Grade: A
In one of Who's most radical episodes for quite some time, the TARDIS as we know it is severed in two, as its physical presence is hijacked by an evil consciousness who turns it into a psychologically horrific prison for Amy and Rory, while the soul of the time machine is siphoned into a human mind and the Doctor gains a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to communicate with his longest companion.
In a dark, unidentified room, a young woman is ceremoniously led onto a glowing green pedestal, where her mind and soul are purportedly drained from her body. Meanwhile, in the TARDIS, the Doctor receives a small white box, which he excitedly explains is part of a psychic messaging system once used by the Time Lords to communicate with one another; this particular distress call was sent by a Time Lord known as the Corsair, who always bore a distinctive snake tattoo in every regeneration. Transported by the thought that another Time Lord may still be alive, he proceeds to pilot the TARDIS through a rift in the universe in an attempt to follow the signal to its source. As soon as they make their landing, however, the TARDIS drains of power, its soul mysteriously gone. Elsewhere, the young woman looks on in astonishment as golden light begins emanating from her skin.
Exiting the darkened TARDIS, the three travelers find themselves on a dim, abandoned planet, very reminiscent of a junkyard. The Doctor explains that they have entered a bubble or sinkhole in the skin of the universe, arriving on a small, isolated world inundated with random articles sucked through the rift. Several people exit a decrepit building, and the Doctor is set upon by the young woman, who seems unable to think coherently and makes continuous non sequitur comments to the entire group. An older man and woman, introducing themselves as Uncle and Auntie, apologize for the young woman's conduct, explaining that she's mentally ill. Addressing her as Idris, they attempt to calm her, but she proceeds with her manic examination of the Doctor, whom she refers to as "my thief". Soon, however, she collapses under the physical and mental stress, and the Doctor notices that the fourth resident of the planet, referred to as Nephew, is an Ood. His communicator is broken, despite Auntie's claims that he arrived in that condition and that someone she refers to as House attempted to repair it; undeterred, the Doctor sets to work on it with his screwdriver, eventually stumbling upon a multitude of Time Lord distress signals apparently transmitting from somewhere close by.
Accepting Auntie's cryptic invitation to meet the House, the Doctor takes Amy and Rory along as he follows their hosts deep into their ramshackle home, eventually arriving in the same room where Idris' soul was drained. Meanwhile, a still-disoriented Idris is contained in a cage, where she continues inquiring after her "thief". Elsewhere, the Doctor and his companions look on in astonishment as a foreign consciousness takes possession of Auntie and Uncle, employing them as mouthpieces to welcome the Doctor to its planet, claiming to have seen multiple Time Lords come and go in the past. The Doctor deduces that the House whom Auntie mentioned earlier is the sentient central consciousness of the planet on which they are standing. Accepting House's offer to stay a while, the Doctor manages to give the rest of the group the slip, surreptitiously locking Rory and Amy inside the TARDIS in order to keep them safe while he investigates the multitude of Time Lord distress signals. Tracking the source of the calls, he becomes increasingly confused as his search leads him to a small closeted area; opening a safe in the wall, he subsequently discovers a large collection of the same telepathic messaging boxes he received in the TARDIS, and realizes that he has been tracing recorded calls for help from the long dead. Discovered by Auntie and Uncle, he lashes out at them in grief and disappointment before finally realizing that they are not complete people; they have been patched and repaired by foreign body parts, one of which he recognizes by the snake tattoo as the Corsair's. Finally understanding that he has been lured to this planet as the last in a long succession of Time Lords who were killed by House, he briefly speaks to Rory and Amy on the phone; remembering a comment about his anger at the "little boxes" from their earlier conversation with Idris, he determines to speak with her, warning Rory and Amy to stay in the TARDIS while he's gone.
Going to the cage where Idris has been contained, he demands to know how she expressed a knowledge of his reaction to the boxes before the incident occurred; despite her continuing incoherence, she manages to make him understand that she is, in fact, the TARDIS, drained of its soul and siphoned into Idris' body. Although initially reluctant to believe her claims, the Doctor is reduced to awe as she proves that she remembers every incident of their travels as clearly as he does. Understanding the implications of a being who wishes to remove the living consciousness from a TARDIS, the Doctor deduces that House is able to consume the rest of the vortex energy, and had made a habit of luring Time Lords to this asteroid for thousands of years, ravaging their TARDISes and destroying them. Outside, a green mist swirls around the TARDIS and pulls it into flight with Rory and Amy trapped inside, as the Doctor looks on helplessly. Inside the hijacked time machine, Rory and Amy are taunted by House, the new consciousness of the TARDIS, who inquires why he should refrain from killing them immediately. Rory claims that their death would bring House no satisfaction, shrewdly guessing that the entity craves entertainment from his victims. House allows them a head start, and the two run desperately into the maze of TARDIS corridors.
