Review: The Doctor's Wife
The Doctor's Wife is the fourth episode in Season Thirty-Two of Doctor Who
“The Doctor’s Wife” is an episode of two identities and two halves; the first is quirky and playing too hard for the laughs but the second is…stunningly tense, dramatic and emotional.
The plot is quite ingenious; the Doctor is lured to a junkyard outside of the Universe by an alien entity called House who steals the TARDIS (with Amy and Rory locked inside) after stripping the box of its Time Matrix soul and popping it into a human woman. Cue the Doctor and the TARDIS working together to go after their police box and save the day.
But begin at the beginning as they say and the beginning is interesting if not captivating; intriguing if not engaging; quirky if not funny. It’s like it just misses the mark it was aiming for by millimeters. Maybe the issue is the junkyard planet which is grimy but not creepy enough because everything is just in dirty indiscriminating piles. Maybe part of it is the Patchwork People inhabitants; Uncle, Auntie, Nephew and Idris (before the soul swap) who come across as odd but not really threatening enough. Uncle and Auntie are quirky in a Beetlejuice kind of a way but their oddity, that their bodies are a junkyard of Time Lord parts, doesn’t make them threatening so much as victims of House. Maybe House (wonderfully voiced by Martin Sheen) is the issue because on the planet he’s equally not really threatening enough. Additionally, the idea of other Time Lords being out here is too obvious a red herring - even with the regenerating little girl in the opening episode. Kudos though for getting in the point that gender apparently is not fixed in regenerating opening up the possibility that the next Doctor could be female.
But maybe the true issue with the first half of the episode is that it feels like the key players in this story are trying too hard specifically Matt Smith and Suranne Jones. I love Smith as the Doctor. I believe Smith’s Doctor is 900 years old with issues; dark in his anger, irrepressible in his delight at the universe, quirky in a good way about his preferences which are decidedly not human. I love the physicality he’s brought to the Doctor. But here for the first part of the story, much of Smith’s performance seems too big, his movements too emphasized - the fall down with the mail hitting him, his response to being kissed, the search for the Time Lords. It’s not until he realizes the Doctor’s been duped that he seems to find his groove again. Equally, Suranne Jones who plays the TARDIS comes across as too manic, too crazy in the first scenes where she sees the Doctor and later gets locked up. Again, everything is too emphasized, too exaggerated.
However, as I said, this is an episode of two halves and for everything the episode isn’t in the first half, it is in the second: the scene where the Doctor learns that the crazy woman is the soul of his TARDIS is the turning point; Smith and Jones just knock that scene out of the park. “You’re my TARDIS” he says wonderingly; “And you’re my Doctor” she answers back promptly; the fondness, the love for each other is so tangible in that scene that you can reach out and touch it.
Moreover, every scene after that between them just sings with the same affection and energy. From their bickering over whether she’s always taken him where he’s wanted (she’s always taken him where he’s needed to go), to her observation that she sees a graveyard, he sees a junkyard of parts with which to build another TARDIS, to the moment she calls him “a beautiful idiot” it’s all lovingly executed.
But the key scene where they say goodbye (and hello) towards the end is just stunning. Both Smith and Jones outdo themselves in that scene; both fighting back tears, both portraying their characters as so vulnerable and so completely not wanting to let go of the ability to talk to each other, both so much each other’s soul-mates that it hurts…I’m tearing up just thinking about it again; I was a puddle during the first watch, a sobbing mess during the rewatch for this review.
And everything improves in this second half: House occupying the TARDIS becomes an actual threat as he plays cat and mouse games with Rory and Amy (although shame we only saw the same corridor several times rather than other rooms of the TARDIS). Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan do a sterling job with their parts; emotional and angsty with the head games, brave and courageous in saving the TARDIS (love that the TARDIS considers Rory the Pretty One). Loved the flash of ‘thoughts’ as Amy opened the door (very nice editing/directing choice), and I LOVED that they ended up in the old Ninth/Tenth Doctor TARDIS control room.
I probably should mention before the end of the review that the award-winning Neil Gaiman was on writing duties for this episode. Some of his writing style definitely comes through in the odd quirkiness and the emotion of the piece. I wouldn’t say I was impressed with this as I was when Richard Curtis guested last season but it’s not a bad effort by any means.
Ultimately, the first half tries too hard to downplay everything, to play at smoke and mirrors trying to make the reveal all the more dramatic. But it was the first half and it is easily forgotten with the sheer brilliance of the second. I would not have missed that final scene between the TARDIS and her Doctor for the world.
