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. Narratively, it saw the TARDIS personified in human form, the return of the Ood and featured the interior of the Doctor's TARDIS extensively.

	[[doctor::Eleventh Doctor]]
	Amy Pond Rory Williams
	House Nephew
	Bubble universe Interior of the TARDIS
	Neil Gaiman
	Richard Clark
	216
	Series 6
	14th May 2011
	1x 45 minute episode
	6.4

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 scared of something that's about to happen, but is told that everything will be all right as she is serving a greater purpose by being drained of her mind and soul in preparation for the arrival of a Time Lord. A green-eyed Ood does this.

In the main universe, the Doctor's TARDIS is in flight. There's a knock on the door, perplexing Rory and Amy as they are flying through space. The Eleventh Doctor, confused and intrigued, opens the doors to reveal a cube of light. The Doctor beckons it in, but it knocks him down before whizzing about wildly until he manages to catch it. Amy and Rory wonder what he has and the Doctor gleefully responds "I've got mail!"

The Doctor explains that the object is a hypercube, a form of communication for Time Lords. This one is from the Doctor's old friend, the Corsair. The message comes from "outside the Universe", but they follow the signal, deleting TARDIS rooms for fuel. When they land in the bubble universe, 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, the soul of the TARDIS, has vanished. They open the doors to discover that the planetoid they've landed on is a junkyard.

They are spotted by Idris, who starts kissing, then biting the Doctor, calling him 'her thief', and speaking madly. She is closely followed by Auntie, Uncle and Nephew, a green-eyed Ood. They apologize for Idris, saying she is insane, 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 into a cavern by Auntie and Uncle to meet House, and learn the planetoid is accreted matter around a sentient asteroid. House allows Auntie, Idris, Nephew and Uncle to live upon him in exchange for doing his will. The Doctor proclaims that he wishes to find and help any living Time Lords; he also tells House that he is the Last of the Time Lords and that his TARDIS is the last one. He sends Amy and Rory back to the TARDIS to find his sonic screwdriver in his spare coat. Once they reach the TARDIS, the Doctor locks them in with his sonic screwdriver (he already had it with him) and heads towards the distress signals.

The Doctor discovers a cupboard full of hypercubes that keep repeating emergency messages from Time Lords. Now distraught, he notices Auntie and Uncle behind him. The Doctor tells them that losing hope is enough to drive anyone mad, but it could be worse with him. He now discovers House has been "repairing" them: they've been jigsawed together from bits and pieces of unfortunate Time Lords who found their ways to the planet. They remind the Doctor of his Sixth incarnation's umbrella, and tells them both to run.

Back in the TARDIS, Amy and Rory have no success in their fool's errand and notice that a green glow is suffusing the TARDIS. As the Cloister Bell rings, the Doctor runs to the TARDIS, shouting. He fails to unlock the doors, to the horror of Amy and Rory as the TARDIS dematerializes and hurtles off in the direction of the bigger, energy-rich universe. Inside the control room, House announces he now has complete control of the TARDIS and threatens to kill Amy and Rory 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 them. Amy is sent into mind-games involving a fake Rory aging, trying to attack Amy and eventually dying (his madnesses reason similar to Omegas), before the real Rory finds her.

Back on House's old shell, 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 once again meet Auntie and Uncle, who drop dead, unable to live without House to repair them and the Doctor realises Idris has little time to live. 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.

House has raised the shields of the TARDIS to prevent anyone from entering. The Doctor has Idris send a telepathic message to 'the pretty one' with details on how to get to a backup control-room; Idris sends the message to Rory instead of Amy. They arrive outside a door which opens when Amy mentally visualises four words sent to Rory. They enter the control room used by the Ninth and Tenth Doctors and lower the shields as they are followed by House's obedient puppet, Nephew. The junk TARDIS lands on the Ood, blasting him into atoms. The Doctor quickly introduces Amy and Rory to Idris and engages House, offering to help him enter the main universe. The Doctor suggests that House delete 30% of the rooms for power. House agrees - and deletes the control room the group are in.

The group are suddenly standing in the main control room; all living things in deleted rooms are transported there. House doesn't care, though, since the TARDIS has now reached the normal universe and he can use whatever method he pleases to kill them. The Doctor congratulates House on 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 has been released inside the control room and merges with the TARDIS. It purges House from the TARDIS. The matrix has one last conversation with the Doctor, saying the word she never got to say to him: "Hello." The Doctor begins to cry, and pleads with her not to leave him, but it is too late and she vanishes whispering "I love you". The heartbroken Doctor tearfully begins to work the console again, as an equally upset Rory and Amy look on.

The Doctor is 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 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".
• One of the code words to enter the archived control room is "Delight", referencing the character in Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" series, who speaks in odd but meaningful phrases, much like Idris.

