| Original Transmission
Date 12th Jun 2010
Cast The Doctor Matt Smith
Crew Written by Gareth Roberts
Assistant Art Director Jackson Pope
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.
Analysis by Cuisle I can’t stand James Corden, either in his various but similar down to Earth ordinary bloke roles, or as a full of himself ‘down to Earth ordinary bloke’ who thinks he’s funny. The Confidential of this episode was excruciating with his input all over the place. He is annoying and we already had too much of him on TV with his World Cup programme. So I approached this episode with trepidation, and found that it wasn’t so bad as I expected. The idea of The Doctor having to spend time living as a Human with ordinary people is a good one, and the mystery of what was going on upstairs, though tenuous, at least held its tension until The Doctor was ready for it.
I found it strange that The Doctor was so BAD at being a Human being. It isn’t as if he had never done it before. He has always lived with humans one way or another. He has spent more time on Earth than anywhere else, including his own planet. He should have been better at it. The strange quirks and habits that made him so bad at blending in with ordinary people seemed a bit out of character the first time I watched this. The second time, I decided not to worry about cannon and continuity and just enjoy his antics.
The football scene was the best game on TV that day – and this in the middle of the World Cup. Even though much of it was staged, it did show that Matt had a real talent for the game before becoming an actor. It was more than just a chance for him to prove that, though. The football match was the culmination of his alien oddities, making it obvious to Craig that his flatmate had something going on. It also brought the relationship between Craig and Sophie to some obvious epiphanies as she watched on the sidelines, caught between admiration of The Doctor’s football skills and loyalty to her less than perfect boyfriend.
The relationship between the ordinary, not perfect looking, Sophie and Craig was, of course, the core of the story. Having their finally acknowledged devotion to each other the thing that defeated the alien on the top floor was a stroke of writing genius. Extraordinary people can save the world any day. Having two of the dullest people do it is much better.
It was possible to suspend preconceived dislike of Corden and enjoy his character’s reactions to The Doctor’s lunacy. The part was well cast. So was that of Sophie. And since everyone else, even the alien, was incidental to the story, it is just as well. This episode exceeded my expectations, and then some. It isn’t
as sublime as Vincent and The Doctor, but it’s not a let down
after it.
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