Originally posted at GeekSpeak Magazine
“The Doctor’s Wife” is an episode of two identities and two halves; the first is quirky and playing too hard for the laughs but the second is…stunningly tense, dramatic and emotional.
The plot is quite ingenious; the Doctor is lured to a junkyard outside of the Universe by an alien entity called House who steals the TARDIS (with Amy and Rory locked inside) after stripping the box of its Time Matrix soul and popping it into a human woman. Cue the Doctor and the TARDIS working together to go after their police box and save the day.
But begin at the beginning as they say and the beginning is interesting if not captivating; intriguing if not engaging; quirky if not funny. It’s like it just misses the mark it was aiming for by millimeters. Maybe the issue is the junkyard planet which is grimy but not creepy enough because everything is just in dirty indiscriminating piles. Maybe part of it is the Patchwork People inhabitants; Uncle, Auntie, Nephew and Idris (before the soul swap) who come across as odd but not really threatening enough. Uncle and Auntie are quirky in a Beetlejuice kind of a way but their oddity, that their bodies are a junkyard of Time Lord parts, doesn’t make them threatening so much as victims of House. Maybe House (wonderfully voiced by Martin Sheen) is the issue because on the planet he’s equally not really threatening enough. Additionally, the idea of other Time Lords being out here is too obvious a red herring - even with the regenerating little girl in the opening episode. Kudos though for getting in the point that gender apparently is not fixed in regenerating opening up the possibility that the next Doctor could be female.
But maybe the true issue with the first half of the episode is that it feels like the key players in this story are trying too hard specifically Matt Smith and Suranne Jones. I love Smith as the Doctor. I believe Smith’s Doctor is 900 years old with issues; dark in his anger, irrepressible in his delight at the universe, quirky in a good way about his preferences which are decidedly not human. I love the physicality he’s brought to the Doctor. But here for the first part of the story, much of Smith’s performance seems too big, his movements too emphasized - the fall down with the mail hitting him, his response to being kissed, the search for the Time Lords. It’s not until he realizes the Doctor’s been duped that he seems to find his groove again. Equally, Suranne Jones who plays the TARDIS comes across as too manic, too crazy in the first scenes where she sees the Doctor and later gets locked up. Again, everything is too emphasized, too exaggerated.
However, as I said, this is an episode of two halves and for everything the episode isn’t in the first half, it is in the second: the scene where the Doctor learns that the crazy woman is the soul of his TARDIS is the turning point; Smith and Jones just knock that scene out of the park. “You’re my TARDIS” he says wonderingly; “And you’re my Doctor” she answers back promptly; the fondness, the love for each other is so tangible in that scene that you can reach out and touch it.
Moreover, every scene after that between them just sings with the same affection and energy. From their bickering over whether she’s always taken him where he’s wanted (she’s always taken him where he’s needed to go), to her observation that she sees a graveyard, he sees a junkyard of parts with which to build another TARDIS, to the moment she calls him “a beautiful idiot” it’s all lovingly executed.
But the key scene where they say goodbye (and hello) towards the end is just stunning. Both Smith and Jones outdo themselves in that scene; both fighting back tears, both portraying their characters as so vulnerable and so completely not wanting to let go of the ability to talk to each other, both so much each other’s soul-mates that it hurts…I’m tearing up just thinking about it again; I was a puddle during the first watch, a sobbing mess during the rewatch for this review.
And everything improves in this second half: House occupying the TARDIS becomes an actual threat as he plays cat and mouse games with Rory and Amy (although shame we only saw the same corridor several times rather than other rooms of the TARDIS). Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan do a sterling job with their parts; emotional and angsty with the head games, brave and courageous in saving the TARDIS (love that the TARDIS considers Rory the Pretty One). Loved the flash of ‘thoughts’ as Amy opened the door (very nice editing/directing choice), and I LOVED that they ended up in the old Ninth/Tenth Doctor TARDIS control room.
I probably should mention before the end of the review that the award-winning Neil Gaiman was on writing duties for this episode. Some of his writing style definitely comes through in the odd quirkiness and the emotion of the piece. I wouldn’t say I was impressed with this as I was when Richard Curtis guested last season but it’s not a bad effort by any means.
Ultimately, the first half tries too hard to downplay everything, to play at smoke and mirrors trying to make the reveal all the more dramatic. But it was the first half and it is easily forgotten with the sheer brilliance of the second. I would not have missed that final scene between the TARDIS and her Doctor for the world.
Originally posted at GeekSpeak Magazine