The Lodger

by Courtney Hilden
Spoiler Alert!: The ending for this episode is revealed in this review.

"The Lodger" follows the Doctor after he has been rejected out of the TARDIS into a small English town.  Amy can't seem to land the TARDIS, and the Doctor follows whatever is making it so into a set of flats.  He becomes the lodger at Craig's (James Corden) place, who is trying to ask out one of his best friends, Sophie (Daisy Haggard).  
It's good to see that this episode wasn't a recycled plot from a recent episode.  Instead, we got to see what Amy and the Doctor are like without each other in each other's environments, which was a nice change of pace.  It was nice to see the Doctor do "normal" things, like having a flatmate and playing football.  On the last bit, it would have also be fun to see the Doctor muck up at football, but it worked better in the overall storyline for him to be good.  Seeing the Doctor shirtless was also nice.  Maybe Matt Smith should think about playing a Greek god.  
The couple featured was way too cute.  They both like each other, they both know they like each other, but they're both way too shy.  The Doctor has turned into a matchmaker, realizing very quickly at the romance blooming.  It seemed obvious that Sophie was going to be captured by whatever it was in the upper flat which would finally galvanize Craig and Sophie to confess their love for one another. 
Sometimes it seems like the crew needs to scout out some more shooting locations, because the town that was featured in this episode looked exactly like the one featured in the first episodes of the series.  But it was a great penultimate episode, setting us up for the conclusion of the this series and the promised resolution of what the cracks all about the universe are about.