Doctor Who S06 E04 – TARDISes are people too

Previously: Pirates! 
—

The Doctor’s Wife

K: It’s been a hot minute (or like six months) since I’ve recapped anything, friends. Let’s see if I remember how, shall we? 

Marines: It’s like riding a bike! I haven’t been on a bike since I was like 10, but I’m sure it’s like that!

K: Absolutely!

We open in a creepy junkyard looking place that’s gone overboard with green lighting. A woman in a fancy dress asks her uncle if it’s going to be her. He says it is and wishes it could be him, except no he doesn’t because it’s going to hurt. He calls her Idris, and I honestly really wish Idris Elba was playing this role because that would be delightful.

Aaaanywho. Idris says that “it’s starting“. An Ood with green eyes leads her to a platform as Idris asks her aunt what will happen. Aunt says that her mind and soul will be drained from her body, leaving her empty. But it’s cool – she’ll get a new one soon, and then a Time Lord will show up. Er. Okay. (M: Yeah, sounds like a bad day.) Idris gasps for air and sinks to her knees.

Cut to the TARDIS. The Doctor’s wibbling about some off-screen adventure or other. Rory asks Amy if she believes what he’s telling them, and she sasses that she was there. Rory pulls her aside for a chat about the Doctor dying, but they’re interrupted by a knock on the door. Except they’re in deep space, so how can someone be knocking? The Doctor opens the doors and there’s a little white box glowing outside.

It flies into the TARDIS and buzzes about like a Snitch. The Doctor grabs it excitedly and says that he’s got mail! 

Apparently in emergencies, Time Lords can wrap their thoughts in psychic containers and send them through space looking for other Time Lords. And this is from one of the good ones – the Corsair, a Time Lord who had a tattoo of a snake eating its own tail in every regeneration. The snake is on the box, hence how the Doctor knows it’s from the Corsair. Rory’s all “Uh. No Time Lords left in the universe?” and the Doctor says they’re leaving the universe. He flicks some switches, resulting in explosions of sparks from the console and says he’s burning up some of the TARDIS’s rooms to give them extra power. 

They hurtle out of the universe and plonk down next to a green planet made of garbage with a crash. There’s a sad little noise and the TARDIS goes dark and silent. Amy and Rory freak out. The Doctor says it’s like the soul of the TARDIS has vanished. He wants to know where it would go… Cut back to Idris, regeneration energy coming from her mouth and hands, accompanied by a familiar vworp-vworp. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN. 

EXPLAIN TO THE AMERICANS INTRO and DOO-WEE-OOH.

After the credits, the gang step out of the TARDIS and on to the Planet o’ Junk. Amy asks what kind of trouble the Corsair is in, but the Doctor is sort of generally vague. Amy snarks that it’s okay to say you don’t know. Rory asks about the whole outside-the-universe thing, and the Doctor says it’s like a tiny bubble sticking to the outside of a big bubble except not. He then looks at the TARDIS and says that it’s totally drained but that there’s enough rift energy on the Planet o’ Junk for her to refuel just by being there. Rory asks where all the junk came from, and apparently they – and it – have fallen down the universe’s plughole. 

Mari: It just keeps sounding worse and worse. 

K: It really really does.

Idris appears and runs towards them, yelling “Thief! Thief! You’re my thief!” Auntie and Uncle run after her, calling out that she’s dangerous and also mad. Idris hurls herself at the Doctor and kisses him. The Doctor is taken aback (understandably) and asks what he’s going to steal. Idris, apparently. Uncle says to be careful because she bites. With that, she hurls herself at the Doctor again and bites his ear. “Biting’s excellent. It’s like kissing, only there’s a winner!” she says. 

  

Mari: Poetic. 

K: And ever so slightly creepy.

Auntie and Uncle apologise some more, and reiterate that she’s bonkers and then Idris says the little boxes will make the Doctor angry. Then she spouts apparent nonsense at them all – including laughing at the Doctor’s chin – before collapsing. Uncle asks Nephew – the Ood – to take Idris somewhere where she can’t bite people. The Doctor bounces excitedly because he loves Oods. Nephew can’t talk, though, and the Doctor realises it’s because his communicator is broken. He fixes it easily, and the Corsair’s message plays. It says to send word to the High Council of Time Lords on Gallifrey and let them know he’s still alive. There are other voices speaking in the background. The camera spins around the Doctor, and he looks panicky when the message ends. 

