The Lodger (TV story)

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This article is about the television story. For the comic, see The Lodger (comic story)

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The Lodger is the eleventh episode of Series 5 and was a companion lite episode.

Synopsis

A mysterious force locks the TARDIS - with Amy inside it - trapped in a materialization loop, and it's up to the Doctor to work out what that force is, or Amy could be lost forever. As he investigates, he learns of a house on Aickman road, with a staircase which people walk up but never down. To solve this mystery, the Doctor must pass himself off as a normal human being and share a flat with Craig Owens.

Plot

The Tomb eats a park in Colchester and rabbitboy is thrown out. The TARDIS then dematerialises with Antface still inside leaving the Doorknob behind. A nanosecond later, the doctor comes and eats a pie and runs away.

Cast

Production crew

to be added

References

The Doctor

  • The Doctor uses a regular screwdriver and asks where the on switch is.
  • When the Doctor rushes out of the shower in fear of Craig's safety he grabs Craig's toothbrush rather than his Sonic screwdriver.
  • The Doctor knows how to play football (although he initially confused it with Cricket, which the Fifth Doctor was good at).
  • After the Doctor 'shares' his knowledge with Craig, he sees brief flashes of: the Doctor's first, second, third, fourth, eighth, ninth and tenth incarnations; Cybermen, Rose Tyler, an Ood, and a Weeping Angel. He also describes himself as "Eleventh" to explain himself to Craig.
  • The Doctor shares a psychic connection with a cat.
  • The Doctor introduces himself to the alien timeship as "Captain Troy Handsome of International Rescue. Please state the nature of your emergency", referencing both Thunderbirds (International Rescue is the name of their organisation) and Star Trek: Voyager ("Please state the nature of your medical emergency" is the first thing Voyager's Emergency Medical Hologram - also, coincidentally, referred to as "the Doctor" - says on boot up).

Events

Foods and beverages

  • The Doctor makes himself and Craig an omelette with cheese, ham, mayonaise and other ingredients.
  • The Doctor does not appear to enjoy wine, as after drinking some, spits it back into the glass.
  • The Doctor uses tea to cure Craig after he is poisoned by the rot on his wall, stating that it would 'reverse the enzyme decay'.

Locations

  • Craig was offered a job in London, which he turned down. This may be a reference to the fact Moffat is keeping the fifth series away from the sterotypical setting in London.

Technology

  • After gaining the Doctor's knowledge, Craig realises that his scanning device is based on the "non-technological" technology of the Lammasteen.

Story notes

  • This episode was mistakenly entitled Reality Check and Don't Go Up The Stairs.
  • "The Lodger" is also a comic strip story by Gareth Roberts. Roberts has confirmed this story is an adaptation of the basic premise of the other, however he has stated that they differ quite a lot in that the comic was written for different characters (the Tenth Doctor and Mickey Smith) and focused on the "domestic set-up" while the TV story involves "something at the top of the stairs".[1] This isn't the first adaption on the TV series, NA: Human Nature being a previous example.
  • Several previous Doctors appeared in brief flashed when The Doctor knocked heads with Craig.
  • This is an Amy-lite episode, similar to the Donna-lite episode DW: Midnight and in the vein of the Doctor and Rose-lite episode DW: Love and Monsters and the Martha (and Doctor)-lite episode DW: Blink. However, Amy features throughout this story, when in Midnight, Donna was completely absent, apart from the beginning and the ending.
  • This is the first time in the new series that the Doctor has definitively stated how many incarnations he has had — he tells Craig he is the eleventh.
  • The Doctor wears a football kit, playing for Craig's pub team, the King's Arms. He wears a jersey with the number 11 on it when playing a football match, both referencing him being the Eleventh Doctor and this being the eleventh episode of Series 5.
  • The Doctor playing football in the episode is a coincidental reference to the fact that Matt Smith originally wanted to become a professional footballer before a back injury, causing him to focus on acting instead. However writer Gareth Roberts has stated that the football scene was always going to be carried over from the comic story and he began writing it prior to the casting of Smith [2].
  • The 2010 FIFA World Cup England vs USA match kicked off just as The Lodger finished, on a rival channel (ITV), the timing noted by writer Roberts as a "happy accident" [3].
  • The Doctor making Craig an omelette may be a reference to Gavin and Stacy, the series which James Corden starred in and wrote, in which the only food Stacy's mum ever seemed to cook was omeletts.
  • The Doctor wears only a blue bath towel for one scene, incidentally Matt Smith appears similarly in the show Secret Diary of a Call Girl as one of Billie Piper's clients. An online stir was caused when many viewers claimed that Smith briefly 'flashed' the camera when his towel fell, however the BBC and Smith have denied he was completely naked for that scene [4].
  • Gareth Roberts, the writer of this episode, revealed in an interview in Doctor Who Magazine Issue 423 that he had planned to return the classic enemy Meglos in this story, but decided against it after the similar-looking aliens the Vinvocci made an appearence in DW: The End of Time. The magazine also showed an early draft of the script which showed the meeting of the Eleventh Doctor and Meglos in which Meglos remembered the Doctor but the Doctor didn't remember Meglos.
  • The set in the house is remarkably similar to that in Fear Her.
  • When the Doctor hands Craig the bag of money, he tells him "Don't spend it all on sweets." The Ninth Doctor said the same thing to Adam Mitchell when he gave him the credit stick in DW: The Long Game.

