MONDO EXTRAS

"It's funny," the Doctor says. "I seem to be telling you everything." John Smith nods. That's how it works. For the Doctor; for the Companion too: "As though you engendered some sort of... Trust. You seem familiar, Mr. Smith. I ... Know your face." MAKE OUT MUSIC starts, but you can see for a second how this episode works, or is supposed to work: as the prelude for a story about Companions and companionship, about the worst goodbye -- worse than Adric, worse than anything -- leading to a splitting off of hearts and a loss of memory and retreat into that worst of all buffalo, the Doctor who Masters, it's a beautiful reversal to play this episode straight: John Smith, deliberately and once again laying down his title, his name, in order to remember her. To put his hand on the wall once again and feel her on the other side. I'm your Companion, of course I ask questions. I'm your Doctor, of course you trust me with your whole heart.

"I can't help noticing you're wearing a fobwatch..." John says, and the Doctor nods. "Legend has it that the memories of a Timelord can be contained within a watch..." He flips it open, John Smith does, and the works go flying: gears and springs and cogs. No bigger on the inside than it was outside, just like the Doctor. "Maybe not," says Smith, embarrassed, and bids his Doctor continue. "Look for anything different, possibly metal. Anything that doesn't seem to belong, perhaps a mechanical device that could fit no earthly engine." To protect his Doctor, Smith keeps his screwdriver quiet, as he roams and sonics things. "It could even seem to be organic, but unlike any organism of the natural world..." The Doctor hears the buzzing whine of the sonic screwdriver, and John quickly puts it in his pocket. "Just me... Whistling?" As though by coincidence, or in the guise of another excellent question, John wonders offhand what might be in this particular chest.

"Different, and metal," John says, holding up a metal shell, about a handspan wide. "They are infostamps," he tells his Doctor, "I mean, at a guess. If I were you," John says, "I'd say they worked something like this..." He taps the infostamp and pictures appear on the wall: "Compressed information, tons of it. That's... History of London, 1066 to the present day." John doesn't notice his Doctor, behind him, looking down at nothing, lost to the world as another piece of pain falls into place. He's only human.