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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Recap.DoctorWhoS32E4TheDoctorsWife 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Recap.DoctorWhoS32E4TheDoctorsWife, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
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{{quote|''Hello. Hello, Doctor. It's so very, very nice to meet you.''|{{spoiler|'''The TARDIS'''}}}}
{{quote|"Exterior: void space. Bubble universe. Floating in utter starless darkness, a small asteroid that's a junkyard. [[Doctor Who
This episode, written by [[Neil Gaiman]] and directed by Richard Clark, won the 2011 Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation.
The TARDIS is in flight. There's a knock on the door, and when opened, a far-away cube of light is seen. When beckoned, it hits the Doctor in the chest, whizzes about and then actually comes to him. "I've got mail," the Doctor says with glee.
The hypercube is a form of communication for Time Lords. This one seems to come from one named the Corsair (previously mentioned by the Fourth Doctor in the [[Expanded Universe]]) and the Doctor knows him/her quite well. They were friends, through many incarnations, and although the Corsair's sex changed freely with new regenerations, one thing was always the same: the Corsair always got an Ouroubourous tattoo on each new body. The small mail cube has that exact same mark.
The Doctor counts the Corsair as "one of the good ones". The message originates from "outside the Universe", somewhere where the trio has never gone before. They follow the signal. [[Doctor Who
The travellers are greeted by two very raggedy old humanoids named Auntie & Uncle. They're closely followed by Nephew, a green-eyed lobotomized Ood. The TARDIS, in Idris' body, is ''delighted'' to see the Doctor, greets him with a "goodbye!", realises that that's
The planetoid turns out to be accreted matter around a sentient lifeform, which glows
He discovers a cupboard full of hypercubes in the junk yard, and they keep repeating emergency messages from a number of Time Lords. Auntie & Uncle approach, and the Doctor uncovers how House has been "repairing" them. They've been jigsawed together from bits and pieces that found their way into the "sink hole" where this "bubble universe" exists, on the outer-edge of the natural universe we commonly know the Doctor to travel in. Uncle literally has two left feet. Auntie has a big manly arm with the Corsair's tattoo on it. House, at it turns out, has been luring Time Lords to the planetoid since long before the Time War, and has trapped the souls of their TARDISes in humanoid bodies in order to safely consume the TARDIS husks. The accompanying Time Lords were, to him, simply spare parts for TARDIS soul receptacles.
In the meantime, Amy and Rory slowing realise that a green glow is suffusing the TARDIS. It starts to dematerialize and hurtle off in the direction of the bigger, energy-rich universe. House now has control of the TARDIS and is threatening to kill the inhabitants. He had initially planned to simply consume the TARDIS' Artron energy, but now that he has learned that the Doctor is the last Time Lord and that no more TARDISes will ever arrive, he has decided to transfer himself to the TARDIS and escape through the rift. Rory quickly assesses that this being is in need of entertainment and argues this point in his half-hearted way of making a stand. House tells them to run, if they're so keen on being entertainment. They run through the TARDIS corridors aimlessly while House makes them re-enact the time skip scenes from [[Cube]].
With House gone, Auntie & Uncle promptly expire.
The Doctor sees Idris' body in a holding cell, and she tries to convey to him who she is. "We travel. I go... VWORP... VWORP." She explains that she's the one that stole him. He's her Doctor. While he tries to argue that ''he'' stole ''her'', he releases her, and stands face-to-face with his ship. He awkwardly asks for her name. She assumes she's called "Sexy", since that's what he's always called her. She tries to get used to a physical body and linear time, with significant [[Time Travel Tense Trouble]] and very little sense of what's yet to happen and what's already passed. They flirt and banter away until they, in non-linear flow of time fashion, figure out that the remains of all the Time Lords and TARDISes House has fed upon in its time has given them access to a means of escape. They hastily build a new TARDIS out of TARDIS corpse parts, and Sexy Thing animates the remains with some feeling of horror.
Since House has raised the shields of TARDIS husk, these need to be lowered so the Doctor and Sexy Thing can materialize. Sexy sends a message to "the pretty one" with the psychic password for the backup control-room: the one from the [[Russell T. Davies]] era. "The pretty one" turns out to be Rory, who uses Sexy's psychic message (and the thought of petrichor) to open the locks.
