, but not one I'm entirely sure I'm on board with, mostly because all the other Time Lords seem like brutish halfwits and I don't know why he'd want to hang out with them anyway.

9. Moffat can rise to the occasion



With so much publicity for the anniversary episode - I swear Doctor Who was more ubiquitous than mawkish Christmas TV adverts this week - the obvious temptation for Moffat was to make this a big sparkly Doctor Who remember-the-good-old-days special. There were plenty of nods to old shows. My favourites were Tennant's hammy reprisal of his once heartbreaking line "I don't want to go", and Smith's acknowledgement that the Doctor gets a lot more game than he use to. But this was a restrained, perfectly executed bit of storytelling. Indeed some have complained that it was a little too light on action and heartfelt moments. I'm not too bothered. I've cried enough tears for Rose, Amy and the Doctor - and I feel like Moffat pitched it just right.

10. Watching TV in the cinema actually works



One last unanswered question: after Doctor Who was cancelled in 1989 because of its limited budgets, dodgy special effects and cardboard baddies that couldn't compete with the big screen sci-fi movies of the time, how did it go down on the big screen at cinemas across the country? I watched the episode in the Vue in Islington, north London, and I have to say the transformation was spectacular. The 3D was impressive but not showy and the effects certainly stood up to the big screen. There were also a few treats for the cinema-going crowd, including a Sontaran guide to cinema etiquette, a rubbishing of 3D from Matt Smith - "Not 12D? Was there a budget cut?" - and, bizarrely, a skit from Anchorman's Ron Burgundy on the classic "Doctor Who. Yes that's what I'm saying, who is he?" gag. Hopefully the BBC will consider extending more of their most successful franchises onto the silver screen. Eggheads would be great in surround sound.

• The article was amended on 24 November 2014. It originally said the Doctor can reintegrate backwards. It should, of course, have said regenerate.