Inspirations: The Lodger

This was the third adaptation of the revived series of a story from other media, after Dalek and the Human Nature two-parter. 

It is also this year's companion-lite story, with Amy only featuring briefly in short scenes set within the TARDIS set.

Steven Moffat gave the writer Gareth Roberts the working title of "The Man Who Came to Dinner" - the title of a Bette Davis screwball comedy of 1942 in which a family are forced to put up with an uninvited guest following an accident.

The first of the 60th Anniversary Specials was an adaptation of a Doctor Who Weekly comic strip, and The Lodger is similarly an adaptation of a strip from the monthly iteration of the magazine.

In DWM 386 (in the shops from 30th March 2006, just as Series 2 was about to begin) Roberts gave us a single issue strip called The Lodger. 

In this the Tenth Doctor is stranded in the London of 2007 when the TARDIS dematerialises without him. Rose is still on board as the ship jumps a time track to arrive a few days into the future.

With nothing to do but to wait for him to catch up with it, the Doctor is taken in by Mickey Smith - becoming his lodger for a few days.

This period coincides with an alien threat to the Earth.

As with the TV version, the Doctor annoys his host by being better than he at many things - including football. 

These scenes allowed Matt Smith to show off his soccer skills. He had been aiming for a career as a professional footballer when injury diverted him into acting. The sequence wasn't written for Smith's benefit, however, as he hadn't been cast when Roberts wrote the first version. (He had actually hoped to get it made for Series 2).

James Corden - a friend of Smith's - is also an obsessive football fan, so was the obvious choice to play Craig Owens.

The Doctor wears a No.11 shirt - a reference to him being the Eleventh Doctor and this being the eleventh episode of the fifth series.

Mickey mistakes the sonic screwdriver for his electric toothbrush, and in the TV version we see it sitting in the toothbrush mug in Craig's bathroom.

Roberts builds on the strip by having his new landlord a stranger to the Doctor, and gives him a girlfriend. We also see the Doctor best Craig at his job, appearing to be more successful with clients and more popular with colleagues. Roberts will build on this "Doctor gets a job" scenario in his next two stories.

For the alien threat, Roberts originally intended to use Meglos - the cactus-like creature from the story of the same name. This is because of its use of the Chronic Hysteresis time-loop, and The Lodger was to include the Doctor experiencing time-loops in action.

As it is, we get a dimensionally transcendental time machine with a central control console - which prompted many at the time to suspect that a Time Lord was involved. It would later transpire that this craft belonged to the Silents, who would make their entrance in Series 6.

The time-ship was actually based on unused concept art for the Eleventh Doctor's TARDIS.

The street name - Aickman Road - is an homage to the supernatural writer Robert Aickman (1914 - 1981).

The vacancy arises at the flat due to the previous flatmate gaining an inheritance from someone he never knew about. The Doctor had previously gained his teacher role in School Reunion by having someone winning the lottery, and he obtained a winning lottery ticket as a wedding present for Donna Noble.

He sings La donna e mobile in the shower - a song he had previously sung to himself in Inferno.

In Craig's flat we see a Jubilee Pizza box - a company which first featured in Dalek as a reference to the audio which had inspired it.

Tea is used as a restorative, having helped revive the Tenth Doctor after his regeneration in The Christmas Invasion.

The Doctor introduces himself to the Avatar as "Captain Troy Handsome of International Rescue" - referring two Gerry Anderson puppet series, Troy Tempest being the commander of Stingray and IR being the organisation from Thunderbirds.

He also has a postcard on his fridge for the Vincent Van Gogh exhibition in Paris which the Doctor and Amy took the painter to in the last episode.

Behind the fridge is the crack in time, and in the TARDIS Amy finds Rory's ring, but obviously doesn't know it belonged to him after he was removed from time by the crack in the Silurian story.

Next time: It's been mentioned twice this year but we finally get to see the Pandorica. Moffat has to trump RTD in season finales, so gives us a whole load of familiar aliens joining forces...