Amy and Rory nearly don't make it, though, since House has brought Nephew along for the ride and tries to use him to kill them. In the nick of time, Nephew is killed, and the Doctor and Sexy are back inside the TARDIS husk.
{{quote|
'''Amy:''' She’s the TARDIS?
'''The Doctor:''' And she’s a woman. She’s a woman, and she’s the TARDIS.
'''Amy:''' [[Beat|(beat)]] Did you wish ''really'' hard?
'''The Doctor:''' Shut up! Not like that.
'''The TARDIS:''' Hello. I’m... Sexy.
'''The Doctor:''' Oh, ''still'' shut up! }}
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Afterwards, the TARDIS reanimates Idris' body one last time in order to share a few tearful last words with her Doctor. Although she's going nowhere, she knows she'll never be able to speak to him again, so she says two things she'd been wanting to tell him: "Hello" and, as Idris' body vaporizes, "I love you."
Amy and Rory get a new bedroom. They hope for one without bunk beds this time, although the Doctor just loves the idea of a bed with a ladder. As they leave to check it out, the Doctor installs a security field around the matrix to prevent it from being compromised again, and gently talks to the TARDIS, not expecting an
----
* [[A Boy and His X]]: Amy refers to this trope by name at the end:
{{quote|
* [[Alien Geometries]]: The chase through the TARDIS corridors.
** Affects not only the three dimensions of space, but time as well. [[Mind Rape|With gruesome consequences.]]
* [[And the Fandom Rejoiced]]: When the title was revealed, fans were a little worried that the wife in question would have something to do with River Song (who is popular, if polarizing, but the idea of the rather Asexual Doctor being romantically involved or married to anybody is offputting to fans). When they realize who the "wife" in question was, well, they were too busy squeeing to rejoice.
** Rejoicing also occurred when Neil Gaiman, arguably the most prominent writer to ever craft a Doctor Who episode, was confirmed as writing an episode after several years of rumours.
* [[Arc Words]]: Oh we got some again. "The only water in the forest is the river." What, TARDIS, what?
** Resolved in [[Doctor Who
* [[Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?]]: Used very much for drama here.
* [[Ascended Fanon]]: The episode all but confirms a lot of fan theories about the TARDIS and its relationship with the
** The fact the TARDIS holds actual affection for the Doctor and is female has been suggested numerous times in both licensed novels and short stories and fanfic.
** Also confirmed the long held fanon belief that (some? all?) Time Lords can change sex during a regeneration.
** The idea that the TARDIS is alive is ''not'' ascended fanon, however, having first been established way back in 1964.
* [[The Atoner]]: The Doctor's motives in seeking out any surviving Time Lords is to be forgiven for [[Doctor Who
* [[Author Appeal]]: Gaiman's love of the power of stories is in full effect.
** The episode proper opens with the Doctor finishing up a story about Robot King Arthur. Rory is skeptical, until Amy tells him she was there.
** {{spoiler|House uses old Time Lord distress messages to lure Time Lords to the planet so he can eat them.}}
** {{spoiler|Amy was separated from Rory for thousands of years and he now hates her for abandoning him. Then she gets away from him, and comes across his desiccated corpse lying on the floor with "KILL AMY" (and, perhaps even more disturbingly, "KILL ME AMY") scrawled on every wall. Then she finds out it's just a [[Mind Screw]]. The story is in the implication of what's been happening between the illusions.}}
** Compare the line about people being [[Bigger
* [[Badass Boast]] / [[Do Not Taunt Cthulhu]]
{{quote|
'''The Doctor''': Fear ''[[Badass Boast|me]]''. [[Where I Was Born and Razed|I've killed all of them.]] }}
* [[Berserk Button]]: The Doctor's button is definitely pushed in this episode. Doubles as an ironic echo to his first appearance.
{{quote|
* [[Big No]]: Amy on seeing {{spoiler|Rory's body}}. Helped on by the fact that she sounds like she's going to throw up in grief.
