Another experimental premise this week, this time adapted from a comic strip in Doctor Who Magazine featuring the Tenth Doctor and Mickey. There's a house on Aickman Road that has a problem... people who answer the mysterious voice over the intercom go upstairs and never come back down. Some powerful force is stopping the TARDIS from materializing fully... the Doctor's able to leap out but that leaves Amy manning the console to keep the ship in place. But roaming around the TARDIS on her own, she finds something... something that shouldn't exist anymore... Now the Doctor will need time to rectify the situation - somewhere to stay... and it just so happens that the guy in the flat below the disappearances needs a lodger... The Doctor must pass himself off as a normal human being whilst staying on Earth with Craig Owens (played by James Corden, known to most UKers as Smithy from Gavin and Stacey, probably known to the rest of you as the fat one from The History Boys, or alternatively the one who got into a spat with Sir Patrick Stewart this week). Craig's an everyday bloke - stuck in a deadend job, has a female friend he'd like to be something more but can't quite summon the courage to tell, willing to settle for evenings in watching TV, eating pizza and enjoying a bottle. He's really not ready to have the strangest housemate ever descend upon him. But despite the Doctor showing him up in front of his mates with superb football skills, he'll need the Time Lord's help to face the danger lurking in the rooms above...
Not by as much as some were predicting though - ratings were higher than The Hungry Earth two weeks ago. Feel ambivalent as to this one. Lots of funny stuff, Corden did well with the bittersweet material and Smith is delightfully eccentric as always. The pacing was all over the place though and the ending felt very flat - you can't have something as big as someone trying to build their own TARDIS and not explain it! And the Doctor should have contacted Amy with "Ground Control to Amy Pond"
Awesome moments: The Doctor asking the emergency hologram to "Please state the nature of the emergency" The Doctor saying he is from International Rescue. ....Hello.... This episode had its flaws, but not entertaining the audience was not one of them. Matt is swiftly becoming my favorite Doctor of nu-Who.
Great scenes loosely stitched together by a fairly insubstantial plot, an enjoyable ep - possibly of the most fun ones yet - but not top drawer quality. Looking forward to next weeks, the return of River Song and we get to know about the Pandoracum mentioned in the Angels episodes.
Thought it was a bit of a stinker. It was mildy entertaining but didn't feel all that Who like. Plus I'm getting sick of the fact that every Doctor wince the 8th needs to have this constant bubbliness, which was really the case with the classic Doctors. I miss the dark edge that seems to have bene gone since the 7th Doc. Certainly a much weaker effort than last week's.
Super. Enjoyed it greatly even if it was a bit fluffy and didn't get into anything around the time ship. Next week looks super marvellous. Is it an incarnation of the Doctor in the box?
Musing about that with someone last night. Would've been nice to have seen that in a future episode, one that brought back Tennant as cloneDoctor, trying to make his own TARDIS, and maybe set him up as a future big bad.
But they weren't trying to build their own TARDIS. He thought they were initially because it was so big but then realised that it was all a perception filter and there was no second floor to the house. It was just a more standard 'time ship'. In fact I wondered whether the 'build their own tardis' line was going to be some nod to whatever happens in the finale. Prob not of course.
