The Doctor's Wife (TV story)

The Doctor's Wife (TV story)

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

	[[doctor::Eleventh Doctor]]
	Amy Pond Rory Williams
	House Nephew
	Bubble universe, TARDIS
	Neil Gaiman
	Richard Clark
	216
	Series 6
	14th May 2011
	1x 45 minute episode

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.

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

In another universe, a woman named Idris is drained of her mind and soul in preparation for the arrival of a Time Lord.

The TARDIS is in flight and there's a knock on the door; when opened, a cube of light is seen that, when beckoned, hits the Doctor in the chest, whizzes about and then actually comes to him. The Doctor sees something on the box and announces he's "got mail!".

The hypercube is revealed to be a form of communication for Time Lords, this one coming from the Corsair. The message originates from "outside the Universe", but they still follow the signal. The TARDIS loses power - the Doctor seems perplexed at the concept in general; it's actually due to a different cause than before. The matrix has vanished. The planetoid they've landed on seems to be a junkyard.

The travellers are spotted by Idris, who starts kissing (later biting) the Doctor, calling him 'her thief', and speaking madly. She is closely followed by Auntie, Uncle and Nephew, a green-eyed Ood. They say she is mad, and Nephew takes her to get some rest. Idris asks if there's an 'off switch' and instantly falls asleep before being carried away by Nephew.

They are led deep into a carven to meet House, and learn the planetoid is accreted matter around an asteroid. The Doctor wants to find and help any living Time Lords; also informing House that he is the Last of the Time Lords and that his TARDIS is the last one. He sends Rory and Amy back to the TARDIS on a fool's errand to find his Sonic Screwdriver in his spare coat and locks them in with the sonic screwdriver he already had with him before heading towards the distress signals. He discovers a cupboard full of hypercubes that keep repeating emergency messages from a number of Time Lords. Auntie and Uncle approach and the Doctor discovers how House has been repairing them: they've been jigsawed together from bits and pieces of other unfortunate Time Lords that found their way to the planet, commenting that they remind him of his Sixth incarnation's umbrella.

Back in the TARDIS Amy and Rory have realised that a green glow is suffusing the TARDIS, which starts to dematerialize and hurtle off in the direction of the bigger, energy-rich universe, breaking connection with the Doctor. House announces he now has control of the TARDIS and threatens to kill the inhabitants if they don't give a reason not to. Rory claims that House needs entertainment, and killing them quickly wouldn't be fun, buying them time. They head for the TARDIS' corridors. House separates Amy and Rory. Amy is sent into a number of mind-games involving a fake Rory aging, trying to attack Amy and eventually dying, before the real Rory finds her.

The Doctor finds Idris, who tells him that she houses the TARDIS' soul. They talk (and flirt) until their non-linear flow of conversation begins to make sense and the Doctor lets her out of her 'cage'. They meet Auntie and Uncle, who drop dead, unable to live without House's presence, and they realise Idris has little time to live. Eventually they agree to rebuild a TARDIS console from all the junk, while they bond. Idris infuses the mechanical bits with a part of her inherent energy (matrix/soul) to allow them to follow House. Meanwhile, Idris reveals that she allowed the Doctor to steal her from the Time Lords all those years ago. She wanted to escape from Gallifrey and see the universe, so she "stole" the only Time Lord mad enough to travel with her.

House has raised the shields of the TARDIS. They need to be lowered so the Doctor and Idris can enter. The Doctor has Idris send a telepathic message to 'the pretty one' with details on how to get to a backup control-room; having different opinions than the Doctor, Idris sends the message to Rory instead of Amy. They arrive outside a door which opens upon Amy mentally visualising four words Idris sent Rory. They enter the old control room used by the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, lowering the shields as they are followed by Nephew (revealed to be House's servant). The new console lands on Nephew, blasting him into atoms. The Doctor quickly introduces Amy and Rory to Idris and engages in conversation with House, offering help to him as he is having trouble landing in the main universe. The Doctor suggests that House delete 30% of the rooms for power. House agrees - and deletes the previous control room the group are in.

The group are suddenly standing in the main control room, as all living things in deleted rooms are transported there. House doesn't care, though, since the TARDIS has now reached the normal universe. The Doctor pretends to congratulate House for defeating them, while Idris, about to die, whispers something into Rory's ear. The Doctor reveals that House's plan was to trap the matrix in a mortal body, then allow it to die and be released a long way from the TARDIS. Instead, the matrix is released inside the control room and merges back with the TARDIS. It proceeds to purge House from the TARDIS. The matrix has one last conversation with the Doctor from Idris' body, saying the word she never got to say to him: "Hello."