* [[Bigger
** This was also the first episode since the series returned in 2005 to give an extensive on-screen "tour" of the TARDIS interior beyond the console room.
* [[Body Horror]]: {{spoiler|The Time Lords who came to House before the Doctor were cut up and sewn back together to make Auntie and Uncle. But, for reasons never explained, not Idris.}}
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** In fact, [[Neil Gaiman]] has said that he thinks the Corsair "laughed a lot". Can we assume that he's based on [[Brian Blessed]]?
* [[Brick Joke]]: The [[Running Gag|Swimming Pool]] gets another mention here, though it has unfortunately been [[Killed Off for Real]] to use as fuel ([[It Makes Sense in Context]]). Also, there is a [[Call Back|fun call back]] to Eleven's first episode: Idris/{{spoiler|TARDIS insists her name is [[Robo Ship|"Sexy"]]}}.
* [[Buffy
* [[Call Back]]:
** Ood? Malicious deep voice? Possession? [[Doctor Who
** {{spoiler|We also see the "coral" TARDIS control room formerly used by the Ninth and Tenth Doctors. Gaiman would have liked to use an even earlier version, but none still existed and the budget didn't stretch to recreating one just for this episode. So after the final David Tennant episode was filmed, the producers ordered that the coral TARDIS set be preserved until this episode could be filmed.}}
** The ending with {{spoiler|Idris!TARDIS saying goodbye}} was reminiscent of {{spoiler|Ten saying goodbye to Rose in [[Doctor Who
** [[Doctor Who
** [[Doctor Who
** At the very end of the episode, there's a nebula in the background that looks like the crack from season 5. Could potentially be more significant.
** [[Doctor Who
** Wasn't it mentioned in the first episode of this season what people would do with the body of a Time Lord?
** A police box in an old junk yard - [[Doctor Who
** [[Doctor Who
** Also, we hear the [[Doctor Who
** We now have "spacey-wacey" to go with [[Timey
** Do {{spoiler|ominous talking green clouds of sentient gas that can possess living things and use familial names like "Auntie" and Uncle"?}} [[Doctor Who
** At the end of the episode, the Doctor suggests they go to [[Doctor Who
** The Doctor [[Doctor Who
** The Doctor finds that many Time Lords went to the junkyard at the end of the universe. Earlier, in [[Doctor Who
** [[Doctor Who
*** [[Big Finish|Even]] [[Eighth Doctor Adventures|older]] [[Faction Paradox|than]] [[Older Than They Think|they think, actually.]]
** The makeshift TARDIS control room constructed by the Doctor out of ruined TARDIS junk is something of a hodgepodge homage to the various styles of control room seen throughout the 1963-1989 series, and was designed by the winner of a ''[[Blue Peter]]'' competition.
** Different universes are hardly a new thing. How about a disembodied, [[Eldritch Abomination]]-like consciousness hailing from one of these universes with an agenda of physically transporting itself to the human dimension through manipulation and mind control? [[Doctor Who
** People being kept alive with bodies cobbled together from body parts belonging to several aliens, including Time Lords. [[Doctor Who
** "I always liked it when you called me Old Girl."
** When Amy and Rory are wondering whether the Doctor is going to be alright this time, Rory reminds her that the Doctor ''is'' a Time Lord, to which Amy replies that that doesn't mean he actually knows what he's doing. This is in stark contrast to [[Doctor Who
** The psychic container used to deliver the message to the Doctor at the start of the episode is an intentional callback to [[Doctor Who
** Some have noted that the Doctor's remembrance of the robot king [[Doctor Who
* [[Cannot Spit It Out]]: Idris{{spoiler|!TARDIS}} has difficulty with certain words {{spoiler|including her real name}}. {{spoiler|She's not ''used'' to having a body, or even being able to talk, for that matter. Anyone would be a bit off under the circumstances.}}
* [[Cargo Ship]]:
{{quote|
'''Amy:''' Did you wish ''really'' hard?
'''Doctor:''' ...shut up! Not like that.
'''Idris:''' Hello. I'm...[[I Call It Vera|Sexy]].
'''Doctor:''' Still shut up! }}
* [[Celebrity Voice Actor]]: [[Michael Sheen]] as the House.
