NuWho Review: Season 6 Episode 4 "The Doctor's Wife"

By: Neil Gaiman

**Spoilers**

If you have not yet seen this episode, please go and do so before proceeding.

            I think this is my favorite Doctor Who episode of all time. Better than Blink, better than The Caves of Androzani, and better even than Vincent & The Doctor. On paper it seems like such an obvious idea: what if The Doctor and his oldest, most faithful companion of all time could meet face-to-face and talk? That's pretty much all it is - The Doctor and The TARDIS talking with a token bad guy to defeat thrown in there for dramatic tension. It is an episode that sparkles with wit, heart, and the perfect mix of emotion and comedy that Doctor Who can do so, SO right. In fact, I'm just WAITING for Supernatural to rip-off and create a tribute to this episode...we need to see Baby, darn it!

Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:

- Everything about this episode is beautiful, from the colors to the interesting camera angles to the gorgeous Suranne Jones who kicks it out of the park as Idris.

 "I've got mail!" I wasn't the only one to have flashbacks to Blue's Clues whenever I heard that, was I?

- The Doctor burns up his beloved swimming pool, just to leave the universe. Huh.

- Also, apparently The Corsair could regenerate into either a man or a woman. Interesting. 

- "The matrix...the soul of the TARDIS...its just vanished. But where would it go?"

Oh I don't know...maybe to make DOCTOR WHO HISTORY?!

- Few things make me laugh harder than the moment where The Doctor, who is for once just minding his own business and puttering about, is assaulted by the mad, bonkers, and utterly wonderful Idris/TARDIS. The dialogue in this episode is priceless and is the sort of thing that reminds me why I watch this show in the first place. It has wit and plenty of time for quips, but also doesn't contradict itself or get bogged down in its own cleverness.

- "Keep back from this one...she bites!" "I do?" Poor Doctor!

- There is something very Helena Bonham-Carterish in the way Jones plays Idris, but it's not a caricature. The character is very much her own.

- Aunty and Uncle creep me out. Too much touching and leering and cryptic statements.

- Rory and Amy's first encounter with the Ood is hilarious...though Rory's commentary on the face tentacles becomes less hilarious once you've seen their other encounters with 'Nephew' during this episode.

- The bright green eyes should have been a tip-off. If I have learned one thing, it's that green glow is evil (between Disney villains and the Avada Kedavra...yeah).

- I squee'd SOOOO hard, though, whenever The Doctor was fiddling with the translator ball and suddenly all of the Time Lord messages began to come through...including a couple of his. 

- The dialogue for Idris is so brilliantly done. The fact that she's constantly getting her tenses mixed up just adds to the overall feeling that this is the soul of a person who has lived in time and outside of time and is just learning to talk.

- "Why am I a thief? What have I stolen?" "ME! You're going to steal me! No, you have stolen me. You are stealing me. Huh. Tenses are difficult, aren't they?"

- Whoever made the decision to give House the voice of Michael Sheen needs an award of some kind.

- Time Lords. "It's just a title. Doesn't mean he actually knows what he's doing." 

- The moment when The Doctor finds all of the confiscated cubes of the dead Time Lords never fails to put a chill up my spine and to (re)break my heart. Anyone who is still claiming that Matt is a bad actor or is poorly suited to such a multi-faceted role needs to go and watch it again because everything just shines through his eyes and weighs him down. The crushed hopes, the suffocating loss, the anger, the horror, the sorrow, the age...everything deep and sorrowful about the character comes across in one little scene.

- Interactions between him and Idris (or 'Sexy', as he calls her) are also wonderful. Some of the best stuff this show has ever put to screen.

- Not only is the dialogue funny, but it also contains a lot of heart as well. Remember that Sexy has been The Doctor's faithful companion for hundreds of years. She's been there for him whenever his other companions have left and/or died. Naturally they have a lot of history to catch up on in a limited amount of time.

- The look on their faces when Idris realizes she is dying!

- Of course Amy and Rory aren't totally useless in this episode either. Though the focus is not on them, Gaimen does manage to work in a nice, cost-effective subplot involving them being trapped in the TARDIS by House and having to entertain him to stay alive. As Rory observes: "I had a PE teacher like you once. You want to watch us suffer." 

- There actually isn't a whole lot happening in this episode, story-wise. In fact, this could easily been one of the weakest episodes ever because it isn't a story...it's a character study. Oh sure it has a beginning, middle, end and a villain to defeat, but in the end it isn't about the mystery of House or how to defeat House or even how to fix the TARDIS. No. It's about a boy and his box off to see the universe. It's about a couple fighting to stay together and to help out their friend. It's about being alive.

- It's also, to date, one of the few things to make me actually tear up while I was watching it. I'm telling you, the "Hello, Doctor" scene gets to me every time!

          This episode is a classic. It's right up there with Blink and Midnight as a NuWho episode EVERYONE should see. The TARDIS is The Doctor's wife in the sense that she is his life-long partner. When Rose left, she was there. When River died, she was there. When everyone else was taken from The Doctor and he was left all alone, she was there. She has always been there for him and she always will be. She stole him...and she has no intention of giving him back. This episode is a beautiful little character study that delves into the soul of this most constant and (before this) most unexplored character of the show. The Doctor's Wife is a 5/5.

What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?