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Five Thoughts on Doctor Who’s “Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS”

By | April 29th, 2013
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

It’s Monday! There was a new Doctor Who on Saturday! Lets talk about it!

1. An Exploration of Mythology

One recurring element of this season seems to be an increase in focus on the mythology of the Doctor, both as a character and as a being of legend, someone who has had a grandiose effect on how the universe runs. It was up front and center in the second episode, for example, where the Doctor fed his memories to the space god, but every episode we seem to be given a small piece of a greater puzzle of Who Is The Doctor?

I’ll touch more on that in a bit, but it stands worth noting that this half-season seems to be very much back to focus on him, and while the adventures he has are no longer entirely singular to their existence as one-and-done sci-fi stories, it’s interesting to see the recurring thread pop-up. We’re always learning just a bit more, and while I don’t think there’s any issue with characterizing the Doctor at this point, I’d expect to see a few more instances of aspects from the Doctor’s past coming back to haunt him in new ways.

2. Wibbly Wobbly, Timey-Wimey…

My favorite episodes of Who are the ones that play up the time travel angle, because it’s so complex and strange within the Who-niverse that there are infinite possibilities. And while I would hardly call this one of my favorite episodes, I have to say that I loved how the episode was all tied around, both with the reveal of the monsters chasing them and how the Doctor was able to solve the problem. Not enough episodes really play with that, to the extent that people somehow don’t realize that this is a show about time travel (an actual conversation I once had, where the opposing thought forcefully asserted the notion that time travel plays no part in anything within Doctor Who), so the ones that we get like this are always a spot of good fun.

3. Those Crazy TARDIS Interiors

This isn’t the first time we’ve been inside the TARDIS (we got a look in “Amy’s Choice,” for example), but this is perhaps the first time we’ve seen so much of it, including the impressive Library.

It’s a little thing, but I like this a lot. The TARDIS being bigger on the inside is always a funny little joke, but there’s so much of it that is referenced and never seen that all the little nods here and there of what is inside was just a bit neat, and it helped the episode a lot with the whole “isolated in space” motif that they were running off of.

4. What’s in a Name?

Once again, we’re given a tease about the Doctor’s real name — “so THAT’s Who!” And, perhaps it’s just me, but honestly: who cares?

I love Doctor Who. The Doctor is one of my favorite fictional characters. As long as they keep making this show, I’ll keep watching it. And I like Moffat a lot, despite some of the silly directions he has taken us in. And while the last season finale with the First Question thing was admittedly clever, I have to say that I think giving the Doctor a name beyond the Doctor is just silly. He doesn’t need a real name.

And, sure, while Moffat has teased this as far back as “the Silence in the Library” in season four, it just feels like something we don’t need. The Doctor is the Doctor. Being Doctor Fred won’t make things any more engaging.

5. An Otherwise Middleground Episode

Despite the various things I liked about the episode, it has to be said: this was really average at best. It wasn’t particularly bad, but it wasn’t rather good either. It was pretty much right down the middle, with a few moments in it that seem like they’re there to enforce that this episode was filler. Perhaps the deck was stacked against this episode, since next week is another Gatiss-written episode, but really, this was written by the same guy who did the pirate episode, so it being not excessively enthralling isn’t a surprise.

Ah well. Still been a good half-season overall.


//TAGS | Doctor Who

Matthew Meylikhov

Once upon a time, Matthew Meylikhov became the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Multiversity Comics, where he was known for his beard and fondness for cats. Then he became only one of those things. Now, if you listen really carefully at night, you may still hear from whispers on the wind a faint voice saying, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not as bad as everyone says it issss."

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