The Idiot’s Lantern
Story 173, Episodes 717, Series 2 Episode 7
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
Companions: Rose Tyler
It’s London, 1953, and Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation is imminent. However, all is not well in the working class families of London…
The Review
Sitting between two seismic two-part stories, The Idiot’s Lantern is and does feel pretty disposable. That said, it’s a good story continuing the trend of Series 2 dialing up the fun quotient. David Tennant sports wild Elvis-esque hair in this episode as he’s attempting to take Rose to meet him, but ends up in London instead. The working class London neighborhood the story takes place in is well-developed and really does feel real. The primary villain is the Wire, an electrical being that is using television sets to feed on people’s brain waves. When we first meet a person whose face has been stolen, it’s disturbing, but it starts to become simply weird. I’m not sure how removing brain activity takes your face away, but it’s effectively weird. The Wire enlists the broke and desperate television salesman Magpie to do her dirty work giving out tvs with the pretense that they’re for watching the coronation. Rose gets zapped halfway through, the Doctor has to restore everybody and trap the Wire in a dramatic radio-tower finale himself.
While the Wire vacillates between genuinely disturbing and pantomime with her cries of ‘hungry’ and ‘feed me’, the story’s other villain, Mr. Connolly is always brusque and rude. He’s never shown hitting his wife, but he constantly verbally abuses her and his son, the nerdy Tommy. Mr. Connolly gets old quick, even as the Doctor and Rose mess with him, but there is an incredible scene where Tommy exposes him for ratting out the neighborhood to the police (who are rounding up the faceless out of fear) and accuses him of now being a fascist like the ones he fought in the war. Mrs. Connolly gathers up the courage to kick him out of the house, but Tommy goes to reconcile with him so hopefully Mr. Connolly can learn the error of his ways. It’s a bread and butter episode of Doctor Who, but not every episode can be bombastic. The coronation setting makes it feel like a Big Finish story, and that’s not a bad thing in this case.
In a light story that is enjoyable in the moment but leaves little lasting impression, we get to pal around London and fight a tv monster. Fun!
8/10. I think the idiot is Mr. Connolly and the television is the lantern. Or I’m the idiot for not getting it.
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