Black TARDIS

TARDIS Scribble by woodian

This blog post will contain spoilers.

Last summer there aired the 11th episode of the 11th Doctor in Doctor Who, an episode called Lodger. It was a delightful episode and a departure from more typical plots. We were still kind of getting to know who this Matt Smith guy was that dethroned David Tennant. I think this is the episode that allowed me to embrace Smith. The episode had something to do with a house that had an extra dimensional spaceship attached to the roof and the Doctor moves with Craig to investigate the house. What we did not know at the time was that this was laying down some serious clues to what is coming in the current series. At the climax of the episode we're shown the interior of the spaceship. It was curious at the time that there seemed to be no one using the ship, like it was abandoned. We may have some answers to that.

This weekend the 2nd episode of current Doctor's 2nd season aired wrapping up the premiere's introduction to the new (or maybe not so much) villain- the Silent. While the events and twists are so mind-numbing, it didn't dawn on me while viewing the episode that I'd seen the set before. It was the same control room from said Lodger episode! It was the coffin looking pods that triggered the quiet memory. While the episode seems to present far more questions than it does answer, here is one small mystery solved, maybe.

The internet is afire with fans talking about this. The spaceship perched on top of Craig's flat has been unofficially dubbed the Black TARDIS. It was in the Lodger episode that the Doctor mentioned something about the spaceship being an attempt to build a TARDIS with stolen tech. That always did feel a bit left open. When now it's clear why.

Here's more about the Back TARDIS from Siskoid's blog:

Black TARDIS
Some have started calling the TARDIS from The Lodger the "Black TARDIS", so I will too. We now know (or guess? the Silents DO steal technology rather than make it) it belonged to the Silents. It was abandoned presumably because the Silents had left Earth or been killed. We see the same set in this story, but get a little more information. River's scan reveals its tunnels go all around the surface of the Earth. What does that mean? Did they turn the entire Earth into a TARDIS? Take control, then send the planet through space and time looking to expand their empire? A bizarre idea, but they wouldn't be the first to try and turn Earth into a big, inefficient spaceship, would they? And maybe this is a coincidence, but the pilot's limited vocabulary of "Help me", sure sounds a lot like the little girl hologram used by The Lodger's Black TARDIS to attract passing souls. That's where it took its template or I'm reading too much into things?

The Scream by Edward Munch

Danny writes a nice review of the episode on GESWEB Blog providing a comparison of the Silent's appearance to Edward Munch's painting, the Scream.

Seems to me we can rest assured the Doctor is in the hands of a brilliant and competent production team. Can't wait to see how this all pans out.