This is the one that solidified just how different Matt Smith
is from the previous New Who Doctors. I couldn't imagine Tennant
in this story (ironically, considering this was originally a
comic story about the Tenth Doctor staying with Mickey). The
Ninth and Tenth Doctors are weird people, but they're not as
incompatible with normal human life as the Eleventh. Watching
the Doctor interact with regular people without a companion
there as a social filter is basically all the fuel this episode
needs.
James Corden is just the perfect foil for Smith.
He's a down-to-Earth normal bloke to make the Doctor look even
stranger, but he also has a likability that stops him blending
into the background. Normal doesn't have to mean boring or bad
after all. He gets on so well with the Doctor, you can't help
but wonder what he'd be like as a full-time companion, but if
nothing else I'm glad we see him again in Series 6. Amy doesn't
do much in this episode given this is our annual Companion-lite
adventure back when we had annual Companion-lite adventures.
Usually I like to see the Doctor and their companions together
as much as possible but it's occasionally nice to mix things up.
The alien menace in this episode isn't that special - just a
cool background threat for the Doctor to be investigating while
doing all the fun foreground comedy stuff. Thing is though, this
episode's monster has retroactively been made kinda important by
the reveal that the Almost TARDIS is actually a Silence ship. I
do love how the entire Eleventh Doctor era is one complete story
arc, but some of those strands are more neatly tied up than
others. This feels like it was just a reused set they then
decided to justify with dialogue, and eh, it's okay. It works.
The whole Silence thing doesn't fully click into place until the
'confessional priests' line in The Time of the Doctor. Which
admittedly does explain a lot, like why the Silence wanted Amy
to "tell the Doctor" in The Impossible Astronaut. Anyway, here,
in The Lodger, it's just a cool ship. Nothing fancy.
I'm
really glad Matt Smith's first series had this episode, because
it's so clearly tailored to his Doctor. It even has a bit where
he's impressively good at football. Into the Dalek did the same
for Peter Capaldi - showing the stark contrast between this
incarnation and the ones that came before - but The Lodger is
more subtle about it. Not to say it's better or worse, but it's
certainly less shocking than "top layer if you want to say a few
words". I think it also benefits from coming later in the run,
once Smith was more settled in the role and there was a clear
idea of who the Eleventh Doctor is.
The Lodger is a nice
smaller-scale episode and a fun breather before the heavy finale
stuff starts. There are a lot of modern-day Earth episodes in
Series 5, considering this is a show that can go anywhere in
time and space, but 'Doctor Who in a normal setting' is kinda
the point here, so this one gets a pass.
Next: The Pandorica Opens