*Episode premise spoilers.*
A classic, and for good reason. Penned by Neil Gaiman himself—and, for a retroactive Good Omens connection, featuring Michael Sheen in a voiceacting role!—this is a brilliant, emotional episode that packs a hard punch.
When the Eleventh Doctor receives a telepathic distress call from an old Time Lord friend, he anxiously follows it, eager to find another living Time Lord out there. He, Amy, and Rory are then pulled into a pocket universe full of detritus. The living force that makes up the mini-universe, known as the House, has plans for the Doctor’s TARDIS, but not if she has anything to say about it. And for once, she really is in a position to say something about it!
Yes, this is the glorious episode where the consciousness of the TARDIS is removed from the ship and placed inside a human body. While the House does this for greedy, self-serving reasons, it means that the Doctor and the TARDIS can talk to one another for the first time. As they work together to save the blue box, Amy, and Rory, the real headline of the episode is their ongoing conversation.
Gaiman doesn’t disappoint—these interactions are just banger after banger. I love that the TARDIS doesn’t experience time linearly, so she answers questions that haven’t been asked yet and gets tripped up by tenses. I love that she calls the Doctor her “thief,” even though she later clarifies that she’s the one who stole them back on Gallifrey all those years ago. “I wanted to see the universe, so I stole a Time Lord and ran away,” she explains. “And you were the only one mad enough.” And I love that they’ve had such a very long, intense relationship together but have never been able to relate to one another in this way before. Over the course of the adventure, they get into some arguments, because he’s a strong-willed Time Lord and she’s a strong-willed time/space machine, but their interactions also burst with love.
Suranne Jones was the Mona Lisa on The Sarah Jane Adventures first, and I’ve since really enjoyed her work as Anne Lister on Gentleman Jack, but her performance as the TARDIS is simply a triumph here. She’s whimsical, mysterious, and magnificent—dare I say, she’s ineffable? Jones matches wits and emotion with Matt Smith in every single scene, and the two of them are just incandescent to watch together.
Because of the enormity of the Doctor-TARDIS relationship, Amy and Rory draw the short straw in this episode. Their storyline isn’t bad, it’s just a lot less substantial. They’re the ones who are being menaced by the House (creepily voiced by Sheen,) and they get the horror part of the plot. As they’re chased through TARDIS corridors and brought to face existential terrors (not to mention a scary possessed Ood, ‘cause why not?), they’re both just hanging on as well as they can. Bonus points to them for navigating the passcode to access the secondary console room!
One of my all-time favorite Doctor Who episodes. Truly, one for the ages!
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