Series 5 (2010)
Episode title: The LodgerFeaturing: Eleventh Doctor
Companions: Amy Pond
First shown: 12th June 2010
Guide: The episode starts with the Doctor being kicked out of his own TARDIS with Amy still inside when it dematerialises into the Time Vortex and refuses to rematerialise. Amy helps the Doctor (using the on board TARDIS phone) to track the disturbance down to a two story house with the disturbance emanating from the second floor. The downstairs tenant, Craig Owens, has a room for rent which the Doctor takes so that he can monitor the second floor without revealing his Time Lord nature. However, neither the Doctor nor Craig are aware of people going upstairs, and never coming down, though the Doctor is aware of localised time loops and disturbances on the TARDIS, which coincide with noises from the floor above.
Over the following days, the Doctor attempts to adjust to human life, which includes joining Craig’s local football team in a match and excelling during the game, covering for Craig when he falls ill at his job in a call centre and convincing Sophie, the person who Craig loves but hasn’t told her yet, to travel abroad to help animals. Craig, angry at the Doctor’s interferences with his life, orders him to leave, forcing the Doctor to reveal his true identity and reasoning for being in the flat. Sophie arrives to try and calm the pair down, but is called upstairs. When the duo realise this, they race upstairs as well, as Amy tells them that Craig’s house is only a one story building, there shouldn’t be a second floor. When they arrive in the room on the second floor the Doctor finds a ship housing a primitive time engine that crashed three days prior and used a perception filter to hide as the second floor of Craig’s house.
The machine is trying to find a pilot to fly the ship again and has been drawing in passersby to help, but they haven’t been able to. It identifies the Doctor as a potential pilot and tries to draw him into the controls, but he says that if he does, Earth will explode. He convinces Craig to touch the controls and give all of his reasons as to why he wouldn’t want to go, including his love for Sophie. The pair kiss which breaks the machines hold on the Doctor and they evacuate the house to see the ship disappear, leaving Craig’s house undamaged. The episode ends with the Doctor telling Amy to leave a note for which house to go to for the Doctor to find. She becomes confused when she finds an engagement ring in the Doctor’s pocket, as she can’t remember Rory.