Doctor Who XXXII.4: The Doctor's Wife
The Doctor's Wife was clearly a novelist's episode. It was driven by conversation to an extent greater than most instalments of modern Doctor Who, in the sense that story detail was discussed rather than characters' inner emotional lives. There was a pleasing fleshing out of Time Lord culture; the starting pistol has been fired for ten thousand fanfics about the Doctor's relationship(s) with the Corsair, whether in male or female forms. (So: one Time Lord at least could change sex when they regenerated.)
In terms of Doctor Who's heritage, there was an obvious influence from The Celestial Toymaker, which Neil Gaiman probably saw as a child, House's servants having some parallels with the Toymaker's toys. There was a Russell T Davies trope, the mysterious cryptic message; and Rory appeared to die again. If I had been a child I would have been terrified that Rory's decayed corpse would turn round and rant at Amy (never going to happen on an early evening these days); as it is I was only mildly apprehensive.
There was never any real secret as to whom the Doctor's Wife was going to be, from the cross-editing of the disappearance of the TARDIS Matrix (a nice touch - the TARDIS has an Eye of Harmony, we learned in the TVM in 1996, and now it has a Matrix too - lots of fun in imagined universes possible) and the awakening of the hollowed-out Idris, now with the TARDIS's 'soul'. I liked the personified TARDIS - after over three decades avidly following this programme, it was marvellous to meet her at last.
Great to have the reflective coda at the end, and it's in keeping with the apparently restored innocence of the Doctor, but his underlying knowingness and lingering post-Eccleston and post-Tennant sexual jealousy, that he allocated Mr and Mrs Pond bunk beds.
In terms of Doctor Who's heritage, there was an obvious influence from The Celestial Toymaker, which Neil Gaiman probably saw as a child, House's servants having some parallels with the Toymaker's toys. There was a Russell T Davies trope, the mysterious cryptic message; and Rory appeared to die again. If I had been a child I would have been terrified that Rory's decayed corpse would turn round and rant at Amy (never going to happen on an early evening these days); as it is I was only mildly apprehensive.
There was never any real secret as to whom the Doctor's Wife was going to be, from the cross-editing of the disappearance of the TARDIS Matrix (a nice touch - the TARDIS has an Eye of Harmony, we learned in the TVM in 1996, and now it has a Matrix too - lots of fun in imagined universes possible) and the awakening of the hollowed-out Idris, now with the TARDIS's 'soul'. I liked the personified TARDIS - after over three decades avidly following this programme, it was marvellous to meet her at last.
Great to have the reflective coda at the end, and it's in keeping with the apparently restored innocence of the Doctor, but his underlying knowingness and lingering post-Eccleston and post-Tennant sexual jealousy, that he allocated Mr and Mrs Pond bunk beds.