Doctor Who: The Lodger

"And the goalkeeper's job is to keep hold of the ball and stop it going into the goal, right?"

Halfway through Sunday afternoon, I thought to myself 'I really need to watch yesterday's Doctor Who so that I can blog about it'. And then I remembered that I already had. This is not a good sign.

From what I can recall, 'The Lodger' featured The Doctor taking a room as James Corden's lodger to investigate dodgy goings-on in the flat upstairs, which was swallowing local people and keeping poor Amy stuck on the Tardis in a timewarp. Much of the action, such as it was, that ensued was the Doctor's attempts to appear normal and human, which - especially as Matt Smith - he is incapable of (though he manages pretty well in every other episode? Never mind). So he air kissed everyone hello, and turned out to be brilliant at football, probably because the episode was timed to go out on the same day as the first England match, and for an extended sequence he ran around wearing only a bath towel which made me miss David Tennant A LOT. James Corden meanwhile got fed up with it, especially because he couldn't woo his platonic best girl friend because the Doctor was getting in the way. But he loved the Doctor anyway, the way we all do, particularly after they did a mind-meld thingy (Corden's performance hit a high after that - "Oh my God it's Amy Pond!") and then - well here's the thing: I have NO RECOLLECTION WHATSOEVER of the denouement or what was happening in the upstairs flat or how they got out of it and how the episode ended. Which does suggest that the episode was sorely lacking in tension. Plus in general I never think it bodes well when what I purport to be a "review" is actually a synopsis because I have nothing to say about whether I enjoyed the episode or not. I mean, I didn't fall asleep. I was there for the duration.

So: not a high point. But not bad enough to be memorable either. I will rate this one with a solid, forgettable: "OK".