NuWho Rewatch: The Lodger
Jul. 5th, 2015 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatI'm tempted to say that Doctor Who had never attempted anything like The Lodger before, but I don't think that's strictly true. The specifics of The Lodger: that the Doctor attempts to pass as a human while renting someone's spare room and, in the process, becomes embroiled in a soft-focus version of "Men Behaving Badly", are new to the show. However, the constraints of Doctor/Companion-lite episodes meant we had, over the course of NuWho, seen a number of these episodes that were fairly tightly focused character studies, operating on a limited budget and turning that into a virtue. While Love and Monsters and Turn Left (to pick two) were very different in content, stylistically they belong to the same strand as The Lodger.
Is it any good though?
I don't particularly want to like The Lodger, I don't particularly like sitcoms, nor male-buddy stories and The Lodger has firm roots in both. On the other hand, it is so very gently good-humoured and, to be frank, kind of cute, that it is difficult to take exception to it. NLSS Child completely bought into the slightly awkward relationship between Craig and Sophie (in between shouting "has no one ever watched a horror movie?!?" at the screen), so much so that I had to assure her that there was going to be a "happy and fluffy" ending to the tale. Mind you, her confusion when Craig tried to explain to the Doctor about going out for the evening when the other was entertaining a member of the opposite sex, was a comical mirror of the Doctor's own confusion.
In some ways, I wish Doctor Who did this sort of thing more often than once every other season or so. One of NuWho's strengths has been the discovery that Doctor Who can do "domestic" and, indeed, that a threat that works primarily on the level of the domestic can be as gripping as a threat to the universe. The change in pace and tone enriches the show which can otherwise get a little carried away with bombastic grandeur.
metanews coding: <a href=http://louisedennis.livejournal.com/302234.html>NuWho Rewatch: The Lodger</a> (LJ) <i>Discussion of the fifth series episode</i>
Is it any good though?
I don't particularly want to like The Lodger, I don't particularly like sitcoms, nor male-buddy stories and The Lodger has firm roots in both. On the other hand, it is so very gently good-humoured and, to be frank, kind of cute, that it is difficult to take exception to it. NLSS Child completely bought into the slightly awkward relationship between Craig and Sophie (in between shouting "has no one ever watched a horror movie?!?" at the screen), so much so that I had to assure her that there was going to be a "happy and fluffy" ending to the tale. Mind you, her confusion when Craig tried to explain to the Doctor about going out for the evening when the other was entertaining a member of the opposite sex, was a comical mirror of the Doctor's own confusion.
In some ways, I wish Doctor Who did this sort of thing more often than once every other season or so. One of NuWho's strengths has been the discovery that Doctor Who can do "domestic" and, indeed, that a threat that works primarily on the level of the domestic can be as gripping as a threat to the universe. The change in pace and tone enriches the show which can otherwise get a little carried away with bombastic grandeur.
metanews coding: <a href=http://louisedennis.livejournal.com/302234.html>NuWho Rewatch: The Lodger</a> (LJ) <i>Discussion of the fifth series episode</i>