Rewatching Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife

[vivdunstan]

This post is full of spoilers, so I'll put it in a cut. Note there are spoilers for almost all the Matt Smith run in there, so beware.

Continuing my slow but steady rewatch, and now up to another Hugo Award winning episode. This time from my favourite still living author Neil Gaiman. It's a bonkers episode at the very start, and even when it settles down to the "TARDIS in a woman's body" it absolutely isn't an episode for newcomers to the show. It builds on so much back history, that you need to know. But it delights in a small cast, almost theatrical, with the whizz bang of big scifi ideas. Certainly bigger on the inside. The scenes with Amy and Rory in the TARDIS are less successful for me. I tend to grow weary of long corridor scenes, as seen with some recent specials! Originally the episode was intended for Matt Smith's opening series, and I can't help but think it would have worked better there. It might also have fitted much better there around the developing Doctor-River relationship. But oh, there is so much to enjoy.

Comments

[selenak]

I love this episode as well, and consider it one of Neil Gaiman's best for another universe, right there with Day of the Dead from B5. And Suranne Jones is awesome as the embodied TARDIS. At the time, I had only seen her in a standard villain role on Sarah Janes Adventures, and little did I know of the glories to come when she played the lead in Gentleman Jack, but she really impressed me here.

Amy and Rory on the TARDIS: admittedly I fast forward through them during rewatches, but the first time it felt efficiently creepy. Mind you, I think you're right and the horror element of Rory waiting forever etc. would fit more with a time in canon when they're less sure of themselves as a couple, but then as I understand the episode in its original form (for Matt Smith's first season) didn't have Rory at all?

[vivdunstan]

Yup it was originally going to slot into the vanished Rory portion of series 5. I think there’s also the problem later that we’ve seen Rory seemingly die so many times before, only to come back to life. So that scene in The Doctor’s Wife isn’t as effective as it should be. Though Karen Gillan acts her heart out.