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The Doctor responds to a Time Lord distress signal and follows it right out of the universe, directly to another one of those planetoids possessed by a disembodied spirit. Hate it when that happens. When they arrive, the Tardis goes dead. Again, hate it when that happens. Anyway, on this planetoid they find a couple of dirty cockney servants, an Ood, and Helena Bonham Carter. Said madwoman kisses and then bites the Doctor before being locked away for everyone's safety. The Doctor thinks he hears the thoughts of a bunch of Time Lords, but it's not long before he realizes that what he's really hearing are a collection of distress calls, all of whom had been lured out of the universe and killed. He also realizes that the dirty cockney servants are ragamuffin creatures put together by the disembodied spirit out of the bodies of various beings. And finally he realizes that Helena Bonham Carter is actually the physical embodiment of the soul of the Tardis. Unfortunately, he doesn't realize that until after the disembodied spirit possesses the actual Tardis and leaves the planetoid, taking Amy and Rory along.
This leads to a nice sequence in which the Doctor and HBC try to reconstruct a Tardis out of the remnants of the Tardises that had come along with all the other Time Lords previously killed on the planetoid. While the Doctor and HBC are carrying on like a married couple, the actual married couple are being toyed with like rats in a maze aboard the Tardis. Once again, Rory dies, but this time it's a purely hallucinatory death. The Doctor does eventually create his improvised Tardis, and flies it after the actual Tardis, while HBC sends a telepathic message to Rory ("the pretty one") giving him the information he and Amy will need to drop the force field so the Doctor and HBC can come aboard. In the end, the Doctor tricks the disembodied spirit into transporting the entire crew to the main control room, where the soul of the Tardis abandons the body of HBC and takes control of the ship back from the disembodied spirit. And then the Doctor has a very romantic goodbye scene with his one true love.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Hello, hello. I will be your temporary, fill-in recapper for this episode. Just think of me as Paul McGann, here for one episode only. At the beginning of the episode, I'll regenerate into some other recapper.
My recording starts a couple of seconds late, but we open on a couple of dirty... I would say "urchins," but they're elderly, not children. Let's call them dirty eldurchins. The man is dressed in a somewhat French-Foreign-Legion looking outfit, and he speaks with a French(ish) accent. I wonder if he knows the Little Prince? The woman is dressed either in a 19th-century dress turning into rags, or a pile of rags assembled to look like a 19th-century dress. And, thanks to a knowledge-bomb dropped on me by reader Linda R., I can identify her accent as Mummerset. And they're in the middle of what looks like a junkyard. Anyway, the man ("Uncle") is talking to a younger, less dirty, less ragged woman he calls Idris. She has apparently been volunteered for some procedure. Oh, look, there's an Ood, but with creepy green eyes. I think he might have jaundice. Idris asks the woman ("Auntie") what will happen. Auntie: "Nephew will drain your mind and your soul from your body, and leave your body empty." Well, if that's all. Idris asks if it will hurt. Auntie: "Well, I expect so dear. But soon you'll have a new soul. There'll be a Time Lord coming." And with that, the Ood (who must be Nephew) puts his hand-like appendages on the sides of Idris's head, and she starts screaming.
TARDIS. The Doctor is telling Rory some story about a mix-up between a robot king and a real king. It doesn't ring a bell with me, but when Rory asks Amy if she believes a word of it, she claims to have been there at the time. While the Doctor responds to a warning light, Rory pulls Amy aside and asks her if she's still thinking about the fact that they saw the Doctor get murdered. Naturally, she is, even though said murder takes place about two hundred years in the Doctor's future. And then there's a knock at the door. It sounds like "Shave and a Haircut," but maybe that's just the TARDIS's perception filter working on me. Everyone's a bit mystified at who could be knocking, since they happen to be traveling through space at the moment. But the Doctor never could resist a mystery, so he naturally opens the door. And is confronted by a glowing cube, about three inches on a side. It's the Cosmic Cube! Look out, Thanos must be around here somewhere! Oh, wait, my bad -- wrong fictional universe. The Doctor calls the cube a "scrumptious little beauty," and reaches out for it. Before he can touch it, it shoots off into the TARDIS and bounces around the control room. After it settles on the floor, Amy asks the Doctor what it is. Doctor: "I've got mail!"