The Doctor's Wife

Dear Gary—

Amy: “How can you leave the universe?”

Doctor: “With enormous difficulty.”

Two things The Doctor’s Wife has going for it from the start: a companionable TARDIS opening and an adventure that doesn’t take place on Earth for a change. I’m liking it. When all is said and done, The Doctor’s Wife is one of the best of the era. It is an intelligent and witty script that doesn’t cheat or manipulate and doesn’t trip over its self-reverential cleverness, a rarity of late. It is pure and simple Doctor Who.

In the nostalgic spirit of the episode, I have to say that it reminds me of two Classic Who serials. The First is The Caves of Androzani. Both Caves and Wife are excellent scripts executed brilliantly by a stellar cast; but I am kept from appreciating either to the degree they deserve by the larger picture of the surrounding seasons. Each is an oasis, but an oasis I can’t fully enjoy. For Caves I have a hard time warming to the Fifth Doctor and Peri, and I am therefore not fully invested in the action. For Wife I have a hard time divorcing it from the dark and dreary path of the season’s arc, even though there are no eye patch ladies and no vacillating pregnancy tests to remind me.

The second Classic serial I am reminded of is Ghost Light. This is partially as a result of the aforementioned arc distraction. Due to my general dislike of the direction the series was taking, the first time I viewed The Doctor’s Wife I did not devote my full attention and was therefore lost for most of it. It seemed a nightmare world inhabited by beings as mad as those occupying Gabriel Chase and making about as much sense. Subsequent viewings have cleared up the plot for me (which cannot be said of Ghost Light), but I can still see similarities between Control and Idris, much to my amusement.

I can now watch this episode as a standalone and can enjoy it as the fine story it is.

The unexpected knock on the TARDIS door in mid flight and the Doctor’s subsequent delight at getting mail set the episode up beautifully. I have never been a fan of the Time Lords from the Classic series, and the guilt laden angst of the Doctor concerning their fate has cast a pall over their memory in New Who. However the Doctor’s joyous reminiscence about his friends of old restores some of the luster to these legendary figures.  Furthermore, the onerous burden the Doctor has felt of late is simplified into a hopeful desire for forgiveness, thus making his discovery of the cupboard full of carelessly discarded Time Lord message boxes all that more tragic. This skillful blending of old and new Who into something of its own is perfect. “I’m a madman with a box, without a box,” is just another example of how the script takes echoes of the past and puts a refreshing twist on them.  I only wish that the series would take a lesson from its example.

Then we get into the heart of the plot. The idea of giving voice and personality to the TARDIS is original and long overdue, and the playfully loving relationship between Suranne Jones as Idris/TARDIS and Matt Smith as the Doctor is exactly what you would expect from this twosome who have been together for seven hundred years. From the Doctor referring to Idris/TARDIS as Sexy to Idris/TARDIS berating the Doctor for pushing not pulling the TARDIS’ doors to both claiming to have ‘stolen’ the other, the pair comfortably fit into their roles as bickering spouses devoted to one another.

The notion that an entity has been luring unsuspecting Time Lords to its “scrap yard at the end of the universe” in order to feed on TARDIS energy and use Time Lord body parts to make patchwork repairs to Uncle and Auntie (shades of The Brain of Morbius) is also intriguing. When the sentient asteroid House learns that there are no more Time Lords or TARDIS’ to salvage, he possesses the Doctor’s soulless TARDIS and takes off with Amy and Rory on board.

House’s tormenting of Amy and Rory is also compelling, although I can do without the once-more- into-the-Rory-is-dead-no-he-isn’t breach. However, it is an interesting twist on this Eleventh Doctor trope to have Amy internalizing this fear. House is playing with their senses and on their phobias. Amy can be thoughtlessly cruel towards her husband at times while he loyally trots along after her. House picks up on this dynamic and manifests it in a most un-Rory-like Rory turning on his wife in a dramatically startling way.

Real Rory is ever steadfast, however, and he and Amy eventually make it to the fabulously archived Tenth Doctor control room with the help of Idris/TARDIS. Idris/TARDIS and the Doctor also arrive in their makeshift TARDIS and things end for House rather callously. (“Finish him off, girl.”) The ending in store for the Doctor and Idris/TARDIS, though, is bittersweet.

Idris/TARDIS:  “Alive. I’m alive.”

Doctor: “Alive isn’t sad.”

Idris/TARDIS: “It’s sad when it’s over. I’ll always be here, but this is when we talked.”

And then we have goodbyes and hellos mixed up in whimsical fashion.

Idris/TARDIS: “There’s something I didn’t get to say to you.”

Doctor: “Goodbye?”

Idris/TARDIS: “No, I just wanted to say hello. Hello, Doctor. It’s so very, very nice to meet you.”

The Ood is a bit superfluous, but overall this is one of the best of New Who. I don’t even mind the cryptic, “the only water in the forest is the river.” I know it is tying in the tedious arc of the season, but like most of the script, it does it in a bright and novel way that piques the interest.

Alas, my sojourn in this oasis is over, Gary . . .