I can’t stand James Corden. I really really hate him.
Not the best way to start a review but I do. No one in all the years that I have been watching TV has ever come close to making me really consider throwing my TV out of the window. When I heard that Corden was going to be in Doctor Who I couldn’t understand why. You may as well get Lady Gaga in Doctor Who now because Corden is one of the most overrated personalities in TV history. Just because he stared in an overrated ‘comedy’ which led to a sketch show which was as funny as a bucket of sick. Now due to an odd piece of scheduling by the BBC they decided to screen this episode of Doctor Who in the build up to the England vs. USA World Cup match.
The story sees the Doctor and Amy separated for some reason. The Doctor becomes a lodger of Corden who is trying to get upstairs to stop something that isn’t allowing the TARDIS to land. The first two thirds of the story is spent trying to see what the Doctor would be like if he settled down. An interesting thing happened in this story for me in that he actually got to play a sport. Back in the 1982 story ‘Black Orchid’ the Fifth Doctor got to play Cricket so in a way it’s another nice nod to the classic series. There was also another blink and you’ll miss it flashback to all eleven doctors when the Doctor head butts Corden. I would quite happily have done that for forty-five minutes. The Doctor and Craig go up the stairs and it turns out that their isn’t an upstairs. It’s a spaceship that has used the old perception filter trick to convince people there was a second floor. The ‘second floor’ is a spaceship that has crashed and the computer is using humans to try and get the ship starting up again. The problem is that its not working.
The story really seemed to show a different side of the Doctor/Amy relationship. As they never actually got to spend any time on screen together and only communicated via the phone type thing. Amy didn’t really do much in this episode apart from getting thrown about and bored waiting for the TARDIS. Like Amy’s Choice earlier in the series this was very much a character piece but not as subtle as before.
The thing that I was impressed about this story is that Corden was actually quite good. I thought his character was pretty ordinary and his reaction to the Doctor’s strange behaviour was well played. I also thought that the Matt Smith was pretty good, I thought he was genuinely happy to be playing football which is what he was apparently wanting to be when he was younger. Together they were very good and struck up a good on screen relationship, with the absence of Gillan it was up to Corden to play the assistant role and he did it quite well. The Doctor Who team should consider this their biggest achievement so far.
The main problem with the story is that so much time is spent hyping up the mystery of what or who is up the stairs and then it turns out to be a computer programming. It’s just a 21st Century version of ET. It was a bit of a disappointment because in every story I have felt more or less like I have watched a entertaining and dramatic episode but after watching the Lodger I just felt underwhelmed. That’s the main thing about this story. Also a lot of fuss was made over the damp patch in the corner but it was never really explain in a satisfactory way for me.
Weakest story of the series. But the final two episodes should be an absolute cracker.
Not the best way to start a review but I do. No one in all the years that I have been watching TV has ever come close to making me really consider throwing my TV out of the window. When I heard that Corden was going to be in Doctor Who I couldn’t understand why. You may as well get Lady Gaga in Doctor Who now because Corden is one of the most overrated personalities in TV history. Just because he stared in an overrated ‘comedy’ which led to a sketch show which was as funny as a bucket of sick. Now due to an odd piece of scheduling by the BBC they decided to screen this episode of Doctor Who in the build up to the England vs. USA World Cup match.
The story sees the Doctor and Amy separated for some reason. The Doctor becomes a lodger of Corden who is trying to get upstairs to stop something that isn’t allowing the TARDIS to land. The first two thirds of the story is spent trying to see what the Doctor would be like if he settled down. An interesting thing happened in this story for me in that he actually got to play a sport. Back in the 1982 story ‘Black Orchid’ the Fifth Doctor got to play Cricket so in a way it’s another nice nod to the classic series. There was also another blink and you’ll miss it flashback to all eleven doctors when the Doctor head butts Corden. I would quite happily have done that for forty-five minutes. The Doctor and Craig go up the stairs and it turns out that their isn’t an upstairs. It’s a spaceship that has used the old perception filter trick to convince people there was a second floor. The ‘second floor’ is a spaceship that has crashed and the computer is using humans to try and get the ship starting up again. The problem is that its not working.
The story really seemed to show a different side of the Doctor/Amy relationship. As they never actually got to spend any time on screen together and only communicated via the phone type thing. Amy didn’t really do much in this episode apart from getting thrown about and bored waiting for the TARDIS. Like Amy’s Choice earlier in the series this was very much a character piece but not as subtle as before.
The thing that I was impressed about this story is that Corden was actually quite good. I thought his character was pretty ordinary and his reaction to the Doctor’s strange behaviour was well played. I also thought that the Matt Smith was pretty good, I thought he was genuinely happy to be playing football which is what he was apparently wanting to be when he was younger. Together they were very good and struck up a good on screen relationship, with the absence of Gillan it was up to Corden to play the assistant role and he did it quite well. The Doctor Who team should consider this their biggest achievement so far.
The main problem with the story is that so much time is spent hyping up the mystery of what or who is up the stairs and then it turns out to be a computer programming. It’s just a 21st Century version of ET. It was a bit of a disappointment because in every story I have felt more or less like I have watched a entertaining and dramatic episode but after watching the Lodger I just felt underwhelmed. That’s the main thing about this story. Also a lot of fuss was made over the damp patch in the corner but it was never really explain in a satisfactory way for me.
Weakest story of the series. But the final two episodes should be an absolute cracker.
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