Review

The Doctor and Clara are doing their thing in the depths of space when he decides to let her drive; apparently this involves lowering the TARDIS's shields. Naturally this doesn't work out well as a deep space salvage vessel crewed by three brothers picks up the TARDIS and drags it on board, doing some major damage to the TARDIS engines in the process. After the crash landing onboard the salvage ship Clara is thrown into the depths of the TARDIS while the Doctor emerges and gets the Brothers to help him explore the depths of his craft looking for Clara.

Clara finds she isn't alone and is being chased by monsters through the seemingly endless corridors and rooms of the TARDIS. The Doctor has worse news for the Brothers, the TARDIS is in complete meltdown mode and to ensure total dedication for the search for Clara he engages the TARDIS' self destruct mechanism and sets it for a half an hour countdown. Can the Doctor and somewhat reluctant help find Clara and can the Doctor resolve the imminent destruction of all of them, or will we get a surprisingly short season. Hang onto your knickers were going deeper into the TARDIS than we have ever gone before.

Through fifty odd years of adventures we have got the odd glimpse beyond the control room of the TARDIS but this is the first time we have really been taken on a tour to the centre of the box that is bigger on the inside. The episode was a must dial in for this promise, but unfortunately in between some cool discoveries the actual plot of the episode was surprisingly lacking. Worse apparently, the Yanks had a major problem with Journey that I'll get to in due course.

So we get a glimpse of the infamous swimming pool, that comes up from time to time in storylines, a room that may or may not contain a major wink to Alien, and of course the library containing a collection of liquid books chronicling Gallifrey, with pride of place being given to a tome covering the Time War and apparently containing the Doctor's real name. If they ever ever get around to mentioning the name that shouldn't be spoken then Doctor Who dies for me right at that moment. In between the rooms we get seemingly endless corridors that remarkably look exactly the same, probably budget constraints but I'm also not going to discount one aspect of the plot that might be visualised with the corridors. But the real surprise lies at the heart of the TARDIS where we learn Time Lord Technology has managed to suspend a dying sun just before it becomes a black hole as the driving force of their TARDIS machines. Pretty awesome stuff, and for mine better wow factor than sun scoops and the like, we also now know what the "Eye of Harmony" is. There are a number of other places of interest, including a metallic tree that can produce any machine you want, but let's move on here, time and plot wait for no man.

The most disappointing episode yet from a season that is the worse of the Neo outings, this cannot continue

While the episode could simply be thrown away as another expendable outing in a pretty diabolically bad season one aspect just irritated the hell out of me. In a fit of writing that makes Rob Zombie look like an Academy award scribe, Steve Thompson throws on a dues ex machine that really tilted this episode into being the worse of the Neo Who series thus far. And damn it I'm going to give a huge spoiler here kids, there is a button that you can press to reset time and take all your cares away! Frack me, talk about ludicrous, so the whole preceding forty odd minutes was pretty much just fodder then, we might as well have just cut to the button and all would have been resolved! This is simply lazy writing, I sincerely hope Thompson never ever gets a chance to write another Who script, shootings way to good for the varmint.

Besides the obvious issues the episode brings up, the whole thing reeks of being on the level of a particularly bad pantomime, there isn't a lot to be taken from clear filler! To be honest the script was atrocious, second rate, lacking the ability to keep a whole lot of interest. The burnt monster things were interesting, and yes I wondered what the heck they were doing haunting the depths of the TARDIS interior, but I never got the feeling of them being overtly a danger to either the Doctor or Clara. The three brothers were another story, but then Thompson didn't take any time out of his busy schedule of throwing poo on a wall to develop them. Anyone remember even one of the names of the van Baalen brothers? A travesty of an episode plot wise that really does nothing to make me want to tune in for the rest of the season, and yes it's been so bad this season I've missed episodes already.

Actually speaking of the van Baaklen Bros, and to use our word of the month a segway into the topic, anyone else notice they were black? Yes it wasn't an issue for me either but apparently sections of the U.S Whovian army are "uncomfortable" with the characters being portrayed by black actors! Gosh did I detect a cry of racism? One prominent Who podcast made a big issue of this during a recent program, ironically said podcast is by middle class white women, nary an ethnic member amongst them. Guess the whole irony thing still escapes some sectors of the U.S media, could it be the pot calling the kettle black, or is that also a racist comment as well? Considering the portrayal of black characters in shows like True Blood, addicts, untrustworthy etc, I wouldn't be throwing stones at television glass houses really. Trust the Yanks to get upset by something while happily stereotyping their minorities in movies and television shows with no apparent issues.

Actually just before I wrap this one up I should mention Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara) is really growing on me as a companion, which is saying something after Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) took the role up a notch. Was digging Clara's dress in this one, which frack me must mean I've gone metro or something else undesirable. My wife would look great in that dress, I'll even wear a bowtie and we can cosplay or something else equally geeky.

Was interested to see how the show is going in Doctor Who central, the U.K, and not surprisingly viewer numbers are dropping off as the season deteriorates through the second half. From a high of 10 million viewers, the Doctor and Clara can now only command a little over 6 million viewers. That's a hell of a drop and I would imagine, based on circumstantial evidence, that the decline is worse Downunder.

For the first time I'm going to say we're been dealt a pretty dumb episode that takes advantage of the audience and gives them no respect what so ever. I was actually shocked by the get out of jail free card Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS tossed on the table and was left deeply disappointed by the plot for this rather dull episode. No recommendation, it's the episode of season seven that you can quite happily give a miss too. I'm flagging this one back to the keeper and pretending it never aired, yes it was that bad folks.

ScaryMinds Rates this episode as ...