Back on the abandoned planet, following Auntie and Uncle's abrupt, unnatural deaths, the Doctor and Idris realize that the fragile, composite bodies they have been given by House are inherently weak; with House having abandoned the asteroid indefinitely in an attempt to ride a TARDIS through the rift and into the main universe, the beings he assembled are dying. Idris' body begins failing as well, driving the Doctor to desperation. However, he quickly remembers House's words regarding the multitude of Time Lords brought to the planet in days gone by, and reasons that they should be able to find a collection of TARDIS remnants somewhere nearby. Amy and Rory become lost in the maze of TARDIS corridors while the Doctor and Idris arrive in a barren valley, filled with the shells and remnants of hundreds of former time machines. As House subjects Amy and Rory to a variety of psychological tortures, the Doctor sets to work in an attempt to build a working TARDIS console out of the remnants strewn over the planet's surface. As they work, the Doctor and Idris discuss their shared history, but are forced into overdrive as they realize that her body will not hold out much longer. Completing a powerless console which Idris is able to imbue with her vortex energy, the two take flight and are able to lock onto the Doctor's TARDIS, which House has been unable to pilot through the rift. Idris manages to project a telepathic signal to Rory, directing him to an archived control room from the TARDIS' past, where they should be able to congregate after she and the Doctor make their landing. Following her directives, Rory and Amy make their way through the corridors, only to encounter Nephew, completely under House's control and bent on killing them. Making use of one of Idris' apparently incomprehensible statements from their first meeting with her, they manage to access the old control room, and are saved from Nephew by the materialization of the scrap TARDIS console within the room. The Doctor explains Idris' true nature to Amy and Rory, but House has lost his patience with them, and determines to kill all of them immediately. He toys with different possible methods of doing so, temporarily draining all the air in the room, which weakens Idris even more. Realizing that the entity is becoming increasingly deranged, the Doctor strikes a deal with him, offering to help House pilot the TARDIS through the rift if he will spare the passengers' lives. His terms having been accepted, the Doctor tells House to delete as many TARDIS rooms as necessary, which should facilitate an increase in energy. Learning that he has the power to delete rooms and seeing an easy solution to his problems, House deletes the old control room, believing himself to have deleted the Doctor and his friends as well. However, the group is automatically deposited in the main control room, a result which is revealed to have been the Doctor's plan all along. With a dying Idris suddenly a few feet from the main TARDIS console and the usual location of the stolen energy matrix, the TARDIS consciousness is sucked out of her and instilled throughout the TARDIS once again, killing House in the process. Idris' body dies, and she is briefly able to appear to the Doctor in a half-transparent form, where they say their goodbyes before she returns to her usual state as the sentient consciousness of the blue box.
Later, as the Doctor repairs loose ends left by House's intrusion of the TARDIS, Rory confides in him that before Idris died, she told him that "the only water in the forest is the river", a cryptic remark the Doctor is unable to comprehend. Later, after the others have retired, the Doctor wistfully speak to the TARDIS console, tentatively hoping that Idris will be able to respond. As he watches, a control lever flips on its own, assuring him that the TARDIS is going to continue taking him wherever he needs to go, and that he is not alone.
"The companion" is a fundamental decades-old concept of Doctor Who. From the very first black-and-white serial, all the way through the advent of grainy color, long stories, short stories, different writers and actors, through hiatuses and long periods of high ratings, the Doctor has always traveled with another person. Occasionally two people, sometimes even three, men and women, old, young, human and alien, but he's never alone. They always leave him in the end; sometimes they break his heart. One companion, and only one, has been around since the beginning; and any fan could tell you who it is.
Over the years, the Doctor's affection for the TARDIS has become a granted element of the show. This episode merely textualized it; nice to see, and beautifully done, but fundamentally unnecessary. Before the installment aired, no Who devotee would ever have had to ask why the Doctor's relationship with the TARDIS is constantly equated with a romantic or familial one; why, when reunited with it a few episodes back, he lost no time in greeting it with an embrace. The blue box that helps him fly, bigger on the inside, dependable and eccentric, old and new, and so very alive; never leaving him. It's been subtextual for years, but it's always been there, and this installment only confirmed what viewers and the Doctor alike have always known; the TARDIS is companion, and his romantic interest, and his family... the only thing that can last as long as he does and be with him forever.
Complaints:
- A minor quibble, but... how did Nephew get onto the TARDIS in the first place? House is obviously unable to take corporeal form, and is forced to take indirect methods of killing, such as possession; is he able to project or transport the people he inhabits? Did Nephew somehow find his way onto the TARDIS before it departed?
Thoughts:
- The moment in which Amy hallucinates finding Rory's decaying corpse in the TARDIS corridor, surrounded by graffiti denouncing her existence, is one of the most haunting and striking visuals the show has ever produced.
- What with the return of the Nine/Ten control room and the appearance of an Ood ("Yet another Ood I failed to save"), this is quite the RTD-era callback episode.
- The Doctor was given an intense emotional rollercoaster ride in this installment. From hope to despair and rage to happiness and back again, Eleven is once again given the opportunity to shine in a way he seldom did in Season 5.
- Finally, we get to see more of the TARDIS... no actual rooms, though, which is a pity. There are corridors upon corridors, apparently, but I was hoping for a glimpse of the elusive swimming pool.
- The design team did an amazing job in evoking the look and feel of what I imagine a tiny bubble-universe would truly be like. Generally, the challenge in science fiction design is to create fields of vast, unimaginable distance; here, the opposite effect had to be achieved, building a tiny, twilight pocket of existence where one feels there are no stars... perhaps nothing but the tiny junkyard planet floating in stale, claustrophobic night.
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