True story: A few years ago I built myself a brand new computer, a software development workhorse designed from the ground up to be my dream machine. I ordered all of the custom parts, I constructed her bit by bit, and when it was all done I named her Sexy. I spend more time with her than I do with my wife, and I probably fondle her a bit more than is strictly necessary.

Today's episode of Doctor Who is the reason I named her thus. So let's talk about that.

The Doctor's Wife

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

How awesome is it that Neil Gaiman finally got to write an episode of Doctor Who? He had expressed an interest for several years, but the timing never worked out. Even with this story, it was originally supposed to be used in the prior season but got pushed back due to budgetary constraints. Also, just because he asked, the standing set for the previous TARDIS console room (which had been blown up at the end of The End of Time) was left intact specifically to be used in this episode. He had actually wanted to use the original 60's era console room, but settled for Coral when that wasn't going to be possible.

As for the story? The Doctor gets an emergency message data cube from another Time Lord named the Corsair, and so he (along with Amy and Rory) rush off to a bubble universe outside of reality in order to rescue his friend. Instead, however, the TARDIS gets powered down and her entire sentient essence gets dumped into the body of a woman who clearly would have been Helena Bonham Carter if they could have afforded her. In any case, the rest of the plot revolves around an asteroid-sized being named House who eats Time Lords and TARDISes for energy, and who - upon discovering that there are no more of either -- steals the TARDIS with Amy and Rory on board while the Doctor collaborates with the TARDIS-in-human-form in order to rescue them.

Oh god, this is such an excellent story.

The interactions between the Doctor and Sexy ("I only call you that when we're alone!" he exclaims) are priceless, as is the notion that she stole him all those years ago. "I wanted to see the universe," she explains, "so I stole a Time Lord and I ran away." 

Also genuinely scary: a sequence in which Amy and Rory are running through the TARDIS corridors trying to escape the control of House. They become separated, and when Amy finds Rory it has been (from his perspective) hours since he last saw her. Separated again, and it has been months or possibly years. Separated again, and Amy finds Rory's desiccated corpse surrounded by crazed graffiti screaming "HATE AMY!!!". Poor Amy is completely distraught until her Rory comes running around the corner to find her and the vision is gone.

The Doctor's Wife is a gloriously imaginative episode, that manages to be completely different from any other story in the show's history while simultaneously completely understanding the show's DNA on a fundamental level.

Two other things this story is noteworthy for:  1) It is the first story since The Horror of Fang Rock in which every single on-screen character dies, aside from the Doctor and his companions, and 2) It is the first story ever to explicitly state that when Time Lords regenerate they can and do sometimes change genders. This will come up again in a few seasons with the Master / Missy, and of course when Twelve regenerates into Jodie Whittaker as Thirteen.

Oh, one other fun little factoid about this story. In the third act, when the Doctor and Sexy construct a new TARDIS console out of the scrap from the junk yard the design of the console was taken from a twelve year old girl named Susannah Leah who won a television contest. Here is her original design:

Tomorrow: the word "petrichor" enters the public lexicon.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Eleventh
Companion(s): Amy Pond, Rory Williams
Episode(s): The Doctor's Wife
Steps Walked: 7,313 today, 3,130,984 total
Distance Walked: 3.78 miles today, 1,634.27 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 100 today, 4,864 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 929 total
How Many Times has Rory Died?: 4
How Many Times has Amy Died?: 1
Is Anything Cool?: Of all things, bunk beds are cool. Seriously.
Weight: 251.06 lbs (five day moving average), net change -56.24 lbs