Doctor Who: S07PT2E05 - Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS.

Slightly hungover reviewing, go! I should totally be doing Uni work, oh well...

The episode continues with the story of the TARDIS' dislike for Clara, as the Doctor continues to try and get them to bond. Conveniently right after he puts the TARDIS into basic mode, which leaves the TARDIS completely defenceless, a salvage crew appears, sucking the TARDIS into their ship. Not only does this damage the TARDIS and fling the Doctor out of it, Clara is flung deep into the TARDIS with her recent past and future spilling out around her. Wow Doctor, you're sure showing Clara a wonderful time!

And although it was a good episode, maybe even a great one, I don't think there was ultimately enough of an actual journey. The title of the episode doesn't lie as such, it just doesn't really do a whole lot with the concept either. Given the infinite possibilities of the TARDIS, literally, Clara ultimately sees very few things in the TARDIS and most of the things she does see lack a lot of imagination and fun. I would assume that this is perhaps because of budget limitations but then each of the locations they do feature look great, especially thanks to some wonderful direction, so it just leaves me wondering why they didn't put the same energy and money into more creative and imaginative areas of the TARDIS for us to discover.

And although things like the time rift allowed the episode to go into surprisingly dark places, feeling at times like more of a horror film than an episode of Doctor Who while getting away with a lot more than I thought possible for family viewing, I still don't really see why it was here. We have two equally interesting focuses that both deserve their own episodes, just chucked in together and end up fighting for our attention and undermining themselves in the process.

And they were just the plot threads that provided purpose, there with others that had no purpose at all. Most noticeably was the salvage crew, who only provide purpose in kick starting the episode but then decide to linger through the whole episode like a leech sucking away the screen time of much more interesting aspects of the episode anyway. You've got the mysteries of the TARDIS and Clara being chased around it by her burnt corpse, why would you think I care about this salvage crew again?

Also, since this explores the TARDIS, the heart of the made up gibberish of Doctor Who, the episode gets convoluted extremely quickly, bogged down by made up words and made up science that is coming at you at such an incredible rate by the end that it is easy to get lost. About all I really understood by the deus ex machina ending is this episode basically retconned itself. Way to waste my time.

As an aside did anyone find Clara's role this week...ahem...interesting? She spent pretty much most of the episode running around the episode in a very short dress and I must say I did often find that more...ahem...distracting, than any of the rooms she was running past on her journey. Clara is a very interesting character, I really enjoy her as a companion but this episode seemed little interested in her as a person and more interested in her admittedly lovely legs. Should I complain?

Overall though, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS was much like Hide for me, good but not as great as it could have been. Still it provided an enjoyable watch and is quite possibly my second favourite episode of the second half of this season so far.

Pros;

• Visually stunning.
• Great direction.
• How dark it got in places. 
• Clara's legs.

Cons;

•  It lacks a certain amount of imagination and creativity.
• There is way too much going on. 
• It is weakly written. 
• Come on, Clara is an interesting character, her legs are lovely guys but you should have given her more to do than just run up and down the same corridor set. 

Think About It!

-Locke

What would you rate, 'Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS'?