Doctor Who - Journey to the Center of the TARDIS (2013)

Given such an exciting title and premise, this episode was always going to have a tough time living up to it. On the one hand it was nice to see more of the TARDIS, with callbacks to earlier episodes as we finally get a glimpse of its library and swimming pool (as mentioned in the first episode of Matt Smith's tenure - pointed out by +Adam Rollings). The M.C. Escher touches in the poster left me hoping to see some more surreal touches though, something to really sell the idea of the ship's impossible architecture. All we really got were a bunch of similar corridors that wrapped round to the same location like a retro videogame. On top of that, we didn't really learn much of consequence about the TARDIS, especially given the question of why the TARDIS doesn't like Clara is being pushed as an important point recently.

Depending on your personal influences, I'd imagine the salvage ship that captures the TARDIS brought to mind either Red Dwarf or Alien - I think I thought of Red Dwarf first just because they're both English shows. I quite often enjoy sci-fi that revolves around the more mundane aspects of life, with the Van Baalen brothers being the intergalactic equivalent of scrap merchants. It's just a shame that they weren't really interesting or varied in any way, with the 'twist' about one of them being pretty obvious from the outset.

All the elements were there to tie this together as a strong episode though. The TARDIS was only able to be captured because the Doctor disabled its shields to let Clara take basic control of it, in the hope that they might be able to bond. From the glimpses shown in the trailer I expected this episode to revolve around Clara forming an uneasy alliance with the ship to solve whatever problem had befallen it. Instead she spends the episode wandering around and discovering the Doctor's collection of nick-nacks at random and running away from a monster that looked like it was made of molten lava.

There is an attempt at referring to something of greater importance, as she finds a history book detailing the Time War and discovers the Doctor's true name - something we know is going to play a part in the last episode of this series. There's been hints about the importance of his name for quite some time now but it's not something that really grabs me. I can't personally see a reason why it's going to have such significance and why he is so concerned about keeping it secret (maybe he should have put that book somewhere safer if there was a danger Clara could stumble across it). Is it going to turn out like Voldemort where there is some curse upon saying it out loud?

Anyway, with the Doctor somehow escaping the TARDIS when it's torn into the salvage ship, he promises the crew that they can take whatever they want from his ship if they help him search for Clara inside (which naturally bemuses them until they set foot on it). Even if it's eventually revealed to be a ruse, I really liked the Doctor's ruthless attitude in trapping the Van Baalen's on board to help him out. The line about not getting on a spaceship with a mad man was a nice reflection of the same thing he'd said to Amy on her first trip, giving it a slightly more sinister edge.

Naturally the Doctor has some trouble controlling his scrap merchant guests as they search for Clara and when they split up to cover more ground, they clearly see it as an opportunity to start stripping the TARDIS for parts. This only results in the ship trying to defend itself, temporarily locking some of them in a room when one of them takes part of a techno-organic looking machine that the Doctor assures can create anything mechanical your heart desires.

The molten lava creature takes its first life when one of the Van Baalen's encounters it while scavenging the main control room. I initially thought that this character had been merged with the creature as when you next see it there are two shambling humanoid forms fused together. However they are eventually revealed to be 'Time Zombies', the ultimate fate of all of the characters, including the Doctor, should they die in the heart of the TARDIS.

Seeing no reason to hold back with his life on the line, the Doctor finally confronts Clara with all of the questions he's been skirting around since he met this incarnation. As we all expected, Clara doesn't have any answers for him and I think he finally accepts her for who she is - immediately treating her a lot more warmly. I felt like this worked well as a half way point in this mini-series but I'm not exactly sure what will push the mystery forward now but his attitude to her was starting to drag so I think it was the right decision.

But then the end of the episode pushes a big friendly reset button, leaving it unclear what anyone actually took away from the episode. It clumsily hints that at least one of the Van Baalen's has retained something of his experience but it's very 'timey wimey' reasoning for something that should be impossible. It really felt like each character would only remember what was convenient to the script writer. I'm kind of in two minds about this episode overall, as I kind of enjoyed it at the time but the complete lack of consequences just made it fall flat at the end. Weirdly I don't feel overly enthusiastic about tomorrow's 'The Crimson Horror' either, as it looks more like some of Mark Gatiss' lesser episodes compared to 'Cold War', despite the reappearance of Vastra, Jenny, and Strax from 'The Snowmen'.