The Lodger (Doctor Who)

211 – "The Lodger"
Doctor Who episode
File:DoctorWhoTheLodgerUpstairs.jpg The Doctor and Craig discover what is really in the upstairs flat.
Cast
Doctor Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)
Companion Karen Gillan (Amy Pond)
Guest James Corden – Craig Daisy Haggard – Sophie Owen Donovan – Steven Babatunde Aleshe – Sean Jem Wall – Michael Karen Seacombe – Sandra Kamara Bacchus – Clubber
Production
Directed by	Catherine Morshead
Written by	Gareth Roberts
Script editor	Lindsey Alford
Produced by	Tracie Simpson Patrick Schweitzer
Executive producer(s)	Steven Moffat Piers Wenger Beth Willis
Production code	1.11
Series	Series 5
Running time	45 minutes
First broadcast	12 June 2010 (2010-06-12)
Chronology
← Preceded by "Vincent and the Doctor" Followed by → "The Pandorica Opens"

"The Lodger" is the eleventh episode of the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was broadcast on 12 June 2010. It was written by Gareth Roberts, who based the story on his 2007 Doctor Who Magazine comic strip "The Lodger".

Plot

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The TARDIS lands in Colchester rather than its intended destination, the fifth moon of Sinda Callista, and the Doctor finds himself stranded there with Amy left in the TARDIS, which cannot seem to land again, nor can it enter the Vortex. Meanwhile, passers-by are seen being lured into a nearby house by various voices seeking help, from the intercom at its front door. The door opens and they ascend the staircase to the first floor, entering the room which lies there; flashing lights are seen and screams heard emanating from the room. These people are not shown leaving the flat.

The Doctor turns up at the house and rents a ground floor room from the flat's tenant, a shy call centre worker named Craig Owens. Although Craig finds him odd, the Doctor quickly wins him over and moves in. The Doctor tries to blend into his new environment with guidance from Amy, with whom he still manages to communicate with through an earpiece. He also gets to know Craig, who is locked in a platonic relationship with a colleague called Sophie, and tries to manoeuvre them into declaring to each other. This backfires, and Sophie decides to leave for an exotic destination.

The Doctor has become aware that the first floor flat may not be all it appears to be, as a strange damp patch is spreading on the living room ceiling, but thinks using his sonic screwdriver might alert whatever is up there, and is instead building a crude apparatus in his room. His experiences on Earth are punctuated by increasingly frequent "time-loop" events, in which his own time is separated from those around him, who are unknowingly involved in repetitive events. This also affects Amy in the TARDIS.

Craig touches the damp patch on his ceiling, after being told not to do so by the Doctor, and is seriously poisoned. The Doctor revives him and goes to replace him at work while he recovers. Craig, however, far from being grateful, becomes jealous of the increasingly popular Doctor, since Sophie in particular has expressed enthusiasm for some ideas of the Doctor's, so he tells the Doctor to leave the house, throwing his £3000 deposit back at him. While the two quarrel, Sophie turns up at the house and gets called upstairs by the voice from the first floor flat. To save time, the Doctor reveals to Craig who he is and what he is doing ... by head-butting him. Craig is overwhelmed by all the information, but the two hear screams upstairs and rush to intervene. Spotting Sophie's set of keys in the door, they realise that she is the one in danger. Amy, meanwhile, having studied the house's plans in the TARDIS's database, informs them that the building is supposed to be only one storey tall.

The Doctor and Craig enter the "upstairs flat" to save Sophie and discover that someone has been trying to build a TARDIS or Time Engine, which is now trapped on Earth and is disguised by a perception filter. Its pilot is an emergency AI hologram that is able to appear in the form of the various victims it has attracted, as well as Craig's seldom-seen neighbour.

After the Doctor and Craig prevent Sophie from being forced to activate the ship's console, the hologram informs the Doctor that as the ship has crashed and the crew was killed, it has rebuilt itself and attempted to fly away by luring in humans to act as pilots. However the human minds weren't sufficient and burnt out, leaving only husks. Recognising the Doctor as a suitable pilot, the ship tries to pull him in. Knowing he cannot pilot the ship safely and he would destroy the entire solar system in the process, the Doctor realises that the ship had only lured in people who wanted to escape or leave somewhere, which is why it hadn't attempted to lure Craig - or Sophie, until the Doctor motivated her to leave. After finally admitting their love for each other, both Craig and Sophie touch the panel's activator, causing the engines to shut down and the ship to start to implode. The Doctor, Craig, and Sophie escape in time to see the top floor of the house turn into a spaceship which then disappears.

Afterward, the Doctor says his goodbyes to Craig and Sophie, who give him his set of keys to the flat as a parting gift. Back in the TARDIS the Doctor travels back in time a week and instructs Amy to leave the note in the newsagent's that directed him to Craig's flat in the first place. However, whilst rooting in the pocket of his discarded blazer for a pen, Amy discovers the engagement ring in its velvet box that Rory had given her before he was erased from time, and she becomes visibly unsettled. The crack from her bedroom appears once again, this time in the wall behind Craig's fridge, and glows ominously.

Continuity

On Craig's fridge is a postcard advertising the Van Gogh exhibit at the Musée d'Orsay, which the Doctor, Amy and later Van Gogh himself visit in the previous episode. In the Time Engine, Craig also uses the Eleventh Doctor's catchphrase of "Geronimo!", introduced in The End of Time.

During the head-butting scene when the Doctor performs a psychic link, the faces of some of the previous Doctors are seen. These include Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Paul McGann, Tom Baker, Jon Pertwee, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy do not appear in the montage. He also explicitly states that he is the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor.

The Doctor playing football is the second time that he has shown exceptional skill when playing a sport, entering a team at the last minute. In Black Orchid, the Fifth Doctor plays a cricket match and proves to be equally skilled with both bat and ball.

Craig holds a Jubilee Pizza leaflet. This was also used in the episode "Dalek" and Torchwood's "Everything Changes". It is a reference to the audio story "Jubilee" that "Dalek" is based upon, both being written by Robert Shearman.

Outside references

The Doctor paraphrases the Doctor hologram from Star Trek: Voyager when he states “Please state the nature of your emergency.” (The original line being "Please state the nature of the medical emergency.").

DVD release

A Region 2 DVD and Blu-ray containing this episode together with "Vincent and the Doctor", "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang" is due to be released on 6 September 2010.

Reception

Gavin Fuller, writing for The Daily Telegraph, assessed the episode as "a delight", "thoroughly enjoyable (and) often amusing". In particular he praised Corden and Haggard for avoiding the usual "cliches of romcom", and Smith's portrayal of The Doctor as almost but not-quite human. He expressed some disappointment that the origin of the lurking time machine was not explained.

Production

Location filming took place in Cardiff in early March 2010. The house in which Craig has his flat is in Westville Road, and the location for the football match was Victoria Park (building on Matt Smith's previous experience as a youth footballer, having played for the youth teams of Northampton Town F.C., Nottingham Forest F.C. and Leicester City F.C.); the play area there had previously been used as a location in "Forest of the Dead".

External links

• The Lodger (TV story) on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki
• "The Lodger" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage

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