Can Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS make up for Steve Thompson's last Doctor Who episode? Warning - the following review contains spoilers, don't read if you haven't seen the episode!

Steve Thompson's previous Doctor Who script - 2011's The Curse of the Black Spot was, all things considered, pretty poor. So, has Thompson improved on his last effort? Yes, he has.

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS has the Doctor (Matt Smith) and the Van Baalen brothers, Gregor, Bram and Ticky (Ashley Walters, Mark Oliver & Jahvel Hall respectively) searching the interior of the TARDIS for Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman), who fell down its corridors after the TARDIS was disabled by the Van Baalen brothers' salvage magna-grab. With only half an hour until the TARDIS self-destructs, will the Doctor and the salvage crew find Clara in time? And what else is creeping around the bowels of the ship...?

As evidenced by the title, this episode promised to take us on a tour of the TARDIS, something that hasn't really happened in full since The Invasion of Time in 1978. Thankfully, the episode delivers, and the audience is treated to a number of rooms in the TARDIS that we've never seen before (the Architechtural Reconfiguration System, the Engine Room, the Eye of Harmony's room, the Observatory), as well as a couple of old favourites (the Swimming Pool, the Library).  Annoyingly, though, some of the rooms were simple run-past CGI shots, and only teased us without showing the room in full. While this is not neccessarily a bad thing in itself, the amount of time the episode spent running down corridors meant that more of these CGI shots could have been used. Who, for example, wouldn't have liked to see the classic control room? Or the Cloister room, a bedroom or two, and perhaps even a rebuilt Zero Room?

That said, the set designs and ideas for the rooms that were explored were fabulous. From the Avatar-inspired Architectural Reconfiguration tree made of living metal, to the multi story Library containing liquid knowledge and the TARDIS reconfiguring its corridors, the amount of amazement and excitement I felt while watching this episode was off the scale. I also liked the scene where Clara heard and saw the 'echoes' of her past self and the Doctor, but I felt that in some respects, it was also a missed opportunity. In the 50th Anniversary Year, it would have been fabulous to have 'echoes' of previous Doctors and their companions. Speaking of which, I LOVED the snippets of dialogue conerning the TARDIS from both the classic and new series, it was wonderful to hear all those familiar voices again!

Still on the positives, I liked the interactions between the Van Baalen brothers. While I think it highly illogical that they would have convinced Tricky to think he was an android to relieve the boredom, the side plot of Tricky discovering his true identity fits in well and allows the episode to stop and pause for a moment, giving the audience breathing space before the characters dash off down the corridor. It's just a shame that the third brother, Gregor, is not developed as much as the other two.

Now, the negatives. First and foremost, this episode did not need monsters! In my opinion, Journey would have been much, much better had there been no 'time zombies' racing around the place. All that was needed was a 45 minutes episode that involved finding Clara, stopping the Van Baalen brothers from turning the TARDIS into salvage metal, and possibly fixing the TARDIS. Instead, we got the generic 'running down corridors away from monster' scenes that were really quite repetitive and boring. The concept behind the monsters was quite confusing, and I had to watch the episode twice to understand what was going on. As it turned out, their explanation made sense, and I liked it, but there's still a few questions to be asked. As the Eye of Harmony is a star on the brink of collapsing into a black hole, why doesn't prolonged exposure kill you outright instead of transforming you into a 'time zombie'? And, once the zombies are created, why do they turn evil and decide to attempt to kill everyone onboard? Sure, by doing so, they caused a predestination paradox (Tricky and Bram only become zombies because Bram helped Tricky up after killing their future zombie selves), but the motivation still doesn't make sense.

This episode also falls victim to the 'contrived, reset button ending' that has plagued the revived series quite a few times. On first viewing, it was confusing and annoying, and the chosen camera shot of the Van Baalen brothers' ship immediately afterwards doesn't help. A second viewing (in my case) is required to understand what the deal was, and surprisingly, it does make a bit of sense. Just before the escapade in the TARDIS itself begins, the Doctor pulls the magna-grab remote control out of Bram's pocket, and identifies it as such. Fast forward 40 minutes, and the Doctor writes a message on that same remote control (the sonic screwdriver's a blow torch now, is it? :roll:) and sends it through a crack in time (presumably caused by the destruction of the TARDIS' engine, or are the cracks from Series 5 returning???) to the TARDIS console room at the start of the episode. This time, the Doctor picks it up and presses the button - deactivating the magna-grab and preventing the events of the episode from occuring. Simple, wasn't it? If only that had made it clear in the episode that all the button did was deactivate the magna-grab, without needing viewers to remember a bit of throw-away dialoge from the end of the episode.

One final annoyance: Why on Earth was the book 'History of the Time War' written in English? Presumably it was written by the Doctor in an effort to get the whole thing out of his system, but he must've been feeling extremely fond of humans at that stage...I call it plot contrivence. And if the Doctor's name is a big, dark secret, etc, why doesn't Clara react differently that just 'you have a name, why do you call yourself the Doctor'? The only explanation I can think of is that Clara doesn't know the meaning behind the Doctor's name.

All in all, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS was a thoroughly enjoyable episode. With plenty of exciting rooms and references to the past, it is guarenteed to keep you entertained. However, needless monsters, some poorly explained plot points, and a book written in English detract from an otherwise great episode.

7.5/10

PS: Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman was phenomenal in this episode. Matt's darker Doctor, particularly at the beginning, was excellent, and the interaction between Smith and Coleman when discussing Clara's identity was perfect; Coleman looked realistically scared!