Moffat Era Rewatch: Notes on "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS"

·      This is definitely the weakest episode in a generally consistent season: while there is the usual mix of less loved stories in series seven, it’s genuinely easy to make a solid defense of most of the episodes in this season. This is the only exception.

·      Let’s face it, this is an episode that leaves you asking the question: “what, they tricked their brother into thinking he’s an android?”. The Van Balen brothers are, ultimately, not a particularly inspiring guest cast, with the conflicts between them seeming mostly forced and awkward: depth of characterisation isn’t really a strength of any of Stephen Thompson’s Doctor Who scripts.

·      Then there’s the general sense of disappointment at the realisation of the inside of the TARDIS. The premise of this episode sounded genuinely exciting, but it mostly failed to capitalize on that excitement, with most of the TARDIS interior scenes being set in drab grey corridors, and the audience only being allowed brief glimpses of the Library, the Swimming pool, and the eye of Harmony. The cliff face scene and the exploding centre of the TARDIS add some variety, and there are some neat ideas, such as the reiterating console room, but overall, the episode never quite manages to make the the inside of the TARDIS much more than a standard Sci-Fi Spaceship. Which is a shame.

·      However, there is some good in the episode, most notably Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman’s brilliant performances: Smith sells the eleventh Doctor at his most menacing with real panache, while Coleman gives a skilled and precise physical performance in her scenes alone in the TARDIS corridors. They bounce off of each other beautifully, and give the episode weight by injecting the Doctor and Clara’s conflict with real meaning.

·      Also interesting is the Season arc development, with this being the series 7B episode that most engages with the “Impossible Girl” arc, as Clara briefly learns about the Doctor meeting her splinter selves. This is frustratingly stalled by the reset at the end of the episode, resulting in the developments feeling meaningless in the immediate context of the episode, even though they become relevant again in the finale. But there’s also interesting stuff going on here that shouldn’t be ignored just because Clara forgets the events of the episode. Clara telling the Doctor “I’m more scared of you than anything on that TARDIS” is the clearest acknowledgement that the Doctor’s current attitude towards Clara isn’t healthy. Indeed, while he still keeps his knowledge of her splinters a secret from here on out, until her memories return in the finale, he seems to mostly accept that he can’t keep trying to understand the meaning of the “impossible girl” mystery surrounding her.