He demands that Auntie and Uncle show him who else is there, but Auntie says it’s just the four of them, plus The House. He asks what The House is, and apparently it’s the Planet o’ Junk. She asks if they’d like to meet him, and the Doctor’s all “YES PLEASE” in a slightly cold voice. Uncle and Auntie head off, gesturing for the others to follow. Amy asks WTF is going on, and the Doctor tells her that the voices are Time Lords. Somewhere nearby are lots and lots of Time Lords. 

Cut to Idris in a cage. She struggles to find the words she wants, eventually come up with “Will be sad“. Back to the others. The Doctor comes to the conclusion that the Planet o’ Junk is an asteroid and it’s sentient. With that, it speaks to them through Auntie and Uncle, using them like puppets. It’s as creepy as it sounds. The House tells them they’re welcome and that it’s seen Time Lords before, that it repairs travellers when they break. He says there won’t be any more Time Lords after him because he and his TARDIS are the last. The House is all “Well that’s a bummer”, but tells him that he’ll be safe there. 

The Doctor’s all “O…kay. This is all definitely normal” and suggests that he, Amy, and Rory go have a look around. Auntie pats Amy’s face and says that House loves them, and the Doctor gets WTF face because one of her hands is very much not like the other. The gang scurry off. 

Cut to Idris’s cage. She spouts all kinds of gibberish, has no idea what she’s saying or why she’s saying it, and then starts screaming for her thief. Down in the depths of the Planet o’ Junk somewhere, Rory’s all “Okay but we’re leaving ASAP, yes?”. But no. The Doctor wants to rescue all the Time Lords he heard. Amy says he wants forgiveness, and he replies sadly “Don’t we all?“. Then he says he’s left his sonic screwdriver in his other – identical – jacket in the TARDIS and could Amy please go and get it? She tosses him her phone and says she’ll call him from the TARDIS. Then she tells Rory to look after the Doctor and bails. The Doctor tells Rory to look after Amy, and he thinks for a second before scurrying after her. 

Back at the TARDIS, Rory assures Amy that the Doctor will be fine on his own. She gives him “BITCH, PLEASE” face and says that just because he’s called a Time Lord doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing.

  

They walk into the TARDIS, shutting the door behind them. Outside, green swirly things surround it, which can’t possibly be good. 

Inside, Amy phones the Doctor and he’s all “Yeah, have a reeeeeally good look around for my sonic screwdriver.” Of course he has it with him and he uses it to remotely lock the TARDIS doors. Then he hangs up on them. Rude.

Mari: We’ve definitely talked about this with other heroes, namely Angel, but here’s a brilliant example of the hero getting to decide what’s best for others. Yes, the Doctor is trying to protect them, but also he does it by lying and removing their ability to decide things for themselves. RUDE, DOCTOR. 

K: Aww. Angel. That takes me back… 

He starts rummaging around on his own, listening for the Time Lords. The music gets all horror movie tense as he opens a cupboard to find it full of Time Lord emergency glowy boxes. They all shout over the top of each other, asking for help. 

Auntie and Uncle appear behind him. The Doctor says sadly that he was just admiring their collection of Time Lord distress calls, that he really thought he had some friends there, but no. He asks how many Time Lords they’ve lured there over the years and what’s happened to them. Turns out that the Planet o’ Junk has basically been taking bits and pieces of them and doling them to Auntie and Uncle. The Corsair was the last one. Auntie got his arm – complete with snake tattoo – and Uncle got the spine and kidneys. “You gave me hope, and then you took it away. That’s enough to make anyone dangerous…” says the Doctor. Then he yells at them to run. Auntie does. Uncle loiters long enough to say that House is too clever, then follows Auntie. 

Amy rings the Doctor and is all “HI HELLO YOU JERK WHY DID YOU LOCK US IN HERE??”. The Doctor said he needed them out of the way. Uh, RUDE. Then some realisation dawns and he wonders aloud how “she” knew that the boxes would make him angry. He tells Amy and Rory to stay where they are and hangs up. (M: RUDE RUDE RUDE.) (K: Rude and not ginger. Still.)

