The Doctor faces something a little more formidable than rising damp in this house...

The essential plot of this week's outing with our favourite time-traveller could probably have been wrapped up in a brisk 15 minutes. Like last week's Vincent And The Doctor, The Lodger's main intention was to highlight the amusing possibilities of time travel, but more importantly, have some fun imagining what it would be like actually living with the Galifreyan looney/genius.

With Amy trapped in a TARDIS that can't materialise because of a strange energy-field coming from the upper floor of an ordinary suburban house, the assistant who has taken at least 50% of the limelight of series 5 more or less retreated into the wings in this episode, allowing us our best insight yet into Matt Smith's Doctor, temporarily trapped in an absurdly soap-like domestic situation.

James Corden of Gavin And Stacey is the corpulent tenant unable to declare his true love for his best gal-buddy. What he's failing to notice during rounds of pizza and romantic heartache is that some strange force is attracting passers-by to the mysterious lodger in the upstairs flat - and none of them return.

Whatever's up there, it won't let the TARDIS materialise, so our hero is stuck on earth with rising damp and rates to pay until he can get to the bottom of the matter...

This episode mirrors Vincent And The Doctor also in the fact that the ultimate cause of all the trouble, whilst causing bloody mayhem and murder, is really kind of blameless in what it's trying to achieve. It might have been a good idea not to show Vincent and Lodger consecutively, for this reason; but whereas last week's Van Gogh episode had something truly touching to say about depression and suicide in the end, this week was played for laughs and for character.

Tying in nicely with the approach of the World Cup, we got to see The Doctor learning the rules of football in about two seconds with his new flatmate and turning into a genius of the Beautiful Game with a few minutes of his first ever match. What else did we expect? We already knew he was a whiz at Cricket, though describing it as 'that game with sticks' does emphasise that The Doctor kind of 'starts over' with every regeneration.

Here also, for the first time we encounter the ultimate exposition-swatter: the Gallifreyan Mind-Meld/Head-Butt that lets the Doc bring Corden up to date with his long-term and recent history with rapid (if violent) efficiency in a matter of seconds - with a lightning-fast meeting of foreheads known in Scotland as a 'Malkie' (Mr. Spock wouldn't have approved, but then TV went at a slower pace in those days, and such short-cuts left us more time to see The Doctor taking amusing advice from Amy on how to be 'a proper bloke' and pass as human while he solves the mystery upstairs).

As if the cranial info-upload wasn't enough borrowing from Star Trek, the stranded Doc and the warp-locked Amy were able to communicate with a metallic device uncannily similar to the one that was always stuck in Lt. Uhura's ear-piece. At least they wore it in the opposite ear to her (if I remember correctly), and it served also as a scrambler to foil eavesdroppers.

More light plot-larceny ensued, as the little girl luring unsuspecting victims up those creepy stairs was chanelling somewhat series producer Steven Moffat's own demonic children in The Empty Child, but what the hell, that was back in S1.

Director Catherine Morshead did ample justice to a fundamentally comedic script by Gareth Roberts. The Lodger's structure could practically pass as an episode of Rising Damp or Men Behaving Badly, with the 'weird guest' motif always rife with comic possibilities. One suspects that Roberts was writing for Corden's already-agreed guest spot, an approach which could have gone very wrong, but didn't.

I note also that The Doctor made his second vocal commitment in two weeks to leave that bloody sonic screwdriver alone, but also note that he is seen prominently aiming it at some foe in a shot in the closing-credits trailer for next week's season finale starter, The Pandorica Opens. Oh well.

What these easy-going, relatively low-VFX episodes have been saving up for is about to unfold, and Moffat won't let us forget it again, as once more the 'crack in time and space' makes a Hitchcock-style cameo at the end of the episode.

Matt Smith has never been weirder or more fun throughout series 5 than in The Lodger, and those who were only half-way convinced by his casting might well have had their minds made up in his favour by The Doctor's chicanery this week - and all without losing his fundamental dignity (or his bow tie, despite Amy's persistent requests).

I'm not a particular fan of James Corden, but his inclusion in this final bit of fun before 'the big one', turned out to be serendipitous in every way.

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