“Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS” S07E10 Doctor Who Review
Hooray! My cunning plan to declare the series is on a downward slope in the last review in the hopes that Steven Moffat would rise to the challenge and spit in my eye worked. Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS has thoroughly left me with egg on my face and I couldn’t be happier, though I may need a flannel. It may have taken 5 episodes but we have finally have been gifted not only the kind of plot we have come to expect as a given of this show but also a decent scriptwriter (though as is steadily becoming tradition in this series, Steve Thompson also wrote The Curse of the Black Spot otherwise known in my house as that God awful pirate episode).
The premise is simple: the pair suffer a bit of a crash landing when a salvage ship captures the TARDIS and hauls it aboard. The Doctor is thrown safe of the wreckage but Clara is trapped inside the infinite recesses of the timelord’s ship, which just so happens to be leaking more than toxic gases from the broken fuel line . . .
Most people would say that the best thing about this episode is that we get to explore the TARDIS in all it’s glory. I say it’s that we finally get to explore Clara (though not in all her glory sadly JH). Although we did see the infamous swimming pool and I demand to know why we never get to see that library (AJ – I presume the budget constraints that also resulting in shiny black discs hanging from the ceiling). Clara always seems to be questioning, last episode it’s the Doctor’s relaxed view of the life cycle, now it’s his monster collection: ‘What do you keep in here? Why have you got zombie creatures? Good guys do not have zombie creatures’. It’s nice to see a companion who is capable of and prefers to burst his bubble rather than inflate it.
The Doctor seems far more comfortable, in fact a little too comfortable in Clara’s company, to the point where I was shouting ‘get a room’ at the TV. They seem to have no trouble groping one another, especially when you consider the Doctor’s failed shoulder hug last week.
The guest stars however are the letdown of the episode. Jahvel Hall does a commendable job as the android Tricky but Mark Oliver’s Bram sounds like he’s speaking his lines through a styrofoam cup. To be fair he was given nothing to do and was probably going on the directorial advice of ‘be a bit dopey’. Though he isn’t as bad as the paint by numbers villian in Gregor, played by Ashley Walters. Has any character been as devoid of both humanity and braincells? I haven’t seen much of Walters work but I know he can do better than this, but I suppose if there isn’t any flesh to get your teeth into, what else can you do other than grumble and sneer your way through. His sort of redemption when the turth about Tricky is revealed feels a bit unlikely considering he didn’t give much of a crap about his older brother.
There are a few plot conveniences this week: the Doctor walking in to stop Gregor at just the right moment, Clara turning to the right page and zoning in on the right section in the book, big friendly button (which was also said about 1,734 times) but I don’t mind these minor diversions. I’m far more interested in Clara seeing the Doctor’s name, which though forgotten will doubtless be cropping up, and of course whose boots were sticking out from under the TARDIS. I don’t get it yet, but it might finally be the hint to where all this is leading that the series has been in dire need of to get us all guessing. Or a shocking continuity error.
8/10
