Doctor Who 7x11: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

[kerravonsen]

Note about episode numbering: the ABC calls this episode 10. Others call this episode 11. The BBC website calls it "Season 7 Part 2 Episode 5".
(sigh)

Hmmmm. Very tense, this one. A "trapped with a monster" episode; this one different because it's the TARDIS they're trapped inside of.

Trapped inside with a monster... and there are moments in the episode where Clara feels that the monster is the Doctor.

The resolution in the end was easy, possibly too easy, not to mention paradoxical. How could Clara have been burned by the remote the first time when the Doctor hadn't already tossed it back before? Or is it that there was more than one version of the day or something? We had echoes of the future that didn't happen, while some did.

A lot of things-not-being-as-they-seem in this episode:
* Monsters who are not monsters.
* An android who was not an android.
* Secrets that are, and secrets that aren't.

"Good guys don't keep zombie-creatures in their space ships!"
(Well, they do if they're imprisoned. That was what I thought, at first - that the monsters were escaped imprisoned monsters.)
Again we have directors who apply the "less is more" principle with the monsters. Good.
Mind you, when we find out what the monsters actually were... they were rather lively for walking-corpses-which-were-echoes-of-the-future, don't you think?

"Secrets are for safety." Where have I heard that phrase before? Not in a Doctor Who context, but somewhere else. Hmmm.

Those steel rods stabbing at random through the corridor didn't make sense. Well, apart from the point of forcing the revelation about the not-android brother.

There were three reasons given for why brother #3 thought he was an android. Which was the real reason?

(a) they made him think he was an android as a joke because they were bored.
(b) brother #2 wanted to be captain, so he needed #3 out of the running.
(c) there was an accident and brother #3 lost his sight and memory, so they thought it easier on him to make him think he was an android.

Brother #2 was really cold. Then again, if he hadn't been so greedy, there wouldn't have been an episode...

The Doctor has a name which he doesn't go by. Well, we knew that already. But he's very twitchy about it, and we don't know why.

How coincidental that Clara should just happen to look at "The History of the Time War", and just happen to open it at random and see the Doctor's name with sufficient context to know that it was his name, hmmm? I wonder who wrote that book? The Doctor? The TARDIS?
I expect one of the first things the Doctor will do is take that book and lock it up, and scold the TARDIS for putting it in a place of prominence. I expect she had her reasons.

I loved that "The Encyclopedia of Gallifrey" was liquid in bottles. I wonder how one is meant to "read" it?

So the Doctor is finally convinced that Clara is just an ordinary woman. Which is what everyone has been telling the Doctor since "The Bells of St. John". I did like the scene where he got that revelation; the emotional ups and downs of it, where he frightens Clara with his badgering, and then hugs her.
There has got to be something timey-wimey going on here; this Clara is ordinary, neither a trick nor a trap. But perhaps the other Claras were. It isn't actually this Clara that the Doctor should have investigated... it was the other two.

Two theories:
a) Something is going to happen, something as a result of her travelling with the Doctor, which will end up creating echoes of her in the past and the future.
b) Someone has manipulated the Doctor into taking this Clara on board the TARDIS by creating an irresistible mystery. Though that doesn't really make sense, because, unlike River Song, this Clara is really just a normal woman, not a tool of some Mysterious Enemy.

It's interesting that the Doctor is overly concerned, at the end, that Clara feels safe.

"Afraid? Afraid of what?"
"Afraid... of the future."

Personally I think the Doctor almost said "Afraid of me." But of course he couldn't, because she didn't remember what had happened. But does the Doctor remember? Actually, I think he does. He's behaving as if he does. Which doesn't make sense. Time Lord thing?

Her hair was wet and she had a towel over her shoulder. Had she just had a shower, or had she been swimming in the swimming pool? Hooray for the swimming pool, BTW. Hooray for all the architectural TARDIS interior fun!

When one steps back and thinks about it, there are a number of holes in the plot, but I was feeling generous and didn't let it bother me too much.

Mind you, if you compare it to another "trapped-in-the-TARDIS" episode, "The Doctor's Wife", it only gets a C+. Darn.