Time Lords

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

TARDIS

• The TARDIS has several squash courts.

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.
• When The Doctor fixes Nephew's communication sphere the first, and loudest voice seems to sound like either Paul McGann or Christopher Eccleston. YouTube member TheOrminlange has posted a video of this, and gives an interesting theory about this in the video's description.
• 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.
• Neil Gaiman read the written text of his script in a video short posted on the BBC. The last lines of the script indicated that the TARDIS took the Doctor and his friends "somewhere that is almost certainly not the Eye of Orion".
• The TARDIS corridors built for this story are now standing sets, available for use in future stories.
• Since the series was revived in 2005, any episode to feature classic alien species would include a tribute in the end credits (except for the Silurians for an unknown reason, although they got finally credited in DW: A Good Man Goes to War), crediting the aliens' original creator, i.e. "Daleks created by Terry Nation" at the end of "Dalek". This is the first episode to do so with an alien created in the revived series itself, specifically "Ood created by Russell T Davies". The complete change in the production team before Series 5 could be why they credited the Ood.

Susannah Leah's TARDIS console design, used as the Junk TARDIS.

• The Junk TARDIS console was the subject of a 2009 design competition on Blue Peter. The winning design was by then-12-year-old Susannah Leah, whose subsequent visits to the BBC Art Department and location filming for this story was featured in the 10th May, 2011 episode of Blue Peter.
• The junkyard of TARDISes references the first appearance of the TARDIS in An Unearthly Child, when it was sitting in a junkyard.

Ratings

• 7.97 million (34.7% market share)

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 Amy finds the aged Rory it is obvious that his arms and hands are still those of a young man. (No make-up or appliances were added to age them.)
• When the Doctor reaches for the phone in his pocket to call Amy and Rory, the camera is facing his back. In the next shot, however, when the camera is facing his front, he repeats the action.

Continuity

• The Doctor asserts that he killed all of the Time Lords. (DW: The End of Time)
• The Cloister Bell rings as House takes control of the TARDIS.
• 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 said 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 for Amy, 'and you did it to me 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. Said umbrella was on the Fourth Doctor's coat rack, though it is associated most with the Sixth Doctor, and was used briefly by the Seventh Doctor. It resembled the multicolored coat worn by the Sixth 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. (DW: The War Games)
• Previous TARDISes in human form include Marie in PDA Alien Bodies, Compassion from EDA: The Shadows of Avalon to EDA: The Ancestor Cell and Glinda in BFA: Omega, though they were evolved future TARDISes. The idea of TARDIS minds in human bodies was also seen in BFA: Unregenerate!.
• The previous TARDIS console room 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)
• Idris/The TARDIS told the Doctor that although she didn't take him to where he wanted to go, she took him to where he needed to go, which explains most of the times that the TARDIS gets the flight wrong (e.g. landing on the Moon rather than Mars).
• Idris/The TARDIS mentions the Doctor "bringing in strays"; Martha Jones made a similar comparison to the Doctor's practice of taking on companions. (DW: Utopia)
• The Doctor and the TARDIS reference the ability to change the TARDIS 'desktop theme'. (DW: Time Crash)
• 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 Hour)
• 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's theft or 'borrowing' of the TARDIS has been referenced in previous television stories, notably The War Games and The Five Doctors.
• 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 to gain access. (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 Third Doctor previously travelled using just the TARDIS console. (DW: Inferno)
• Idris claims that she's known the Doctor for approximately 700 years (the Doctor claimed he was 909 years old in The Impossible Astronaut), implying that he stole the TARDIS when he was approximately 209 years old.
• Idris claims that the Doctor has walked past the "Pull to Open" sign on the TARDIS door for the past 700 years. The TARDIS has been using the police box disguise since the events of An Unearthly Child, suggesting that from the Doctor's point of view, 700 years have passed since that time.
• Idris is annoyed that the Doctor never reads instructions. The Doctor once admitted he threw the TARDIS instruction manual into a supernova because he disagreed with it. (DW: Amy's Choice)
• Idris tells Rory to tell the Doctor "The only water in the forest is the river". The significance of these words is revealed in DW: A Good Man Goes to War.
• The Junk TARDIS console features safety belts to hold onto, a feature once seen on the console of the Doctor's TARDIS in DW: Timelash.
• This story marks the first time that a TARDIS (or parts thereof) other than the Doctor's have been shown on-screen since DW: Time and the Rani.

Home video releases

Released as Series 6 Part 1 with The Impossible Astronaut, Day of the Moon, The Curse of the Black Spot, The Rebel Flesh, The Almost People and A Good Man Goes to War on 11th July 2011.

External links

to be added