Ratings

Offical viewing figures was 5.98 million viewers.

Rumours

  • It is rumoured that either the Timoreen, the Ha'rik, or the Skarkish will appear – primarily because these were all listed as "new aliens" to appear in Series 5. None of them appeared
  • This episode will be the one that features the Blue Peter Competition TARDIS console. The design itself did not appear, but another ship console design did.
  • As this episode is before the finale, it most likely will have a foreshadowing (like in DW: Fear Her and DW: The Waters of Mars) or link right into the finale (like DW: Utopia and DW: Turn Left). This was proved true.
  • It is likely that this episode will lead directly into the next as Claudio played by Marcus O'Donovan is listed to appear in both this episode and the following one, DW: The Pandorica Opens. The episode did not directly lead to the next, but it did have something very related to the next episode. (However Claudio did not appear in this episode).
  • Amy will remember, or begin to remember, Rory by the end of the episode. Although she never remembered him enough to say it, she did find her wedding ring in the Doctor's coat.

Filming locations

to be added

Production errors

  • When giving Craig tea through the spout of the teapot, the angle from above the Doctor shows the liquid to be clear, much unlike tea, and unlike some of the liquid which dribbles from Craig's mouth.
  • After cooking the omelette for Craig and himself the Doctor is shown licking his thumb, but in the next shot his hand is positioned differently and he is wiping his mouth with his finger.
  • When the Doctor is about to eat his custard cream biscuit, the man gives it to him then in a nano second the doctor is already munching away at it.
  • Near the end of the episode when the alien hologram says "the correct pilot has been found" and it cuts to Amy in the TARDIS she says "he means you Doctor, doesn't he?" her lips don't seem to quite match what she is saying.
  • A cameraman's reflection can be seen in the painting hanging on the hallway wall when it is shown during a conversation later in the episode.
  • When Sophie looks up the stairs towards the girl, the door behind her seems to open itself. The shot then changes to show Sophie looking up at the camera as if it was upstairs. When the shot changes back to behind Sophie, the door appears to open again.
If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

Continuity

Home video releases

BBC Video - Doctor Who Series Five - Volume Four also features Vincent and the Doctor, The Lodger, The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang. It was released on Monday 6th September 2010 (UK Only) on DVD and Blu-ray.[5]

File:S5v4.jpg
Official Volume 4 Cover

See also

External links

to be added

Footnotes

  1. ↑ http://www.sfx.co.uk/2010/06/10/“the-lodger”-interview/
  2. ↑ http://www.sfx.co.uk/2010/06/10/“the-lodger”-interview/
  3. ↑ http://www.sfx.co.uk/2010/06/10/“the-lodger”-interview/
  4. ↑ http://www.digitalspy.com/cult/s7/doctor-who/news/a226815/matt-smith-wasnt-naked-in-doctor-who.html/
  5. ↑ DWM 421, Page 18

Template:Series 5

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