Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS [TV/2013.4.27]

 

★★☆☆☆

  On a completely irrelevant note before I begin my review proper, I had a rather nasty nostalgia hit when I saw how Jenna Coleman was credited as 'Jenna-Louise Coleman' in the credits. Dear God, has it really been nine years? I can still remember watching episodes of Series 7B on the family laptop as if it were yesterday...

  I vaguely remember being rather disappointed by Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, and that sentiment obviously hasn't changed all that much. It's every fan's dream to have a story in the visual medium of Doctor Who explore the insides of the gigantic TARDIS, and it was especially fitting to have this concept included in the 50th anniversary year. Now, I'm against viewer entitlement and believe that artists deserve to do whatever they want with their projects, but even I think the titular time-and-space machine was done dirty. Quick glances of very fascinating rooms, a short foray into a library, a sequence inside the engine room with the Eye of Harmony (which was realized amazingly, by the way) and the broken heart of the TARDIS... and corridors for the rest of the episode. Corridors — c'mon, not even a detailed look into one of the ship's myriad of locales?

  It doesn't help that you can see the desperation in the eyes of both Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman, to salvage whatever they can with such a non-entity script. The entire episode is written like a stuck-up teenage whiz kid's fanfiction, with teeth-grating dialogue and laziness galore. If an adventure fails to capture me while trying out all sorts of crazy things and doing its best, I'll still find something to love. If it doesn't bother to do anything interesting with such a juicy premise, instead opting to use the most convenient plot devices to fill 45 minutes, I probably won't be as forgiving.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  All I can say as an afterword is that I sincerely hope someone in the future, someone with more interesting ideas and actual ambition to utilize the fascinating setting that is the TARDIS, writes an episode for the new television series. Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS achieves the double whammy of a) being made in such a lazy and haphazard way, and b) completely abandoning its potential. Two stars for the leads and the direction.