Comments

[tptigger]

I don't know, I would think a whole prophecy about he answer to the question "Doctr Who" that involves the end of the entire universe would tend to make The Doctor kind of twitchy about his name.

[infiniteviking]

Re the paradox: we never saw how Clara got into the corridor the first time. Maybe that was a timeline where she did catch the button, but neither she or the Doctor saw where it came from so she didn't give it to him or know what it was?

Reasons 2 and 3 seem to match up to me: there was an accident, and Brother 2, who wanted to be captain, took advantage of that. I hadn't gotten the sense from him that they had done it to make it easier on the kid. (He was really nasty the whole way through, but then the rescue bit at the end happened..... ;;)

All the rooms and zones and the pool and the library made me SO GLEEFUL. :D But yeah, the book falling open to just the right page made me side-eye, as did the memory reset at the end. We were just getting somewhere, darnit!

[kalypso]

It's a common idea in folklore and fantasy that to know someone's true name gives you power over them in some way. So it makes sense to me that Time Lords use handles for convenience while concealing their true names.

I thought the Doctor (and probably the TARDIS) remembered what had happened; the humans effectively forgot, but unexplained echoes remained in their minds (hence brother #2 suddenly showing his scrap of decency to brother #3 at the end).

On the brothers, I thought it was all true, but my order would be slightly different:

(a) there was an accident and brother #3 lost his sight, voice and memory
(b) brother #2 wanted to be captain, and saw his chance to keep #3 out of the running
(c) so he sold the idea to brother #1 as a joke because they were bored.

[kerravonsen]

So it makes sense to me that Time Lords use handles for convenience while concealing their true names.

Well, we know that the Doctor, the Master and the Rani concealed their true names, but we don't know about the other Time Lords, whose names appeared to be names rather than handles.

the humans effectively forgot, but unexplained echoes remained in their minds (hence brother #2 suddenly showing his scrap of decency to brother #3 at the end).

Which makes me wonder if Clara subconsciously remembers the Doctor's name. I just realized that this could be another reason the Doctor was worried about whether Clara was frightened; not just that he felt guilty, but he wanted to be sure that she didn't remember his name.

On the brothers, I thought it was all true, but my order would be slightly different
Ah, that makes sense.

[kalypso]

Ah, well, in practice I've always accepted the statement in The Making of Doctor Who, a book I was given when I was ten, that the Doctor's real name is . This came up in "secret files of the Time Lords", in which the other Time Lords were named with similar mathematical formulae, and it made perfect sense to me; when Time Lords think of each other, they see the formulae in their minds, but they use handles like "the Doctor" and "the Master" for convenience in conversation. The fact that later Time Lords were introduced with what sounded like actual names was just one of the annoying revelations about the Time Lords post-Pertwee that I never really absorbed into my head canon (but if forced I would say that they're nicknames or use-names, like Sparrowhawk for Ged in the Earthsea series; some Time Lords use those as handles and some prefer titles).

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I wonder who wrote that book? The Doctor? The TARDIS?


I was wondering that too.

I favour your theory A about the origins of Clara's duplicates. I wonder whether they could have been created during last night's episode.

[kerravonsen]

I wonder whether they could have been created during last night's episode.

Hmmm, that's an interesting thought. Perhaps even at the very moment that the Doctor told her about the other Claras...

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

As they were the only ones in the TARDIS I'd already worked out what the monsters were. Though vis a vis monsters I think the biggest monster there was brother *2!

I loved the TARDIS interior, especially the library, very steampunk! The bottled encyclopaedia made me think more of Harry Potter.

The rods were rather ridiculous.

One thing about this episode, it does prove things are really not fixed in time, it can be changed.

[kerravonsen]

The bottled encyclopaedia made me think more of Harry Potter.
Bottled memories? Hmmm.

I think the biggest monster there was brother *2!
Indeed.

One thing about this episode, it does prove things are really not fixed in time, it can be changed.

I think the DW theory is that some things are fixed and others are not, and that a Time Lord can tell the difference.

[brendanpodger.livejournal.com]

My excuse reason for Clara happening on his name is: From the sound of things the Doctor has let slip over time, I am betting his name is writ pretty large all through the history of the Time Wars; and the real reason - pacing.