Cut to the Doctor shouting at Idris, wanting to know how she knew. She smiles and calls him “my thief” some more. Meanwhile, the green gas has made its way half way up the TARDIS. Amy says that it’s a really bad sign that the Doctor is being emotional and not trusting them. Rory agrees that it’s bad, and Amy says she hates being right. 

Back to the Doctor and Idris. He asks who the fuck she is, and she’s all “Don’t you know me?” Turns out, she’s the TARDIS in human form. The Doctor scoffs that she’s “a bitey mad lady“, but as she talks about being a model 40 TARDIS and how he stole her and she stole him right back, his face changes from eyerolling to realisation and acceptance. He says slowly that he borrowed her, and Idris smirks that borrowing includes an intention to return the item, and says “What makes you think I would ever give YOU back?“. The Doctor slowly turns towards her, and says “You’re the TARDIS…” 

On her instruction, he sonics the cage open. She steps out and asks if all people are like this – “so much bigger on the inside.” (M: I love this omg. So emotional.)  He asks why anyone would put the soul of a TARDIS into a human, and she says it’s because House eats TARDISes. The Doctor scoffs before realising that House feeds on rift energy and TARDISes are bursting with it. But unless you remove the TARDIS-y part first, you’ll blow up the universe. Hence, Idris is now full of TARDIS and House can eat the leftover bits. The Doctor realises that Amy and Rory are about to be eaten and starts yelling into the phone for them to get out. 

Amy shouts back that they’re trapped, and a bell starts to toll. The Doctor runs towards the TARDIS, insisting that he’s unlocked the door. But they’re still trapped. The Doctor bashes on the door. Amy and Rory hold hands. The TARDIS vworp vworps away. The Doctor tries to call them on the phone, but it doesn’t work. He has no idea what to do and he panics a little bit before slapping himself and dashing off.

In the TARDIS, Rory says that at least they’re together and they’re safe because they’re in the TARDIS. House scoffs that they’re right about being in the TARDIS at least. We see that the TARDIS is hurtling towards a rift in space. House asks Amy and Rory why they shouldn’t just get killed right now. 

Meanwhile, the Doctor says that the TARDIS has been hijacked. Aunty and Uncle show up and say that it’s time for them to die. The Doctor’s all “….say what”, and Aunty says it’s Idris’ fault for telling House there were no more TARDISes. So now House is off to our universe in search of more. The Doctor snaps that there are no more. “Oh, it’ll think of something,” Auntie says. Then she drops dead. The Doctor rushes over to her. Uncle collapses too. The Doctor starts yelling “You can’t just die!“

Idris interrupts him and says that they need to go where she’s just landed because they’re there in 3 minutes and also she’s dying because TARDISes weren’t meant to be jammed into flesh. She tells him to focus, and he shouts that he’s “a madman with a box without a box” and that he’s down the universe’s plughole in a junkyard. Except then he realises that it’s a junkyard full of TARDIS bits. He asks Idris – the TARDIS – what her name is, and she smirks that it’s only taken him 700 years to ask. “I think you call me…Sexy,” she says. “Only when we’re alone…” the Doctor mutters. 

Mari: You know, this is very similar to when people are like “my car is sexy” or what not, but that makes me uncomfortable too so.

K: So much uncomfortable, so little time. 

Back on the TARDIS, House is excited about having corridors, then gets back to the idea of why Amy and Rory should live. The best Rory can come up with is that killing them quickly won’t be any fun. Amy gives him “DUDE WTF” face, which is legit. (M: She didn’t have anything to offer!) Rory continues, saying that House needs to be entertained and they’re the entertainment. It backfires, because House is all “ENTERTAIN ME, BITCHES” and tells them to run. Which they do. 

The Doctor and Idris stare down at a valley full of dead TARDISes. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” the Doctor says. She’s thinking that all her sisters are dead and they’re staring at the corpses. That’s not so much what he was thinking, which was more along the lines of “build a working TARDIS console out of busted up parts because Amy and Rory need him.” 

