Review: Doctor Who: The Lodger

This is, above all else, a low budget episode. But it's also a very funny one for it, and that is proably due to brilliant performances from all of the main cast, two of which are well known comedians.

Something has thrown The Doctor out of the Tardis, and when he looks in an estate-agent's shop window he finds that Amy has left him a note from the past, containing an address. Whatever threw The Doctor from the Tardis is stopping it from materialising, but the Doctor musn't give away the fact that he's a time traveller.

Therefore, The Doctor decides to move into the flat as the Lodger of Craig Owens (playing the straight-man for once, James Cordon), trying to appear human despite having very little idea of human culture in the twenty-first century. As part of this, he makes a salad-cream ommelette, plays football, and works in a call centre.

The mystery in this story is the flat's top floor, on which there's said to live, "some bloke." The lights regularly flicker, and people that walk up the stairs never return. In a quite clever turn of events, The Doctor, Craig and his female friend Sophie (Daisy Haggart at her best) discover that the ship is in fact someone's attempt to create a TARDIS, and that all of its human pilots have disintegrated. The solution, it seems, is for Craig and Sophie to reveal to each other how much they love each other, and to persuade the ship to go home.

They do this, and it is revealed that the ship was the second floor. Which is interesting. Meanwhile, throughout the episode The Doctor has been communicating with Amy in the Tardis using an earpiece. When the Tardis begins to materialise again, she finds Rory's old wedding ring and seems to remember.

Overall it was a good episode. There were some moments of awkwardness, but that's the comedy of it. This was a nice relief from the deep and dark deppression of this series, and was certainly welome.

Next week, we find ourselves in enemy-overload with The Pandorica Opens.

Thanks.