In which I review The Doctor's Wife

I'm making noises at the TV, there's a piece of paper with almost-unintelligible blog notes floating around the house, and Rory's dead again. Must be Saturday.

If you've already seen this episode (and you should have; I don't know what you'd be doing in a spoiler-filled review otherwise) you know how my squee-fest is likely to go. Because this, I believe, was one of the rare episodes where everyone agrees on the good parts. But I'll go over them anyway.

So, first off, the set. The set blew my mind. I could post caps of it for days. 

Hehe, it's a washing machine.

...Okay, yeah, don't worry, I'm done now.

The idea of a TARDIS junkyard was absolutely brilliant. Given the "love letter from a fanboy" theme that pervaded the entire episode, I'm sort of half expecting there to be little throwbacks to classic Who among all the junk if I look closely enough, like an I Spy Doctor Who Edition. 

(Side note: OH GOD, PLEASE LET THAT HAPPEN, I WOULD BUY THAT SO HARD.)

Next, the plot. I don't have much experience with Neil Gaiman, but I have read Anansi Boys, so I knew a little about his whimsical-mixed-with-touches-of-creepy style of writing. Still though, I was blown away. The plot and setting had just the right amount of suspension of disbelief - we're outside the universe, but in a bubble universe, in the universe's sinkhole, but not really - mixed in with some truly amazing storytelling.

House, as the villain, was rather anticlimactic - the whole "I'm going to kill you now! Yes, now! Definitely now!" shtick got old after a while - and I was slightly disappointed with the cop-out of Nephew the Ood, but since this was really more of a character-based story, I didn't mind that much. And whatever House lacked as a believable threat toward the end, he more than made up for with his deliciously creepy way of playing with Amy's head (and possibly on a few of her deepest insecurities).

Oh hey, dead Rory, haven't seen you in a week.

The anticipation of finding Time Lords and the horrifying realization of the patchwork Auntie and Uncle were some really great moments, not to mention Smith's perfectly portrayed combination of disgust and heartbreak upon his realization that the Time Lords he thought he would find (and, possibly, make amends with) were long dead.

Speaking of the acting, everyone in Series 6 has been doing such a phenomenal job that I can't believe I once used to sit through Freema "I have two facial expressions" Agyeman. Suranne Jones takes the (well deserved) cake as Idris/TARDIS; a lot of people have compared her to Helena Bonham Carter in this role, but I think that's unfair to her own unique abilities. Matt Smith was again on fine form, with his tears at the end coming as quite a shock to viewers who haven't seen the Doctor cry since the Ten days. Wonderful combination of sorrow at the loss of the TARDIS' physical body, as well as wonder at the complexity of her existence. Well done.

And, of course, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill - though for once, this wasn't an Amy-and-Rory centric episode - shone when they were needed. I've already mentioned the haunting creepiness of Amy's hallucinations in the TARDIS corridor, but one of my favourite moments of this episode was Amy's and the Doctor's conversation about his desire for forgiveness from his people. Because of course, though Eleven doesn't show it that much, he's still got the aching emotional wounds of his past. Knowing this, Amy briskly asks, "What do you need from me?" because she knows that he won't rest until he's found his fellow Time Lords, no matter what state they're in. And she is going to help him any way she can. In about two minutes and a handful of lines, we saw the extent of the bond between them.

"You want to be forgiven." "Don't we all?"

 Finally, the lines. Oh, the lines. Though many of them were delivered FAR too fast for me to catch (seriously, this should have been a full hour) nearly every single bit of dialogue was quotable in an "I'd totally put this as my Facebook status if I were the kind of person who put quotes in her Facebook status" sort of way. Some of my favourites (these may not be exact, they're just the way I remember them):
- "I'm a madman with a box without a box."

- "Did you wish really hard?"

- "Fear me. I've killed all of them". (Of COURSE Gaiman wrote the most awesome line in the series trailer.)

- Something about people being "bigger on the inside".

- "Come on, sexy." (Cue millions of ovaries exploding.)

- "It's not impossible so long as we're alive."

- "Another Ood I failed to save." (I like the RTD callback there.)

All in all, though this episode wasn't perfect (as I said, I wasn't overly impressed with House as the villain, though Michael Sheen's voice work was superb; also, Ood fan that I am, I felt that Nephew's end was rather anticlimactic) it was a stunningly executed love letter from one of the biggest Who fanboys out there, containing enough callbacks and in-jokes to warm a fan's heart, while also spinning a brand-new and exhilarating story. If I could describe it in one word, it would be: Magical. Truly magical. And so, though I usually only reserve five star ratings for episodes that have absolutely no discernible flaws, I'll make an exception here.

Verdict: 5/5

Predictions, theories, and other tidbits:

- No eyepatch lady this time. Huh. I was starting to expect her appearing every episode, like the crack in Series 5.

- Did anyone else emit a screech of Douglas Adams nerd joy when Rory described the junkyard as "the scrapyard at the end of the universe"? Is that a bit of a stretch? Whatever, it still made me insanely happy.

- I've mentioned before that I'm quite a TARDIS nerd - I've always been taken with the idea of exploring this madly wonderful box - and so this episode was especially fulfilling for me. What's your DW nerd niche? What would you like to see explored in future episodes?

- I thought this was rather a nice (intentional or unintentional) touch of cinematography, with the wedding rings: 

- FUCK YEAH, RORY IS PRETTY. THANK YOU. 

- "The only water in the forest is the river." Well isn't that purposely vague and prophetic.

- So the whole thing about the TARDIS eating people, which I thought was just a ridiculous quirk of the TV movie's shitty script? Yeah. It actually does happen. Which is kind of awesome.

- And finally, the score. Holy crap, Murray Gold is outdoing himself this series. I cannot wait to download that shit.

Till next time!