Speaking of Amy and Rory, they’re pelting down corridors and through doorways. House – somewhat creepily – says that it’s “enjoying the sensation of having you running around inside me.” Amy nearly falls down a giant hole because also House has turned off the antigravity. They edge their way around the hole and keep running.

TARDIS construction 101. She’s offering instructions but the Doctor gives zero fucks because he totally knows what he’s doing. Idris points out that for 700 years he’s been walking past the sign on the TARDIS door that says “pull to open” and pushing every time, but suuuuuure. He can do without instructions. He gets shouty and tells her that she’s unreliable, because she doesn’t take him where he wants to go. She says that may be true, but she always took him where he NEEDED to go. With that, he calms down and says it would be easier if they could always talk like this. She says that she’s not designed that way – “I exist across all space and time, and *you* talk and run around and bring home strays.” Then her knees buckle and she collapses. The Doctor catches her. She says that one of her kidneys has failed and that she has 18 minutes to live. Also this universe will go boom in 3 hours, so no pressure. They get back to work. 

Back on the TARDIS, Amy runs through a set of doors. They slam shut before Rory can follow. He pounds on the door, screaming her name. On Amy’s side of the door, she hears Rory calling her name in a dejected way. She runs down the corridor towards it, and finds that Rory is just around the corner, sitting on the floor. He says she’s been gone for hours. She says that House is messing with them. She heads through a doorway, and the doors slam shut again. Womp. 

Meanwhile, TARDIS construction 101 is nearly done. The Doctor has no idea how it’s going to make it through the rift because it’s literally falling apart. Idris asks if the Doctor knows why she chose him, all those years ago. He insists that he chose her, but she scoffs slightly and says that she wanted to see the universe, “so I stole a Time Lord and I ran away“. I kind of love the idea that the TARDIS has been a more than willing participant the whole time.

Mari: SAME. I also love that while he’s out I KNOW BEST-ing everyone, the TARDIS is I KNOW BEST-ing him. 

K: Oooooh, YES. That’s fabulous. 

The Doctor puts the finishing touches on their super questionable attempt at a console and says “What could possibly go wrong?“, which obviously leads to bits falling off. 

Back to Amy wandering through corridors. She finds Rory, who’s now an old man. He snaps that she left him again. He bashes his head into the wall as he says he waited 2,000 years for her, and she left him again. She tearfully says that she didn’t mean to leave. He jumps at her and she scurries backwards. He says that they come for him at night and they hurt him over and over again. She backs away from him as he yells at her, and a door slams shut between them.

TARDIS 2.0. The Doctor’s all “Off we go!!” but it doesn’t work. He tries again. Things go bang. He snaps that it won’t start, there’s no power. He’s got nothing. “Oh, my beautiful idiot,” she says. “You have what you’ve always had – you’ve got me.” She kisses her fingers and transfers some orange shiny regeneration energy to the console. It starts and they vworp vworp away, leaving sparky lightning behind. 

Amy’s walking down yet another corridor. This one’s super murdery. “Die Amy”, “Hate Amy”, “Kill Amy” is scrawled all over the walls in red and black letters.

She rounds the corner and sees a desiccated corpse. “NO!” she screams. She crawls towards it, sobbing and apologising. (M: AMY CRYING OVER A DEAD RORY SHOT!) Rory – normal Rory – appears behind her and says her name. She turns towards him, and the corpse and the graffiti vanishes. She rushes to Rory and hugs him as he says that House is messing with their heads. They start running again.

TARDIS 2.0. It looks a lot like any space movie involving re-entering Earth’s atmosphere – lots of heat and sparks and glowy bits. Idris says that they’re locked onto the TARDIS but the shields will have to be lowered for them to appear inside. The Doctor asks if she can get a message to Amy through the telepathic messaging system. She asks if Amy’s the pretty one.

Cut to Amy and Rory climbing up a ladder. Rory gets a message from Idris telling him to go to the old control room and flip a purple lever to lower the shields. The Doctor’s incredulous that she thinks “the pretty one” is Rory. (M: HE IS.) Message over, they start heading to the control room.

