The Matt Smith Review: Part 14 - The Doctor's Wife

What We First Thought: The internet is going to explode!!!! 

When I first saw the reaction to The Doctor’s Wife, I honestly didn’t see what all the fuss was about.  Written by fantasy author Neil Gaiman, the story sees the TARDIS literally jumping into a human and talking to The Doctor!  On paper it sounds very bizarre, but somehow the episode makes it look as normal as, say Rory being killed, and the fact that it’s easy to understand, is the real strength of this episode.  Is it the best episode EVER though? No, not really. It isn’t even the best episode of series 6…

I don’t know what it is with fans and hype.  I can guarantee you that if another writer had written this, it wouldn’t attract such praise from those who are so upstanding about it. I feel sorry for Gaiman in a way – his work will always be so overrated, just because his name attracts people who judge things on name only.  The Doctor’s Wife is actually a decent episode as it goes, but reactions like these put people off. I know it puts me off!  It’s these same people that forget all about those people behind the scenes, such as the directors and production designers, who do so much to make a celebrity writers dream come true, but get no credit off fans whatsoever.

When the story kicks off, I just found that the dialogue that The Doctor uses (‘come here – you scrumptious little beauty’) is just so jarring and out of character for him, that it seemed it was written by someone who didn’t  really have a handle on the character, and it took me out of the story a bit.  Saying that, when the story settles down, the dialogue is fine and the bits with The Doctor and ‘TARDIS’ are excellent.  I thought the ‘patchwork’ people were interesting and The Doctor being so offended by them seemed ironic towards the end – as he built a TARDIS console out of scrap!  The whole ‘luring Timelords’ plot was also pretty well done and apart from producing a moment for long-term fans to get excited over, it gave newer fans/viewers some much needed knowledge about Timelords that wouldn’t normally get covered.

It’s clear that Gaiman knows his Doctor Who history, as there’s some great lines that sum the show up – the idea that the TARDIS stole the Doctor, was a great moment that didn’t need time to explain the entire backstory.  Suranne Jones saying to Matt Smith ‘..first time you touched my console’ had my Carry On-filled mind laughing out loud. And I don’t even watch Carry On films! Suranne was brilliant in this though and it was a performance that was so far removed from what she has done before -including the bizarre Mona Lisa she portrayed in the Sarah Jane Adventures!  In fact, the whole cast seemed to revel in a script, that once it got into the action, ran very fluidly and made the somewhat bizarre concept seem normal!

However, I feel that there’s some sloppiness going on in the script too – why did Amy continue to get sucked in by the illusions that House created, AFTER Rory told her that House was playing with their minds? And why didn’t Rory question the psychic message that he received off Idris, as something that House is doing to trap them? I realise that not having explanations saves time, but Gaiman has shown he can do clever dialogue - and as we’ve seen throughout this series so far – only one line is needed.

I would have liked to have seen something mentioned about the fact that the original Idris was murdered, but nothing was said about it! Maybe all this and more was in the original script, which I believe had to be vigorously re-written due to budget constraints.  In fact – this story was supposed to appear in the last series!  I know Gaiman has said that he would like to novelise this story and if the BBC oblige – it should be an interesting read!

Overall, I’ve learnt that The Doctor’s Wife is the ultimate fanwank that’s always worth a watch - it's full of cheeky lines (It’s a bed. With a ladder. You can’t beat that) and backstory that would normally confuse people, but instead was handled with great care and acted out very well  But is it really the best episode ever?

What We Think Now: Hope everyone has calmed down a bit. (Even me!)

Your (5 Word) Reviews

@AbelUndercity: "Smart. Fun. Scary. And Sexy" 
@Mr_Brell: "Weird, wonderful and rather good"
@JayMcIntyre1: "Not what I expected"

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