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Neil, Idris, and The Doctor ?BBC

SPOILER ALERT: While we will discuss what happened in last Saturday?s episode, we?ll avoid talking about any future plot details.

WARNING: This episode has nothing to do with Doctor River Song. We will have to wait a bit longer to unravel that mystery.

When best-selling author and all-around fan favorite Neil Gaiman brings his pen to Doctor Who, you know it?s going to be an interesting week. Without doubt, this was the most highly anticipated episode of the whole season, and possibly the most highly anticipated Doctor Who episode of all time. Did it live up to the promise? The answer from most quarters seems to be yes, although I had to watch the episode twice before it really grabbed me.

One thing is abundantly obvious from this episode: Neil Gaiman is a Doctor Who fanboy from the old school. There are countless references to the classic show, including the sixth Doctor?s umbrella ? and at the end the Doctor talks about visiting the Eye of Orion (which the fifth Doctor refers to as one of the most tranquil places in the universe).

The story begins with a knock at the TARDIS door?which wouldn?t be so strange if they weren?t in deep space? from a strange ?glowy? cube. It?s a distress call from a Time Lord known as the Corsair who had a thing for the Ouroboros symbol (a snake eating it?s own tail) to the point that he/she had is tattooed on every regeneration.

The Doctor: I got mail.

Believing that he may have found other Time Lords, The doctor plunges the TARDIS out of this Universe into? well? he?s a bit unclear on that point, but basically a cosmic plughole that collects the flotsam and jetsam of our reality. Oh, and the TARDIS is dead. Apparently its ?soul? has been drained after the team arrives on the strange world. But the TARDIS matrix can?t just dissipate, so where has it gone?

Meanwhile, on the planet, we meet a strange menagerie (literally) of characters: Auntie, Uncle, Nephew (an Ood, which begs the question, why is there an Ood in this episode?) and Idris, played by Suranne Jones (last seen in the Doctor Who Universe as the Mona Lisa in The Sarah Jane Adventures Episode ?Mona Lisa?s Revenge?). We meet Idris as she is undergoing a mysterious process to absorb energies and become a Time Lord. And she is acting very much like a recently regenerated Time Lord. coincidence? I think not.

Uncle: Keep back from her? SHE BITES!
Idris: Do I! Excellent! (bites the Doctor on the ear)

Idris speaks her first prophetic words to the Doctor are: ?Good Bye.? Like River Song, it appears her relationship with the Doctor is destined to run backwards, with her constantly quoting things The Doctor is about to say or do. She also keeps referring to the Doctor as ?Her thief.?

The family lives on House (no, not that House) who is a sentient planetoid. House introduces himself in a calm, warm, yet somehow ominous voice created by the incomprehensibly versatile Michael Sheen (who has played everything David Frost in Frost/Nixon to Tina Fey?s love interest in 30 Rock to Castor in TRON: Legacy.)

The Doctor tricks Amy and Rory into returning to the TARDIS to get his sonic screwdriver which he claims to have left in his ?other? coat? Rory: ?You have two of those?? ? and locks them in, believing he will keep them safe there. Indeed, House is malevolent, and eats TARDISes for breakfast, luring countless Time Lords to their deaths and using the spare body parts to ?repair? Aunty and Uncle ? as evidenced by an arm from the Corsair with Ourborus tattoo intact.

The Doctor: You gave me hope and then you took it away. That?s enough to make anyone dangerous. God knows what it will do to me.

But discovering that there may be no more Time Lords, House inhabits the TARDIS (with Amy and Rory still inside) and makes a dash for our Universe, only keeping the hapless companions around to torture for his amusement (shades of Harlan Ellison?s ?I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream?).

The Doctor: I?m a mad man with a box without a box.

Idris, it turns out, has absorbed the matrix of the TARDIS itself and is now the TARDIS incarnate, which is where the title of the episode comes from (not from the assumed relationship between the Doctor and River Song). She knows The Doctor better than he knows himself, and in fact, tells a story that she stole him so that she could see the Universe, rather than the other way around.

