by Mark Murton
Original Air Date: June 12, 2010
Directed by: Catherine Morshead
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains spoilers for this episode!
Synopsis: The Doctor (Matt Smith) is stranded on Earth while his companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) is trapped inside the TARDIS which an unknown force is preventing from landing. The origin of the force seems to be an ordinary flat with a staircase that people go up but never come back down, so the Doctor moves into the flat and tries to fit in with ordinary humans and solve the mystery.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): We are primed to expect a cat as a cat flap is prominent in numerous shots of the front door, although it takes some time for the lovely longhair seal point kitty to appear, eventually spotted running along the passageway near the stairs as the flat’s owner, Craig Owens (James Corden), hurries out, late for work.
The doctor is able to communicate with Amy in the TARDIS and informs her “I shall recruit a spy.” Later, the Doctor returns to the house as the cat ventures down the stairs before pausing to look back up.
The Doctor sits down on the stairs and speaks to the cat. Hearing the Doctor’s voice, Craig peeps out through the spyhole in his door to see the doctor conversing with the cat. This the final straw for Craig who tells the Doctor he has to go.
At the end of the episode, the Doctor is back in the TARDIS with Amy and instructs her to leave him a note with Craig’s address, which his younger self had at the start of the episode, and this leads to Amy being seen in the series finale — The Big Bang, directed by Toby Haynes — outside the same house petting the same cat which sits on a low wall, when the Doctor’s timeline rewinds and he revisits points in his past.
Final Mewsings: Cats lodge in our hearts as well as our homes.
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