32.04: The Doctor's Wife

[Lenny]

By following a Time Lord distress signal, the Doctor endangers Amy, Rory and the TARDIS.

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I swear the Beeb's descriptions of episodes get shorter each week...

Two things to look forward to about this episode! First off, The Doctor's Wife is the long-awaited episode penned by Neil Gaiman and, secondly, it marks a re-appearance of everyone's favourite aliens - The Oooooooood!

EDIT: Mustn't forget Michael Sheen, either!

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Well, there's filler, and then there's Filler. This episode was, of couse, filler of the capital F kind - we're taken out of the Universe, some things happen, and we return to where we started. If the story arc was a straight line, today's episode would be a circle tangent to the main story.

And I think this might be my favourite NuWho episode yet!

Strangely dark, with our first look at life in the TARDIS beyond the control room (though I'm slightly disappointed we only saw corridors. We didn't even see the new room for Amy and Rory), a nod towards Tennant's Doctor and inspiration from Moffat's first Doctor Who adventure: Doctor Who and the Curse of the Fatal Death.

The chemistry between the Doctor and the TARDIS was good (I particularly like the fact that the TARDIS claims she stole the Doctor so that she could see all of time and space), the Ood turned out to be evil (or just following orders? After all, they pine away and die without orders) even though it had bright green eyes (past Ood have always had red eyes when the bloodlust took them) and we saw a dozen other Time Lords.

Not much else can be said, really.

 

[Lenny]

Bah... damn you, edit limit (would a mod mind merging my messages? Merci)!

Two things I forgot to mention:

First off, the TARDIS appears to exist everywhere and everywhen, giving her the fantastic ability to archive console rooms that have been, are and will be (bit of a shame that Tennant's was deleted), or finish the Doctor's sentences before he begins.

Secondly, and it stems from the aforementioned wonderful ability, a message that most probably relates to the mid-series finale:

The only water in the forest is the River.​

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Third! Rory dies. Again.

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And if anyone is interested, some nice videos on the DW site, including a few tidbits from @neilhimself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/episodes/b011884d/galleries/episode_four_bts

 

[thaddeus6th]

I'm a bit less enthusiastic, though I did like it. The basic plot was quite good, and I do like the Ood, but I disliked the crying at the end and yet another Time Lord tease. Just bring them back!

It's a shame we won't see the Corsair [well, except for his severed forearm], 'twas a cool name and the ouroboros reminded me of Red Dwarf.

http://thaddeusthesixth.blogspot.com/2011/05/doctor-who-doctors-wife.html

 

[chopper]

too much crying in this series, unfortunately. but overall rather enjoyable. still doesn't pip my all-time Nu-Who fave-rave - The Girl in the Fireplace.

 

[thaddeus6th]

That was very good. Sophie Thingummyjig looked extremely lovely in it.

Blink and The Impossible Planet were better, in my opinion, but The Girl in the Fireplace was also excellent.

 

[HoopyFrood]

New running joke in our house: "Has Rory died again?"

Very Gaimany episode! I liked the patchwork people and Suranne Jones was a wonderful TARDIS! I really loved her and the Doctor together. Heh, sexy.

Not much else to say. Nothing for me to speculate on (that I can think of). Darn. I can't mass post like the last few weeks...

 

[Perpetual Man]

I really enjoyed it.

As Lenny said it is a Filler episode with the big 'F' but filled with bits and pieces for the long time Doctor Who fans, and a lot of insight into how the TARDIS works.

The fact that when you eject some rooms, you can reprogram and rebuild them; that the TARDIS saves old control room because it wants too! It's nice to see the inside of the TARDIS, although not enough of it unfortunately.

I liked it when Idris said that she liked being called 'Old Girl' (and Sexy...)

It's a simple idea but a great one, give the TARDIS a body and let it talk to the Doctor... brilliance - The Doctor's Wife so much speculation and yet so obvious in the end, who/what else was it going to be?

The line: The only water in the forest is the River.

Very intriguing... a reference to River I guess, but are we going to lose Amy to some forest (real or otherwise) so we can be told the above?

 

[HoopyFrood]

I saw little bits by Moffat himself, explaining what was to come in each episode (hardly gave anything away...one of them was him just rambling on a completely different point). One that I recall is that the worst thing to do is hurt a hair on Amy's head and something about the Doctor and Rory going off to save her...I think...

 

[Ursa major]

Cue bald Amy....

 

[Tillane]

Yeah, really enjoyed this. A great idea, and for the most part very nicely executed, though like Lenny I was a little disappointed that we only got to see corridors when Amy and Rory went running around the Tardis.

Suranne Jones seemed to be channelling Helena Bonham-Carter for her performance (not a bad thing in my book), and I thought some of the dialogue between Idris and the Doctor was great. Didn't think the building of the Tardis console was particularly believable, but it wasn't something that spoiled my enjoyment of the ep.