TARDIS 2.0. The Doctor asks how they’ll be able to get past House in the control room. Idris says they’re going to one of the old ones. The Doctor says that he deleted them all, but LOL NOPE she archived them “For neatness“. Apparently she’s got 30 of them now. He’s confused because he’s only changed it a dozen times. “So far, yes,” she replies. He insists that you can’t archive things that haven’t happened, but WIBBLY WOBBLY TIMEY WIMEY JUST GO WITH IT. 

More corridors. Suddenly, Amy’s in the dark. She asks what happened to the lights, but Rory says they’re fine. It’s only dark for her. He goes on ahead. He rounds a corner and screams. Amy asks what’s happening. Rory says he’s fine, he just hit his head. She should keep walking. We see Amy walk past an unconscious Rory and right into Nephew the Ood’s tentacles. She screams and the lights come back on. Rory springs up from the floor, grabs her, and they run.

TARDIS 2.0. The Doctor calls their new TARDIS “you sexy thing” (thanks a lot for the terrible earworm), and Idris asks if that’s her name. He proudly says that it is. They hurtle towards the rift. 

      

Corridors. Rory says that Nephew is still coming. They stop at a dead end, which is where Idris wanted them to go. Rory says she said they’d get a passkey when they got there. Just then, he gets another telepathic message – “Crimson. Eleven. Delight. Petrichor.” He says the words and nothing happens. Amy realises that Idris told her the meaning of petrichor earlier – the smell of dust after rain – and says that the TARDIS interface is telepathic. They don’t say the words to get in. They think them.

Nephew gets closer. The lights go out, so all you can see past Amy are his glowing green eyes and light ball thing. We get flashes as Amy thinks of the words – a crimson flag, her 11th birthday cake, her wedding day, and a raindrop falling on dust. The door opens and they’re in Ten’s control room EXCUSE ME WHILE I HAVE ALL THE FEELINGS. 

Mari: I heard her say that she archived the old ones, but when I saw Ten’s control room I was just like OH. OOOOOH NOOOOOO. 

K: I’ve seen this episode multiple times, and I was still expecting it to be one of the Classic Who control rooms. Seeing Ten’s room unexpectedly was NOT GOOD FOR MY EMOTIONS. 

Levers are flipped and Idris yells that the shields are down. House asks Amy and Rory how the hell they found the old control room. They’re not given a chance to answer because House is still villain monologuing. Apparently it wanted them to be servants like Nephew, but they’re too much trouble. Nephew steps into the old control room and is ordered to kill them. As Nephew approaches, Rory gets another message. Idris tells him that they’re coming in and to get out of the way. Small problem – she doesn’t know WHERE they’re coming in. 

Everyone holds on for dear life as TARDIS 2.0 appears inside Ten’s control room. Amy rushes over and hugs the Doctor. He performs introductions, saying that Idris is a woman and also the TARDIS. Amy asks if he wished REALLY hard, and he insists that it’s not like that. Course, then she says that her name is Sexy, so it kind of is like that.

House orders Nephew to kill them all, but Nephew was standing right where TARDIS 2.0 materialised, so now he’s dead and they’re all breathing in his atoms. Amy rubs her nose in disgust. House debates how to kill them. Maybe by playing with gravity – they all fall to the floor – or by removing the air from the room. The Doctor says that if they’re dead, House will never make it through the rift. It needs their help because it doesn’t have enough thrust. 

Idris is lying on the floor, begging for water. Rory’s in nurse mode by her side. The Doctor tells House to get rid of about a third of the TARDIS’s rooms to get extra thrust. House is all “OKAY COOL I’LL START WITH THIS ONE BYEEEEEE”. But of course there’s a fail safe that dumps them in the main console room. RIP Ten’s console room all over again. 

Mari: To quote Eleven:

K: For serious. 

House says that they’re back in the known Universe again and that the Doctor should fear it because it’s killed hundreds of Time Lords. “Fear me. I’ve killed all of them,” he replies.