** Ever since the episode aired there has been rampant speculation in fandom as to whether one of the uncredited voice actors heard during the Time Lord distress calls is Paul
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: Pretty much everything Idris says early on. Okay, not ''everything'' ("Biting's excellent! It's like kissing, only there's a ''winner!''"), but a lot.
{{quote|
'''Rory:''' ...I'm sorry, what?
'''Idris:''' The answer to your question.
'''Rory:''' I didn't ask a question.
'''Idris:''' You will. }}
** Reportedly the line of gibberish Idris in her cell spouts was originally intended to be {{spoiler|"the only water in the forest is the river".}}
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* [[Color Coded for Your Convenience]]: Anything possessed by House [[Sickly Green Glow|glows a sickly green colour]]. When it's in control of the TARDIS, not only do the inner lights go green, so does the lamp on the top.
* [[Contest Winner Cameo]]: The winning entry of the [[Blue Peter]] TARDIS interior design contest held back in Series 5 appears in this episode. {{spoiler|It's the makeshift TARDIS the Doctor builds to get back to his own.}}
* [[Continuity Nod]]: As in [[Doctor Who
** Could be that the {{spoiler|Junkyard!TARDIS's energy-bubble VFX}} is a nod to the opening sequence in Sylvester McCoy's run.
** The {{spoiler|House-possessed TARDIS pulling a [[Mind Screw]] on the Doctor's companion and the TARDIS appearing in a human form}} are very similar to events of the [[Big Finish]] audio [[Big Finish Doctor Who
** The Doctor has traveled to an alternate universe using only a TARDIS console before, in [[Doctor Who
** [[Status Quo Is God]]: The TARDIS ''just'' regrew the rooms jettisoned in [[Doctor Who
* [[Corpse Land]]: {{spoiler|The supposed "junkyard".}}
* [[Creepy Monotone]]: The House.
* [[Dead All Along]]: {{spoiler|The Corsair and the other Time Lords, thanks to House.}}
** Not to mention Idris. {{spoiler|Technically, she's a reanimated corpse.}}
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** These seem to be developing into one of Eleven's [[Catch Phrase|Catchphrases]].
* [[Don't Make Me Destroy You]]
{{quote|
* [[Evil Sounds Deep]]: House.
* [[Expospeak Gag]]: When the Ood was "redistributed." Translation: {{spoiler|you're breathing him.}}
** Inverted in the final scene: Steven Moffat's hatred of [[Techno Babble]] is in full effect when the TARDIS cuts off the Doctor's explanation of {{spoiler|why he can't make her speak again}}. "[[Buffy
* [[Faux Affably Evil]]: House.
* [[Final Speech]]: OK, technically {{spoiler|The TARDIS}} isn't dying, but the fact she never expects to be able to speak to {{spoiler|her thief}} directly again makes her final conversation with the Doctor take on much of the same overtones. Her body house dies at the beginning of the episode, but since she's been reanimated throughout the episode, these are indeed ''her'' final words before she dies for good.
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* [[Foreshadowing]]: Lampshaded in the extent that Idris!TARDIS talks about things that the Doctor and the crew have not yet experienced. They all are revealed to be true, in time... (See [[Chekhov's Gun]] above)
** {{spoiler|The first thing Idris does upon seeing the Doctor is call him "Thief". As we find out later, she actually thinks of the Doctor as "her thief".}}
** {{spoiler|Idris's last words}}. [[Doctor Who
* [[Gender Bender]]: The Doctor offhandedly confirms that Time Lords can change gender when they regenerate. The Corsair, one of his old buddies, was usually a man but sometimes a woman ("She was a ''bad'' girl!")
* [[Genius Loci]]: The asteroid is sentient and able to communicate via its inhabitants. {{spoiler|Then it takes over the TARDIS, turning it into one as well.}}
** Of course, the TARDIS has always been one, ever since the very beginning.
* [[Genre Savvy]]: Amy gets the honor this episode and is right on the mark.
{{quote|
'''Amy''': It's what [Time Lords] called. It doesn't mean [The Doctor] actually knows what he's doing.