The only thing that felt out of place, I have to say, was that line about River. Seemed a bit like it had been shoehorned in there, and while it's an interesting little line it just didn't feel natural (and I don't suppose it was in Gaiman's original script). Still, it is intriguing. River - obvious. Water in the forest? Well, we've seen River in two forests (kind of; the library in Silence In The Library/Forest of the Dead, and the cybernetic forest in the crashed Byzantium). Whether it's that kind of reference...not sure.

Oh, and we have another venture into somewhere outside our universe. I'm spotting a pattern here...

 

[HoopyFrood]

So are we just being given fairly heavy-handed hints, or will we find out that the river reference isn't to the thing (well, person) we all expect it too...

I rather liked that the big dramatic "He will knock four times" from Tennant's era turned out to be something much more simple...

 

[No One]

Yeah, really enjoyed this. A great idea, and for the most part very nicely executed, though like Lenny I was a little disappointed that we only got to see corridors when Amy and Rory went running around the Tardis.

Speaking of Gaiman's original script - who knows what he might have described and what had to be limited by time and budget.

Really enjoyed the episode though.

 

[Tillane]

If Moffatt follows the tack he took last series with the cracks in the universe, I think we can take the River references at face value. We may even get a sort-of explanation in the mid-series finale, though I wouldn't want to put my house on it.

Whatever else, I'm pretty sure he'll be keeping something big back that we won't spot until it happens. Or at least something that I won't spot...

 

[Foxbat]

Enjoyed this episode and I'm also thinking the obvious about River and the forest. I'm wondering if it might be an oblique reference to a place without any water (apart from River) rather than a literal forest (some kind of structures in a desert or building as in the Library)

On a slightly different note, if perchance Mr Moffat was to read this, I hope he realises we are speculating rather than spoiling

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I can't help but notice that there are two things that keep appearing in every episode of this season so far: (1) repeated, pointed references to the "bigger on the inside" concept, and (2) things like mobiles with dangly, hangy things on them.

The hangy things -- mobiles in the first two episodes, something like a windchime sort of thing on the pirate ship (I think, I may have forgotten the specifics), and in this one it was the staff that Uncle was holding at the beginning.

This episode had even more of the "bigger on the inside" thing going on, including the TARDIS lady's reference to people being bigger on the inside and the Doctor's statement to the House about his being big as a planet but small on the inside.

Bearing in mind that I have seen very few episodes outside of this season and last, it still seems like it's more pointed now. And the hangy things are really standing out for me.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Speaking of Gaiman's original script - who knows what he might have described and what had to be limited by time and budget.

Really enjoyed the episode though.

In the latest issue of SFX there is an interview with Gaiman and he talks about what he wanted to do with the episode. He spent months researching everything he could get his hands on about the TARDIS and tried to reference it all in his script. The finished article would have been over 90 minutes screen time so he had to trim it a 'little!'

His biggest disappointment was having to cut a reference to the Mercury Fluid Link....

Incidently there is an interview with Karen Gillan in the same issue that is quite... interesting.

Just before they started filming Steven Moffat called them in one at a time and told them what was going to happen for the character in the season. She claims that it was shocking - but made little sense without all the information and they're under strict instructions not to talk about it, even to each other.

So the actors know their character arcs, some of the regular guest stars know their bits, and key guests no theirs.

Only Moffat and perhaps Smith know everything...

 

[PTeppic]

Speaking of Gaiman's original script - who knows what he might have described and what had to be limited by time and budget.

In "Confidential", it was mentioned that Gaiman had submitted a couple of ideas that were too off-the-wall to make, before submitting this one. This was the sane one?

 

[PTeppic]

Oh dear, I really must stop thinking.

Omnipotent: knowing everything from space and time
Omnipresent: being everywhere in space and time
Compassionate parental oversight: "I always took you where you needed to go" (c.f. "You didn't always take me where I wanted to go!").

This is potentially setting us up for a near-literal deus ex machina at some point, presumably fairly soon.

 

[Dave]

...if perchance Mr Moffat was to read this, I hope he realises we are speculating rather than spoiling

Surely, it isn't spoiling unless you have access to the actual written plot, have already seen the episodes, or you are a Time Traveller yourself. Otherwise, it is all speculation. If perchance, you happen to be correct, then it was a bit too obvious.

We are seeing many things recently that I would have expected to have seen before, if they had ever existed, the Time Lord mail-boxes for instance. I'm not sure I like this level of retconning.

Yes, Rory dead again! Snore!

I'd like to have seen the Pertwee or Tom Baker consoles again, or the actual swimming pool!

The creature left the place 'beyond our Universe' because the Doctor let slip that there were no more TARDIS' left for it to lure and feed upon. So, why did it come into our Universe? There are still no TARDIS' left for it to feed upon. Or can it feed upon other sources of energy?

Other than that it was okay. There was a lot of typical Doctor Who 'running around' in this week.

 

[Vladd67]

Nice to see the corridors looked like something from the Tardis. Previous shots of the Tardis interior look iirc suspiciously like the stairwells at the BBC.