The Doctor's Wife (TV story)

The Doctor's Wife was the fourth episode in the sixth series of Doctor Who. It saw the TARDIS personified in human-form.

Synopsis
The Doctor receives a distress signal from an old friend. Could there really be another living Time Lord out there? Hopes raised, he follows the signal to a junkyard planet sitting upon a mysterious asteroid in a Bubble universe, populated by a very strange family, as the time-travelling drama continues.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory are given the warmest of welcomes by Auntie, Uncle and Nephew. But the beautiful and insane Idris greets them in a more unusual fashion – what is she trying to tell the Doctor? As the Doctor investigates, he unwittingly puts his friends in the gravest danger.

Plot
''The TARDIS is in flight, there's a knock on the door; when opened a far-away cube of light is seen (without hands to knock) that, when beckoned, hits the Doctor in the chest, whizzes about and then actually comes to him. The Doctor seems to be a subscriber of AOL, because "I've got mail" is what he says. So much for product-placement. ''

On with the plot: The hypercube is a form of communication for Timelords, this one seems to come from The Corsair and the Doctor knows him/her (change of gender has occured for this Timelord); the Doctor counts The Corsair as "one of the good ones". The message originates from "outside the Universe", somewhere where the trio has never gone before. They follow the signal. As happened before when switching from the natural home-universe to a different one (see DW: Rise of the Cybermen and DW: The Age of Steel) the TARDIS loses power - but this time, although the Doctor seems perplexed at the concept in general, it's actually due to a different cause than before. This time the matrix (read: soul of the TARDIS) has been transported into the body of a humanoid female called Idris/Idris. The planetoid they've landed on seems to be a complete junkyard.

The travellers are greeted by Auntie & Uncle, closely followed by Nephew, a green-eyed Ood. They warn about contact with Idris, saying she is mad. Idris is very taken with the Doctor, calls him "her thief" and seems to confuse temporal order and word-opposites, like when greeting him she first says "Goodbye!".

When led into the interior of some structure to meet House, they come to accept that the planetoid is accreted matter around a sentient lifeform, which glows green - like the eyes of the Ood Nephew. The Doctor's single-minded purpose though is to find and help any possibly lost but still alive Timelords, Amy conjectures he might just want to be forgiven. He then sends Amy back to fetch his Sonic Screwdriver out of his jacket, Rory notices he's already wearing his usual jacket. When Amy asks Rory to keep an eye on the Doctor he then in turn asks him to keep an eye on Amy, playing the lovers-card to his own design. Now free of his companions he can seek his peers in peace. Called on the TARDIS-phone by Amy (in search of the Sonic Screwdriver seen in the hand of the Doctor, pulled from the jacket) he uses it to lock (possibly dead-lock?!) the TARDIS door, effectively trapping Rory & Amy inside the dead TARDIS. He then discovers a cupboard full of hypercubes, that keep repeating emergency-messages from a number of Timelords. Auntie & Uncle approach and the Doctor uncovers how House has been repairing them, they've been jigsawed together from bits and pieces that found their way into the "sink hole" where this "bubble universe" exists, on the outer-edge of the natural universe we commonly know the Doctor to travel in.

In the meantime we see Amy & Rory slowing realising that a green glow is suffusing the TARDIS, which starts to dematerialize and hurtle off in direction of the bigger, energy-rich universe. House now has control of the TARDIS and is threatening to kill the inhabitants, if they don't give a reason against such action. Rory quickly assesses that this being is in need of entertainment and argues this point in his half-hearted way of making a stand. House tells them to run. This is when we get to see some interior of the TARDIS heretofore unseen, which is basically the same set of corridors again and again, with some slight hints at the light-fixtures from the 9th/10th incarnation console-room. Naturally, for the amusement of House, Amy gets seperated from Rory and is sent into a number of mind-games elaborating on loss of companionship, possible animosities arising thereof and the joy of reuniting with her mate.

During a lot of back-n-forth cuts between the two storylines Auntie & Uncle die.

The Doctor also finds a mate in Idris, who finally makes him realize that the TARDIS matrix has been locked into her flesh. They flirt and banter away until they, in non-linear flow of time fashion, figure out that the remains of all the Timelords and TARDISes House has fed upon in its time has given them access to a means of escape. They plan to build a new TARDIS, although they weren't actually ever built but grown; but that part gets more-or-less dealt with when they're ready to go, but can't. Because Idris then infuses the mechanical bits with a part of her inherent energy (matrix/soul) and allows them to follow House.

