Flatline Review

So Clara got to be the Doctor for a day. Not many companions get that honor. Clara has been shaping up to be one of the Doctor's more trusted companions. First she learned learned his name and about the War Doctor and now she's gotten use the title Doctor. Mind you, she almost immediately changed it to Dr. Oswald, but the Doctor did say she was the Doctor. I can only speculate on what other honors Steven Moffat will bestow upon her in the future.

A long time ago, I heard about a story that was roughly the opposite of this one. I forget whether it was a fan production, a novel, or simply a concept, but the idea was that the Doctor and his companion were transported to the 2 dimensional world. It's sort of similar to how the Doctor became a cartoon in Fear Her. I seem to recall it starring the 4th Doctor and Romana.

There's a connection at the end of this episode to Voyage of the Damned. In that episode, the Doctor and Mr. Copper discussed how the people who survive things aren't always the ones who deserve to and if you could pick who lived and died that "would make you some sort of monster." In this episode, Wade seemed to hold a very low opinion of the community service people and wasn't very upset that they had died. He was just glad he lived.

Isn't the chameleon circuit supposed to be broken? Changing into siege mode seems like it would require a functional one. I've always sort of suspected that the chameleon circuit is fully functional and has been for a long time now. The TARDIS simply knows that the Doctor likes that form and has chosen to lock herself into it. I mean, we know that the TARDIS can regenerate itself, so it seems to fit that if it did that, the chameleon circuit would be repaired. We also know that the TARDIS is sentient and (at least it seems) has some sort of feelings for the Doctor. Even if they aren't romantic feelings, she at least wants him to be happy and part of that is taking a familiar form.

Clara doesn't seem too happy about all the lying she had to do while being the Doctor. She had to lie to community payback crew about who she was and whether they would survive. She also lied to Danny about her whereabouts and had to deal with the fact that she had lied to the Doctor about Danny being okay with them traveling. The Doctor even mentioned her as being "a doctor of lies". This is tied to the fact that the constant lying is part of what drove her apart from the Doctor in the first place. Now she got to stand in his shoes and see how much lying it takes to be the Doctor.