Top 20 Episodes of Doctor Who #14: The Doctor's Wife

So, we’ve finally come to an episode featuring the Eleventh Doctor, played by Matt Smith. To date, the youngest actor to take up the role of the Doctor, initial fan reaction to Smith wasn’t exactly positive. Much like Peter Davison (who coincidentally was the youngest actor to take up the role until Smith came along) Smith’s predecessor, David Tennant had become so popular with the fans, that many weren’t ready to accept his departure. Fortunately, Smith was very quickly able to silence his doubters and win over the fans with his seemingly unlimited energy and charisma. Eleven could tackle comedy just as well as the heavy moments, and soon became so popular that he equaled if not eclipsed his predecessor, and even to this day, any true blue Whovian still knows the undisputed and powerful truth that Eleven taught us: Bowties are cool.

This episode was a bait and switch for a lot of fans. While a lot of fans were expecting this episode to have something to do with River Song, we ended up with something very different, and in my opinion, something better.

The Doctor and his companions, Amy and Rory (two of my personal favorites) find themselves on mysterious asteroid outside of what we would understand as reality and to make matters worse, the TARDIS seems to be completely and utterly without power. The asteroid, called “House” appears to be sentient and offers the Doctor and company its hospitality during this predicament, but it’s clear that something is amiss, especially when a seemingly mad woman accosts the Doctor by kissing and subsequently biting him. That woman, believe it or not, is the TARDIS. See, all TARDIS’s have a degree of sentience. What House did was remove that sentience and put it in a human body so he can possess the TARDIS himself. Now, it’s up to the Doctor and his now human TARDIS, who calls herself “Sexy” as that’s what the Doctor calls her when they’re alone, to kick House out and save Amy and Rory.

One thing that really helps this episode is the man who wrote it, none other than Neil Gaiman, writer of several great works, most notably the Sandman series of comics. The man is a great writer and it shows through this episode. The dialogue is strong, the humor is well timed and the scenes of Amy and Rory being tortured by house while possessing the TARDIS are appropriately disturbing and creepy. I particularly like the actress they got to play the human TARDIS. She and Matt Smith have great chemistry with one another and the jokes between the two are great, the best being Amy asking the Doctor if he wished really, really hard upon learning that the TARDIS is now a woman.

Back to the whole Doctor’s Wife thing, around the time this episode came out, the character of River Song was still shrouded in mystery, but the standing theory was that she was the Doctor’s future wife. As such, everyone assumed that this episode would deal with River Song. But the reality of the situation is: if anyone can truly call themself the Doctor’s wife, it’s the TARDIS. After all, even as companions come and go, the TARDIS has been there since the beginning and has never left him. They love each other, they protect each other, they even occasionally bicker with one another. At the end of the day, when all is said and done, the adventure is over and the day is won, The Doctor returns to his TARDIS, his home, his constant companion, and, as the case may be, his one true wife.

Next time, we take a look at the swan song of an all too short-lived Doctor.