The Doctor starts putting a firewall around the matrix as he works under the console platform. Rory says that before she died, Idris told him 'the only water in the forest is the River', and that they'll need to know that some day. Thinking Amy and Rory need some time to rest, the Doctor suggests that he take them to the Eye of Orion for the peaceful atmosphere and quickly remakes Amy and Rory's room (without bunk beds per their request), sending them off to bed. Though Rory stalls to ask the Doctor if he has a bedroom of his own, Amy quickly grabs his arm and takes him into the corridor. The Doctor tries to talk to the matrix again, wondering if it agrees with going to the Eye of Orion and is rewarded when the speed lever pulls itself, making him laugh happily.

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

References

Real world

• Rory asks the Doctor if the House is the "junkyard at the end of the universe", possibly a reference to Douglas Adams' "Restaurant at the End of the Universe".

Time Lords

• The Doctor mentions an old Time Lord friend, the Corsair.

Story notes

• This episode was originally planned to be the eleventh episode of Series 5, but because of budget limitations, was delayed until Series 6.
• It was also planned to be episode three of Series 6, but was changed due to unknown reasons.
• 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. That title was eventually used for the Confidential episode for this story.
• 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 offers the first concrete confirmation that Time Lords can change genders when they regenerate. This was a deliberate addition to the mythos on Gaiman's part.
• Gaiman had wanted to use a classic-series-era console room for the sequences in the archived control room, but a set could not be reconstructed due to budgetary constraints. Instead the Tenth Doctor's console was left standing in the studio at Gaiman's request, secretly waiting to be used in this episode.
• Early drafts of the script featured more of Idris before having her soul removed, more backstory about the Corsair's relationship with the Doctor, more TARDIS rooms, burial of Idris' corpse and clear indication that House survived its defeat.
• The TARDIS corridors built for this story are now standing sets, available for use in future stories.

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 an archived 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

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.

• When the Doctor and Idris go searching for TARDISes, the Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver is blue, like the 9th and 10th Doctors', instead of green.

Continuity

• The Doctor asserts that he killed all of the Time Lords. (DW: The End of Time)
• An Ood appears and the Doctor mentions his continuing inability to save them. (DW: The Satan Pit, Planet of the Ood)
• The Doctor tells Uncle and Auntie to "Basically, run!". He tells the same thing to the Atraxi (DW: The Eleventh Hour).
• The TARDIS previously took on the form of the Brigadier to communicate with the Doctor in BFA: Zagreus
• A hallucination of an aged Rory mentions waiting 2000 years 'again'. (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 sent a message by hypercube in The War Games.
• Previous TARDISes in human form include Marie in Alien Bodies and Compassion from The Shadows of Avalon to The Ancestor Cell (Although they were evolved future TARDISes); the idea of TARDIS minds in human bodies was also seen in Unregenerate!.
• The previous TARDIS console appears for the first time since DW: The Eleventh Hour.
• The TARDIS first used psychic connection to send messages (and to frighten) its inhabitants in DW: The Edge of Destruction.
• Extra energy is given to the TARDIS by deleting various rooms of the TARDIS. (DW: Logopolis, Castrovalva)
• The Doctor offers to take Amy and Rory to the Eye of Orion. (DW: The Five Doctors)
• Idris/The TARDIS states she has all of the older control rooms saved in her archives, as well as many that have not been seen yet. (IDW: Tesseract)
• The Doctor and the TARDIS reference the ability to change the TARDIS '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. (DW: The Eleventh Hour, The Beast Below, et al)
• The inhabitants of House's asteroid refer to themselves by familial titles, much like the Family of Blood. (DW: Human Nature/The Family of Blood)
• While housing the Matrix, Idris names herself 'Sexy' in reference to the Doctor calling her 'you sexy thing'. (DW: The Eleventh Doctor)
• The TARDIS says that she likes it when the Doctor calls her "old girl", which the Doctor did numerous times in the classic series.
• The TARDIS calls the Doctor her "thief", and they discuss that he stole (or "borrowed") her.
• The Doctor says that the place they materialise is filled with rift energy, which will enable the TARDIS to regain power quickly. (DW: Boom Town, Utopia)
• While trying (unsuccessfully) to get into the TARDIS, The Doctor snaps his fingers as he did to gain access in DW: The Forest of the Dead, DW: The Eleventh Hour and DW: Day of the Moon.
• Ian Chesterton was the first to observe of the TARDIS "It's alive!" (DW: An Unearthly Child)
• The Doctor previously traveled using just the TARDIS console. (DW: Inferno)

Home video releases

DVD releases

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

External links

to be added