'''Amy''': No sonic screwdriver, also the doors seem to have locked behind us. Rory believes there's a perfectly innocent explanation, but '''I''' think you lied to us. }}
** Rory also displays some by knowing that the villain never wants to just kill someone when there's a chance to psychologically torture then instead.
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: Amy and Rory asking the Doctor not to give them a bunk bed {{spoiler|in their new bedroom, as the old one got destroyed in that battle with House.}} If you think about it, a bunk bed is not conducive for... fun time.
{{quote|
** It was sufficient to {{spoiler|[[Doctor Who
** When the Doctor explains a bit incoherently that {{spoiler|Idris is the TARDIS in a woman's body}}, Amy's response is, "[[Cargo Ship|Did you wish really, really hard?]]"
** After stating that there's a word on the tip of her ''tongue'', {{spoiler|Idris!TARDIS}} suggestively moves towards the Doctor and says she has "a new idea about kissing".
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* [[Glowing Eyes of Doom]]: Nephew, distinguishing itself from other Ood.
* [[Hope Spot]]: {{spoiler|The message the Doctor receives in the beginning of the episode, making him think there are still living Time Lords in existence.}}
* [[Ho Yay]]:
{{quote|
'''Amy:''' [''quickly pulls Rory away''] }}
* [[I Call It Vera]]: The TARDIS's name is apparently {{spoiler|"Sexy Thing"}}
* [[Insistent Terminology]]: Idris keeps insisting ''she'' stole the Doctor. {{spoiler|By leaving her door unlocked.}}
** The Doctor repeats that he ''borrowed'' the TARDIS.
{{quote|
* [[Interspecies Romance]]: {{spoiler|Time Lord/TARDIS, now confirmed as canon.}}
* [[Ironic Echo]]: The Doctor repeats his threat from ''The Eleventh Hour'', but this time, his [[Berserk Button]] has been pushed.
{{quote|
* [[Like an Old Married Couple]]: The Doctor and Idris. The episode ''is'' "The Doctor's Wife," after all.
{{quote|
'''The Doctor:''' Those aren't instructions!
'''Idris:''' You've walked by them every day for seven hundred years. What do they say?
'''The Doctor:''' ..."Pull to open."
'''Idris:''' And what do ''you'' do?
'''The Doctor:''' ...Push. }}
* [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl]]: Idris has strong overtones of this. {{spoiler|Fitting, seeing as she's been the Doctor's [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl]] for centuries now... and he's been her [[Spear Counterpart|Manic Pixie Dream Guy]].}}
* [[
* [[Meaningful Name]]: Might have been subconscious but TA'''RDIS''' sounds an awful lot like Idris (and [[Significant Anagram|Astrid]] is already taken.
* [[Mind Rape]]: Done by {{spoiler|the House to mess with Rory and Amy as they run through the TARDIS interior}}.
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* [[Mood Whiplash]]: This episode starts off with funny moments ("I've got mail!") Then it segues into [[Neil Gaiman|Gaiman's]] [[Signature Style|extremely]] scary ending.
* [[Moral Dissonance]]: The Doctor apologises to Idris when he realises that cannabalising various TARDIS components might bother her {{spoiler|as a TARDIS herself}}.
* [[
** Or maybe a {{color|blue| house}} that seems to like [[House of Leaves|breaking people's minds?]]
* [[Noodle Incident]]: Whatever story the Doctor was telling Rory at the beginning. Apparently, it wasn't the Robot King.
* [[Not So Different]]: House and the Doctor bizarrely get a few.
** The Doctor's plan of building a new TARDIS from scratch, as said by Idris: "Let's take these half digested corpses and sew them together into a single body and then make it go for a run" is basically what House was doing to Aunty and Uncle.<ref>
** Or how both react after getting new bodies:
{{quote|
'''House''': ''[newly possessed the TARDIS]'' Corridors. I have so many corridors. - ''The Doctor's Wife'' }}
* [[One
* [[Only Known
* [[The Ophelia]]: Idris has a lot of these traits, right down to the long hair and Victorian clothing. Considering that she was written by [[Neil Gaiman]], this was probably intentional.
