Who Review: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

Sensing tension between the TARDIS and Clara, the Doctor decides to teach Clara how to fly the ship as a way to help develop their relationship. He puts the ship in “Basic Mode,” which makes it easier to control, but also leaves it vulnerable to attack. The attack comes in the form of a salvage ship, scouring space for junk to resell. The salvage team capture the TARDIS with a tractor beam, and the TARDIS is severely damaged in the process. Inside the salvage ship, the TARDIS lies on its side in a heap of trash. The Doctor convinces the crew to help him go into the TARDIS to find Clara, telling them they can have his wrecked ship if they help. They agree, but once inside, the Doctor further persuades them to help by setting the TARDIS self-destruct for 30 minutes, saying he’ll turn it off once Clara is found. But finding Clara won’t be as simple as that: there are malicious life forms roaming the TARDIS corridors…

SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen the episode. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!

As we might expect, this episode is a TARDIS-centered episode. We know the TARDIS is infinitely large, and some of its rooms have been mentioned in the past (e.g., the library, and the swimming pool), but now we get a chance to see these places. And more! The last time we had anything like a tour of the TARDIS was in 1978’s “The Invasion of Time,” but that really doesn’t compare to what we get here.

(For the less literary people in the audience, the title is a play on the Jules Verne novel, A JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH.)

From the fan’s point of view, the episode is chock full of Who goodies. There are voices from the past when a section of the console is removed (can you spot which episodes, classic and new, are in the audio montage?), there’s the Eye of Harmony–seen in its fullness for the first time, there are props from previous episodes (the Doctor’s crib, the hand-crafted TARDIS Amy made, one of the Doctor’s umbrellas, etc.), and even a book on the Time War. Clara’s curiosity leads her to flip through a few pages of this (making fans across the world weep with envy), and she comes across the Doctor’s real name. The resolution to the story will cause her to forget… but something tells me that’s going to come back in the finale. Oh, and there’s lots of running through corridors. We even have a sort-of quarry scene when they’re in the engine room!

Separating the fan-squee moments from the substance of the story, it’s a good, solid tale. It hangs together well, and explains itself coherently. In other words, if the episode was just an excuse for us to explore the TARDIS, it did that, but managed to put a good story around it so it didn’t feel like a pretext. The time crack explanation for the creatures in the TARDIS wasn’t immediately obvious, but made sense (at least within the context of Doctor Who). And I liked the little sub-plot with the brothers and the “android” that really wasn’t germane to the main plot, but showed character depth and development.

This episode didn’t knock my socks off, but it was still good storytelling, well acted, and thoroughly enjoyable Doctor Who. I don’t think we learned much more about Clara, except that she really doesn’t seem to remember her “past lives.” Even at the point of certain death, when secrets are pointless, she has no memory of a life outside the one she’s living. This, in itself, could be significant. What do you think?

If you saw this episode, please share your thoughts: the comments are open for as-spoilery-as-you-want discussion (though I encourage you to restrict your comments to this particular episode)! I’ll be reviewing the next two episodes tomorrow…