Doctor Who 5x11: The Lodger

[kerravonsen]

Catching up again. (And look at my new icon!)

How very Doctor Who; the very creepy juxtaposed with the very ordinary.

Another on the list of innocuous but now creepy phrases: "Can you help me?"
(Others on the list: "Are you my Mummy?" and "What do you want?")
I liked how the trouble turned out to be a malfunctioning computer program; a "Sorcerer's Apprentice" problem.
I also liked how "time rot" looked like mildew and how the Doctor revived Craig with tea.

Awww, Craig. An ordinary bloke saving the world because he's ordinary and in love.

I have mixed feelings towards the way the Doctor couldn't be ordinary even though he was trying. After all, he managed not to make an idiot of himself when he was working as UNIT's Scientific Advisor (whether that was the 70s or the 80s I don't care). So we know that he can do it; or that he can do it if he has more time. Where the heck did he get the idea that the kissy thing was a proper greeting? It's a girly greeting, for one thing, and not every girl does it. (sigh)

I did like the way he made Sophie question her apathy; that's very much him, he shakes things up wherever he is.

The way the Doctor picked up soccer in nothing flat, again I have mixed feelings towards that. I could believe that he could very well have superior reflexes, but even Time Lords have a learning curve. We have the example of the 5th Doctor, whom we know was excellent at cricket, but he also let slip that he learned from Bradman. On the other hand, it was lovely just seeing him enjoy himself so much.

That the Doctor learned cooking in Paris in the 18th Century, that one does make sense.

I didn't like the head-banging telepathy. Slapstick, we do not like it. We do not like lazy writing either. (sigh)

I did like Craig's gesture with giving the Doctor the spare keys. Particularly since Craig made it clear that he was sure he'd never see the Doctor again.

So, there were good bits and OTT bits. It still made me go "Awwww" at the end.


And then we have the bit at the end, with Amy and the engagement ring. Was she remembering? Something happened. And it seems to be implying that the Crack has something to do with Amy herself, that she's intimately connected with it. Where was that Crack that flared? Was it in Craig's flat, or in the TARDIS? I think it was in Craig's flat.

Was this meant to be an Amy-lite episode? Because all her scenes were inside the TARDIS, which would have meant that she didn't need to go on location for this episode. Does that mean that next week (er, tomorrow) is going to be a Doctor-lite episode? I guess we'll just see. I didn't look at the trailer, I try to avoid them. Though I already know that River Song is going to be in it; there's already been enough hints in the episodes themselves that she'll be there. Which means we could have a River-and-Pond roadshow. Hmmm. I wonder how they'll play River Song this time, since this one is supposed to be an earlier River than the one we saw in "The Time of Angels"/"Flesh and Stone". How much earlier? I guess we'll see next time.

I hate how smug River is, so I'm not really looking forward to it. (sigh)

Comments

[kerravonsen]

I hypothesised that perhaps so much had happened to the Doctor in the interim that he'd forgotten some stuff that he'd learnt a long time ago. Or maybe the process of regeneration could cause some less essential memories to be lost?

I wonder if it is that he keeps on forgetting what time period he is in? Especially since the thing upstairs was messing with Time. On my other journal, someone pointed out that the kissing thing is very French, and since the previous episode was set in France, it might have carried over from that.

I can't imagine that they would want to make either part of the season finale Doctor-lite though, so perhaps Matt Smith is so full of energy that he didn't feel that he needed a break.
My impression is that the reason for a Doctor-lite episode isn't that the actor needs a break, but because there literally isn't enough time to film 13 full episodes in the schedule they have, so they try to squeeze the filming of two episodes in the time for one, by making one of them Doctor-lite.

I like your new icon. That the Doctor and his companions have a lot of similarities to Peter Pan and Wendy is something that first occurred to me a few months ago.
Thanks. It isn't an original thought with me - I think I might first have come across it in a story about Sarah-Jane Smith - but the portrayal of the Doctor and Amy - especially in The Eleventh Hour - struck me as particularly strong in that trope.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I thought that the Peter Pan/Wendy thing was stronger with Martha or Donna as the companion, because they both seemed more mature than the Doctor in a lot of ways, whereas that doesn't apply so much to Amy. OTOH, Matt Smith's Doctor is perhaps more Peter Pannish than David Tennant's was.

One could extend the metaphor by comparing the Master to Captain Hook, and the drums in his head to the alarm clock in the crocodile!

[kerravonsen]

OTOH, Matt Smith's Doctor is perhaps more Peter Pannish than David Tennant's was.
(nods)