Doctor Who/Recap/S32/E04 The Doctor's Wife: Difference between revisions

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 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 wrong -- time is all too linear in a humanoid body -- and snogs him instead. The Doctor's a bit confused, especially when Auntie & Uncle warn him about contact with Idris, saying she is mad. And that she'll bite him. Which she promptly does. And she tells Rory what "petrichor" means, which he'll ask about soon enough in the future. But she has no idea how to behave around her "Thief", and before she knows it, she's carried off again by the humanoids.

** 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.

* [[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.

* [[Buffy-Speak]]: Idris. She refers to the Doctor as "Her Thief", Amy as "The Orangey Girl" and Rory as "Pretty".

* [[Call Back]]:

** {{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.}}

** [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E01 The Eleventh Hour|Fish Fingers.]]

** 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.

** Also, we hear the [[Doctor Who/Recap/S32/E03 The Curse of the Black Spot|Cloister Bell]] once again when {{spoiler|House takes over the TARDIS}}. (The Cloister Bell was first heard in the Season 18 story ''Logopolis''.)

** We now have "spacey-wacey" to go with [[Timey-Wimey Ball|"timey wimey"]].

** At the end of the episode, the Doctor suggests they go to [[Doctor Who/Recap/20th AS the Five Doctors|the Eye of Orion]].

*** [[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.

** People being kept alive with bodies cobbled together from body parts belonging to several aliens, including Time Lords. [[Doctor Who/Recap/S13/E05 The Brain of Morbius|Hmmm...]]

** "I always liked it when you called me Old Girl."

** The psychic container used to deliver the message to the Doctor at the start of the episode is an intentional callback to [[Doctor Who/Recap/S6/E07 The War Games|The War Games]].

** Some have noted that the Doctor's remembrance of the robot king [[Doctor Who/Recap/S16/E04 The Androids of Tara|sounds familiar]], though Amy claims to have been part of those events.

** 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> Although the Doctor at least wasn't using living ones</ref>.

** Or how both react after getting new bodies:

'''House''': ''[newly possessed the TARDIS]'' Corridors. I have so many corridors. - ''The Doctor's Wife'' }}

* [[One-Gender Race]]: Implied with {{spoiler|1=TARDISes}}, given Idris's reference to her 'sisters' scattered across the planet.