Doctor Who's The Lodger Is an Episode We'd Like To Live With

Some of the best episodes of Doctor Who are all set in one place. And while this episode did venture outside of the apartment where the Doctor was staying once or twice, for the most part, it was confined to one location – and stood out as probably the best episode this season.

At the very least, it was the funniest episode in a good long while, as our intrepid Timelord found himself trapped on Earth without his TARDIS, forced to live with a regular guy as the subletting titular lodger.

Look, there’s no ground breaking going on in either an “alien tries to figure out Earth customs” tale, or even the secondary “regular guy is in love with his best friend, and gets jealous of the new guy” story. But the mix of the two, and the juxtaposition of this in the context of a regular Doctor Who episode made it work.

More than that, though, it featured one of the first villains this season that was actually scary. The resolution/explanation was a little rushed and spotty, but the idea of a computer program luring people up a spooky staircase, and then eating them was well filmed, simple, and terrifying in just the right way.

It was certainly a little bit of a bummer to see Amy Pond sidelined so much, especially so close to the end of the season, but it was also nice to see Matt Smith break loose and have a little fun. Hopefully, as we wrap this up in the last two episodes, we’ll see more of this humor and originality, and less of the careful homages we’ve seen in the first part of the season.

Random Notes:

• This is probably racist or something, but whenever I hear an English person say, “I’m going to get a pizza,” I feel like they’re lying and don’t know what they’re talking about.
• The Van Gogh Exihibit postcard on the fridge was a nice touch.
• “Here’s one. Bow tie: get rid.”
• Matt Smith’s air kiss was suitably hilarious.
• “I’m the Doctor, the oncoming storm... And you meant a football match, didn’t you?”
• “Where’s the on switch for this?”
• “It’s a statement on modern society. Oh, ain’t modern society awful?”
• The headbutt infodump was pretty great – have we ever seen that before?