The Doctor: Oh, sorry. Do you have a name.
Idris: Seven hundred Years, finally he asks.
The Doctor: So What do I call you.
Idris: I think you call me? Sexy.
The Doctor: Only when we?re alone.
Idris: We are alone.
The Doctor: Oh? Come on then, Sexy.

Realizing he?s in a TARDIS graveyard, the Doctor, with the help of IDRIS, sets out to build a makeshift TARDIS control room to pursue his beloved Type 40.

Idris: You?re like a nine year old trying to build a motorbike in his bed room. And you never read the instructions.
The Doctor: I always read the instructions.
Idris: There?s a sign on my front door. You?ve only been walking past it for seven hundred years. What does it say?
The Doctor: That?s not instructions.
Idris: There are instructions at the bottom. What does it say?
The Doctor: Pull to open.
Idris: Yes, and what do you do?
The Doctor: I PUSH!
Idris: Every single time. Seven hundred years. Police Box doors open out!

This is another nod by Gaiman to a popular fanboy criticism of the show: The sign on the police box door clearly says ?Pull to Open?, but in the 50 years of the show, it has always opened in. This drives some fans mad. Fortunately, I?m not one of those. But despite such mind boggling philosophical arguments, Idris and The Doctor do take off, with a little TARDIS energy help from Idris.

After some rather unpleasant scenes with Amy and Rory in the TARDIS and being chased by the Nephew Ood (why is there an Ood in this episode?), the companions are led by Idris to an ?old? control room where they can safely lower the shields and let the Doctor and Idris on board. The Doctor and Idris land on Nephew Ood (why is there an Ood in this episode?)

The Doctor: Amy, this is, well, she?s my TARDIS. Except she?s a woman. She?s a woman? and she?s the TARDIS.
Amy: She?s the TARDIS?
The Doctor: ?And she?s a woman. She?s a woman, and she?s the TARDIS.
Amy: Did you wish REALLY hard?
The Doctor: Shut-up. It?s not like that.
Idris: Hello, I?m? Sexy.
The Doctor: Ohhh? Still, shut-up.

House, makes the same fatal mistak all Doctor Who villains make: he plays with ways to kill the Doctor rather than just killing him.

House: Fear me. I?ve killed hundreds of Time Lords.
The Doctor: Fear me, I?ve killed all of them.

But The Doctor tricks House into returning them all to the main control room where Idris is able to take the TARDIS back over, deposing House (although it?s not exactly clear where it goes), leaving a dying Idris, whose last words to the Doctor are ?Hello.?

There?s not a lot of movement in the overarching season story. Rory and Amy mutter to each other about not want to tell the Doctor that they saw him die 200 years into his future, but that?s the only tie-in I noted this season. Did I miss any easter eggs?

More memorable quotes from this episode

Uncle: I only wish I could go in your place in this? Nahh, I don?t ?cause it?s really going to hurt.

The Doctor: Oh it?s the warning lights. I?m getting rid of those. They never stop.

The Doctor: Imagine a great big soap bubble with one of those tiny little bubble on the outside.
Rory: OK
The Doctor: Well it?s nothing like that.

Idris: I?ve just had a new idea about kissing.

The Doctor: Oh, no. It?s all right. It?s an Ood. Love an Ood. Hello Ood.

Irdis: Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Yes, That?s it! Names are Funny. It?s me, I?m the TARDIS.
The Doctor: No you?re not. Your a bighty mad lady. The TARDIS is uppy downy stuff in a blue box.
Idis: Yes, that?s me. A Type 40 TARDIS.

The Doctor: The Eye of Orion is restful, if you like restful. I could never really get the hang of restful.

Amy: A boy and his box off to see the Universe.
The Doctor: Well, you say that as if it?s a bad thing, but honestly, it?s the best thing there is.

The Doctor: The House deleted all of the bedrooms. I should probably make you two another bedroom. You?d like that, wouldn?t you.
Amy: OK, ahh, Doctor, this time could we loose the bunk beds.
The Doctor: Bunk beds are cool. A bed? with a ladder? you can?t beat that.

Next Time: A slight case of zombieism in ?The Rebel Flesh?

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