* [[Ouroboros]]: The Corsair's tattoo.
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* [[Phrase Catcher]]: "Bigger on the inside," the Doctor Who classic. Extrapolated on, however, because {{spoiler|The TARDIS herself uses it in reference to the Doctor, and the reason she can push out House is because he is just so ''small'' on the inside.}}
** {{spoiler|The TARDIS}} also asks the Doctor
{{quote|
'''The Doctor''': Like what?
'''{{spoiler|TARDIS}}''': So much bigger on the inside. }}
* [[Pstandard Psychic Pstance]]: Amy adopts this pose trying to think of the passcode to the control room. So does Rory, actually, when {{spoiler|Idris aims for the "pretty one" and gets him}} Semi-justified because they probably don't know any better; in Rory's case the communication clearly gives him a headache.
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* [[Robo Ship]]: Like never before! {{spoiler|1=The soul of the TARDIS is ripped out and put into a woman, Idris, allowing the Doctor and his beloved ship to talk to each other for the first time. They spend most of the episode flirting and have an emotional goodbye when she has to return to "the box" - and her last words to him are even "I love you". And in the ''Confidential'', they make [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc5mf6srrU4 this music video].}}
** [[Matt Smith]] even said {{spoiler|The Doctor is definitely really turned on by this.}}
{{quote|
** {{spoiler|The Doctor asks Idris to send a message to Amy. She asks if Amy's the pretty one. Seconds later, ''Rory'' gets a message. Given how flirty Rory's wife gets with the Doctor at times, it's fitting that the Doctor's wife should turn the tables.}}
* [[Room Full of Crazy]]: Amy encounters a section of hallway where all the walls are covered with "HATE AMY", "KILL AMY", and even "KILL ME AMY". {{spoiler|The kicker is that those words were written by a long-dead Rory. It was a [[Mind Rape]] via The House}}.
* [[Running Gag]]: The [[Doctor Who
* [[Scenery Gorn]]: The wrecked ships.
* [[
* [[Shave and
* [[Series Resemblance]]: Very heavily to [[Coraline]].
* [[Shout
** One of the junked ships resembles, and is positioned the same way as, the wrecked ship in ''[[Alien]]''.
** The Junkyard [[The
** House's personality and treatment of Amy and Rory owes a lot to AM in [[Harlan Ellison]]'s famous short story ''[[I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream]]'', not to mention resembling a certain other monotoned, malevolent entity controlling a spaceship. Maybe House and HAL are related...
** Then there's that [[House of Leaves|other]] malevolent, labyrinthine {{color|blue|
** The TARDIS corridors seen in this episode bear a strong resemblance to the corridors of the ''Liberator'' in ''[[
** 'Petrichor', a word for 'the smell after rain', is significant to one of the [[Discworld]] books.
*** And turns up a lot in ''[[
*** [[Good Omens
*** And what about the patchwork people, similar and darkly dissimilar to the Igors. Or perhaps Frankenstein's Monster.
** "Biting's excellent. It's like kissing, [[Jekyll|only there's a winner!]]"
Line 239:
* [[Sickly Green Glow]]: The House takes the form of a green cloud.
* [[Sleeping Single]]: An unwilling example. It appears the Doctor is unwilling to change the bed in Rory and Amy's room from a bunkbed to a doublebed.
{{quote|
* [[Snipe Hunt]]: The Doctor sends Amy and Rory back to the TARDIS to fetch his sonic screwdriver. When they're inside, the Doctor turns out to actually have his screwdriver already and locks them inside.
{{quote|
'''The Doctor:''' Time Lord stuff. I needed you out of the way.
'''Amy:''' What, we're not smart enough for your new friends? }}
* [[Space Pirates|Space Pirate]]: The Corsair, at least in name if not spirit. Although what little we learn about him/her suggests that she/he might have been a benevolent version of this.
* [[Spaceship Girl]]: But in reverse of usual.
* [[Take Me Instead!]]: [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] and [[Played for Laughs
{{quote|
* [[Tele Frag]]: {{spoiler|Nephew is killed when the Doctor's makeshift TARDIS lands where he's standing.}}
* [[Tempting Fate]]: You'd think the Doctor would be more careful than to ask "What could possibly go wrong?"
