Is There A Doctor In The... Oh, That's Far To Obvious

Doctor Who fans LOVE a good debate about pointless minutiae. It's what we thrive on. One of the best, and indeed longest running is what exactly defines a companion. You know, as if that was an official title held by characters in the show. Is it based on number of appearances? On trips in the TARDIS? On longevity? Or more precisely popularity? So it's with great joy that we welcome The Doctors Wife, and can now start vociferously arguing whether or not Idris counts as a companion.

Or, you know, not. Either way is good.


What can we say about The Doctors Wife? Well, we can congratulate the audacity of taking one of JNTs' old jokes and actually making it a reality. We can praise the witty and tightly plotted script. We can fawn over the fantastically dark and scary sequences, which truth be told bordered on the disturbing. We can fangasm over the marvelous uses of the TARDIS concept. But most of all I think we can say...

OH MY GOD, THEY KILLED RORY.

You Bastards!

Again. Now, whilst I understand that most of Rory's deaths have been a fakes, this is becoming a disturbing trend. I mean they've only killed him in EVERY SINGLE STORY SO FAR THIS SEASON. Last week TWICE.  God only knows what's gonna happen to the poor boy next week. Not that it'll stop him. He cannot BE stopped. He cannot be reasoned with. If Rory Williams was the Terminator Sarah Conner would be fucking dogfood.

Sorry, I just needed to get that out of my system. Anyway, how good was that then? Using continuity in an intelligent way to build a story. Adding all kinds of interesting hints about the Doctors history without ever actually being boring enough to tell you anything. Getting maximum value for money out of the old TARDIS set before it was dismantled and shipped off to the Doctor Experience. It's funny, it's creepy, it's scary.

It is, basically, VERY Doctor Who. The only bad thing about the episode is that it ended. There isn't a thing in there that I wouldn't want to see more of. Auntie and Uncle were tremendously fun in a slightly sinister way. The Doctor and Idris (although actually Idris is dead about 30 seconds in so we shouldn't really call her that) have some fantastic dialogue and beautiful scenes. And as for House, well. Channeling just the right amount of Gabriel Woolf.

True, there's a lot left open, but I don't think it's really a bad thing. Some will weep and wail that we never really find out anything about House, but I don't think it's really a bad thing. Yes, there's certainly a story to be told there, but there's no sense of unfinished business like we had in the opening 2 parter where so little was revealed it actually sucked knowledge out of our heads.

Speaking of the ongoing mysteries, no doubt forums across the land are aflame with speculation over what "The only water in the forest is the river" actually means. Personally I wonder if anyone has tried playing back that moment when it sounds like she's speaking backwards. Though that could be nothing. Who knows?

Anyway, fantastic episode. This is going along as a pretty great, and a very dark series. Is this the Hinchcliff-Holmes era of nu-who? Does it matter and does anyone really care? It's a good time to be a Doctor Who fan. Enjoy it.