    

Meanwhile, Idris is giving Rory more telepathic messages, but he doesn’t understand. The Doctor congratulates House on being a worthy opponent, complete with golf claps. Idris quietly dies. The Doctor monologues some more about how House should have been more careful about letting Idris back into the control room – a human body couldn’t hold the TARDIS for long, and now she’s back in the home she was ripped out of. Idris’ body rolls away from Rory and orange regeneration-y energy pours from her mouth. Amy and Rory scurry back. 

The orange light bounces around the control room, into the control panel and the walls and the floor. House screams. “Finish him off, girl,” the Doctor says. House screams one last time, and a glowy Idris appears on the stairs. She tells the Doctor that she’s been looking for a sad, big, complicated word and she’s finally found it – Alive. She’s alive. He says it’s not a sad word, and she says it’s sad when it’s over.

    

He tears up. She says that she’ll always be here, but this is when they talked and that time is over. There’s just one thing she wanted to say to him. He assumes it’s goodbye, but no. “I just wanted to say hello. Hello, Doctor. It’s so very, very nice to meet you.” He cries and says he doesn’t want her to go, but a bell tolls and Idris vanishes into sparkles. 

The Doctor sniffles as the tinkly orchestra tinkles. He turns towards the control panel and they float off through space. Later, he’s fiddling with the wires under the console.

Rory tells him that the message Idris kept repeating at the end was “the only water in the forest is the river“, which makes no sense. The Doctor says it doesn’t make sense YET. He asks if Rory’s okay, and Rory says he’s not because he’s a nurse and he just watched Idris die. He says he shouldn’t let it get to him. The Doctor says that letting it get to you is called being alive. 

Mari: I love any time Rory goes into nurse mode. It’s a consistent character thing, and he’s so caring. 

K: Rory is honestly my favourite thing about the Moffat era. 

He tells them that they’ll be ready to go in about two minutes, and that the Eye of Orion is nice and restful. He asks the TARDIS what she thinks, and Amy says that it’s always the two of them – the boy and his box – long after everyone else has gone. He says it’s the best thing there is. Then he says that House deleted all the bedrooms and that he should probably make them a new one. Amy puts in a request for a lack of bunk beds, but the Doctor insists that bunk beds are cool. Before they head off in search of their new bunk bed filled bedroom, Rory asks if the Doctor has a room. He doesn’t reply.

Later, his work is finished, and he’s standing by the console. “Are you there? Can you hear me?” he asks quietly. Then he yells out “The Eye of Orion, or wherever we need to go!”. Levers flick on their own, and they vworp vworp off into space, the Doctor woohooing with excitement. 

I LOVED this episode when it first aired, mostly because it’s so un-Moffat-y and it’s just plain fun. The more I watch it, the less I love it, mostly because I spot an increasing number of niggly problems. But that said, this is still pretty damned fun. I love the idea of the TARDIS becoming human and getting to say “bigger on the inside“. I love the idea of the Doctor not realising that he’s had a constant companion all these years, and that while he doesn’t always end up where he wanted to be, he’s always been where he needed to be. So… the fun side of things remains. It’s just that the shine has gone off it a little bit for me. That said, I still love the way this ends. It’s pretty fantastic. 

Mari: At this point, it’s just negative credit. This episode isn’t necessarily problematic, but everything that we’ve seen/noticed about Eleven still echoes in this episode. Why did it have to be called The Doctor’s Wife? Why the kiss at the beginning and all the sexy jokes? Why does it always, always have to be oddly sexual? These are mostly qualms with other episodes, for sure, but it’s hard to just forget all that while watching this. 

All that said though, I do love this episode written by Neil Gaiman. I think it’s well-written, well-paced and has a lot of witty dialogue and is just pretty clever over all. Not in that Doctor, running around, shouting how clever he is kind of way either. I love the Doctor getting to meet the TARDIS. I love the menace of the big bad we don’t see and the haunting nature of how he weaponized the TARDIS. I love where it leaves us, questioning if the Doctor stole the TARDIS or if the TARDIS stole him. Who drives who? This still goes down as one of my faves. 

K: Yes. What Mari said. With an added side of “I kind of wish Hugh Laurie had been the voice of House,” solely because it would have amused me. But whatever. 

 

Next time on Doctor Who: A solar storm sends the TARDIS back to Earth in S06 E05 – The Rebel Flesh.