* [[This Is My Human|This Is My Time Lord]]
* [[Time Travel Tense Trouble]]: Idris suffers from this, as it seems she's experiencing every moment of her past, present and future at the ''same time''.
{{quote|
{{spoiler|'''Idris''': Me. You're going to steal me, you have stolen me, you are stealing me. Oh, tenses are difficult.}} }}
* [[Timey
* [[Too Spicy for Yog
* [[Trolling Creator]]: After a billion-and-one hints that River Song might be the Doctor's wife, [[Steven Moffat]] and [[Neil Gaiman]] casually throw out this kind of title. River Song does not appear in the episode.
* [[Unkempt Beauty]]: Explicitly stated in the script that Idris should be this. She is a beautiful woman who fell through a rift in time, which has a similar effect to being dragged through a hedge backwards.
* [[Unusual User Interface]]: You don't speak the password, you think them. And you technically don't think any words, but what they mean. So when Amy thinks "delight", she thinks of her wedding day.
* [[Voices Are Mental]]: In her attempts to explain who she is to the Doctor, Idris opens her mouth and {{spoiler|makes the wheezing sound of the TARDIS.}}
* [[What Could Have Been]]: As described on the [https://web.archive.org/web/20110817032750/http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/news/bulletin_110514_02 BBC website], the [[Derelict Graveyard]] would originally have resembled a heap of random objects (like the washing machine Amy notices at the beginning). Idris would have {{spoiler|1=turned off the dead TARDISes' chameleon circuits}} to reveal their true nature.
** The original screenplay also included the swimming pool as a setpiece, but they couldn't afford it, so it was scrapped. (That and [[Karen Gillan]] couldn't swim.)
** The original opening involved the TARDIS team on the Planet of the Rain Gods being taken for sacrifice, and then abandoning that adventure when it had just gotten started because of the hypercube zooming up and scaring the locals, leaving the place unsorted. Neil Gaiman has admitted this is one of the cut scenes he misses the most, as it was the one cut sequence that came very close to filming. A 3-page comic adaption of the scene was published in the Doctor Who Brilliant Book 2012.
** Fan theory is speculating that {{spoiler|1=TARDIS-Idris}} was written with [[Helena Bonham Carter]] in mind. (Which explains why she resembles a [[Tim Burton]] character. [[Signature Style|Any given female Tim Burton character]].)
** [[Neil Gaiman]] has a long history of writing [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl]] like Death of the Endless... he'd have suggested [[
*** Or [[Neverwhere|Laura Fraser]].
** The original plan was to recreate one of the old-school console room sets for the climax, but there was no budget or studio space for one. Fortunately, plans for this episode pre-dated the final David Tennant episodes - it was originally planned for Season 5 - so the new producer Steven Moffat requested that the Tennant-era TARDIS set be preserved (and indeed it can be seen in many Season 5 behind-the-scenes videos as it was right next to the new set).
** Another scripted but cut scene would have revealed that the other human victims of {{spoiler|the TARDIS-eating process}} had either died instantly or gone into comas. Idris was the first one who remained conscious and able to explain what had happened.
** Nephew was supposed to be a monster of [[Neil Gaiman]]'s creation rather than an Ood, but they had to go with an Ood because of budget.
* [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?]]: Right before something falls off the stitched-together console.
* [[Worthy Opponent]]: The Doctor calls House one, it's part of his gambit though.
* [[Yank the
* [[Xanatos Gambit]]: The Doctor pulls one of these on House {{spoiler|when he tricks him into deleting the old coral control room in an effort to kill him, Amy, Rory and Idris!TARDIS. Instead a failsafe deposits them into the main control room where Idris!TARDIS can repossess the TARDIS. What separates this from a [[Batman Gambit]] was that if House had chosen not to delete the coral control room Idris!TARDIS could have just possessed the coral control console instead.}}
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Doctor Who (TV)/Recap]]▼
[[Category:Doctor Who S 32 E 4 The Doctors Wife]]▼
[[Category:Recap]]
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