Doctor Who Series 5, Episode 11: "The Lodger"

Finally, we have arrived at the antepenultimate episode of this series of Doctor Who. In the past few series, the antepenultimate episode has linked to the two-part series. In David Tennant's second series, the antepenultimate episode Utopia introduced the newly regenerated master. In Turn Left, right at the episode's end, we got a look at the return of bad wolf. This time around, we had a very light-hearted, character-centered, doctor-centered episode. Only at the end did we get a sneak peek of things to come.

The two interesting parts of this episode were the doctor acting human, and his head butt memory transfer thing. I must say, Spock's memory transfer looked a lot less painful in Star Trek XI. And the doctor acting human was interesting to watch, as was Smith's acting. Here more than before I felt like we got a clear view of how this doctor acts. I mean, someone watching the entire series knows how he acts. But if I wanted to show someone, in one episode, who this doctor is, this is the one. All the quirkiness, scatterbraininess, and zaniness of the doctor is prevlant throughout this episode.

The plot of this episode was somewhat lacking. Again, it ranks lower in this series's episode list. I find this season to be interesting. Unlike past series, where each episode felt like it could be either bad, alright, or good, this season seemed more to be Moffat's show. There was hype for the first episode, which was Moffat's. Then there was hype for the return of the weeping angels and River Song, also Moffat's episodes. And finally, the tease of the pandorica made every episode between Flesh and Stone and The Pandorica Opens a waiting game, at least to me. It's not that this series was unbalanced, because every episode was quality in its own way, to me. But because of Moffat's reputation, I feel like his episodes carried the most weight so far.

Thus, this episode was enjoyable, but it also felt like a way to kill time before the pandorica opens. The end left things very interesting. Will we see Craig and Sophie again? I don't quite care.... but I do care about the darned crack.

At the BBC event I went to in the city, Matt Smith hyped up the way Moffat plays with time travel in the finale. What is the pandorica? It looks like a big box that is opening, and with its opening comes the onslaught of the doctor's major villains, including daleks, cybermen, and sontarans. But how is this related to the crack? And Amy seems to be more and more the source, especially when her looking at her engagement ring opened the crack even more. And anyone catch that van Gogh reference today, when Craig was looking at his and Sophie's picture on the fridge early in the episode? That was probably more of a fun reference than something serious, but you never know.

The next two weeks will make or break Moffat's debut series, I feel. The success of the season lies in the crack....

Next week: The pandorica opens! Daleks! Cybermen! River Song! Geronimo!