Since House has raised the shields of TARDIS these need to be lowered so the Doctor and Idris can materialize, so Idris sends a message to "the pretty one" with details on how to get to a backup control-room; Amy & Rory nearly don't make it though, since House has brought Nephew along for the ride and tries to use him to kill them. In the nick of time Nephew is neutralized and the Doctor and Idris are back inside TARDIS. Time is running out for the body of Idris, as it was for Aunti & Uncle without constant repair by House. House is intent on killing again unless given a reason not to. The Doctor seems to be negotiating with House and giving helpful information on how to re-enter the larger universe without much cause for the trust he proclaims to have. As it turns out it was a ruse, since the Doctor knew deleting rooms (part of the required trickery for re-entry) transports any living entities inside them into the main control-room. Idris dies while imparting some secret to Rory about rivers, water and forests. The Doctor is happy, because that means the matrix can recombine with the TARDIS hardware and he tells his "old girl" to finish House off.

At the end a few attempts at explanations are made, the secret is spelt out "the only water in the forest is the river" and Amy & Rory get a new bedroom, possibly without bunk beds this time, although this is left uncertain since the Doctor seems to enjoy the idea of a bed with a ladder.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
 * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
 * Idris / The TARDIS - Suranne Jones
 * Uncle - Adrian Schiller
 * Auntie - Elizabeth Berrington
 * Nephew - Paul Kasey
 * Voice of House - Michael Sheen

Crew
to be added

Story notes

 * This episode was originally episode three of Series 6, but was changed due to unknown reasons.
 * It was also planned to be the eleventh episode of Series 5, but because of budget limitations, was delayed until Series 6.
 * During an interview with Neil Gaiman on BBC breakfast he revealed that his episode is "very spooky" and that fans "are likely to be biting their nails off by the end".
 * Michael Sheen is credited as Voice of House on-screen, and as House in Radio Times.
 * On his blog, writer Neil Gaiman released a short conversation between Amy and the Doctor that did not meet the final cut in the episode he wrote.
 * This episode had the working title of Bigger on the Inside.
 * While it has been hinted at before a few times in the franchise, most directly in the ending of DW: The End of Time, this episode gives the first concrete confirmation that Time Lords can change genders when they regenerate.

Ratings
to be added

Myths

 * Viewers will see more of the Doctor's TARDIS. Correct, we saw more corridors and a secondary control room, which was "archived" from the Ninth/Tenth Doctor's TARDIS 
 * There are rumours this story will be set in a giant doll's house this also seems more likely due to the working title of his story being "The House of Nothing". Incorrect, House was an asteroid.
 * This story will contain something - or someone - that we have not seen since The War Games. Correct, we saw a hypercube.
 * The Ninth/Tenth Doctor's TARDIS will appear. Correct, it appeared as a secondary control room.
 * Suranne Jones' Idris is the Doctor's wife. Whilst Idris was not the Doctor's marital wife, she was his TARDIS in human form, and had many attributes of a wife.

Filming locations
to be added

Production errors

 * When the Doctor and Idris build their own console to go after the TARDIS, there were 3 walls, left right, and center wall. But when the custom console is flying through the rift, the center wall has mysteriously disappeared.

Continuity

 * The Doctor asserts that he killed all of the Timelords.
 * An Ood appears and the Doctor mentions his continuing inability to save them. (DW: The Satan Pit, Planet of the Ood)
 * The TARDIS previously took on the form of the Brigadier in BFA: Zagreus.
 * A hallucination of Rory mentions waiting 2000 years for a second time. (first was in DW: The Big Bang)
 * Amy's thought of delight is her wedding. (DW: The Big Bang)
 * The Doctor mentions he had an umbrella that resembled the patchwork of body parts that Uncle and Auntie both have. This is a reference to the Sixth Doctor and Seventh Doctor
 * Behind the Doctor's back, Amy and Rory again discuss what they are going to do with him concerning them witnessing the death of his 1103 year old self. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut, The Curse of the Black Spot)
 * The Doctor previously took a message by hypercube. (DW: The War Games)
 * The previous TARDIS console appears for the first time since DW: The Eleventh Hour.
 * Previous TARDISes in human form include Marie in Alien Bodies and Compassion from The Shadows of Avalon to The Ancestor Cell.
 * The Doctor mentions an old Time Lord friend, The Corsair.
 * The Doctor offers to take Amy and Rory to the Eye of Orion. (DW: The Five Doctors)
 * The Doctor stated that the TARDIS has all of the older control rooms saved in its archive, as well as many that have not been seen yet. (Tesseract)
 * The Doctor comments that the TARDIS can change the 'desktop theme'. (DW: Time Crash)
 * The rift that the TARDIS uses to get to the Bubble Universe resembles one of the Cracks, which can also transport people through time and space.

DVD releases
This episode will be released with episodes 1 to 7 in summer 2011.