"The Doctor's Wife" was originally intended to be produced as part of the previous series, but was pushed back due to budget constraints.

The episode was filmed in the autumn of 2010 and featured a makeshift TARDIS control room which was the design from a winner of a contest on the children's programme Blue Peter.

The Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory follow a distress call, from a Time Lord named the Corsair, to an asteroid outside the universe.

The Doctor learns that Idris contains the TARDIS's matrix, and its personality, and that they can have a two-way conversation for the first time; she clarifies that she stole him, keeping herself unlocked in the museum on Gallifrey where he found her, so that she could explore the universe.

[fn 1] With minutes before her body fails, Idris reveals that House had stranded many TARDISes before, and that its pocket universe is hours away from collapsing.

Idris makes a psychic connection with Rory to give him directions to a secondary control room, where he and Amy are able to lower the TARDIS shields.

House deletes the secondary control room as he prepares to break through the rift to the main universe, which the Doctor anticipates.

[2] Idris' cryptic words, "the only water in the forest is the river", are explained in the mid-series finale, "A Good Man Goes to War".

[9] This title remained until about six weeks before the episode aired, but the crew was beginning to worry that "Bigger on the Inside" would give away the surprise that Idris was the TARDIS, so it was changed.

[7] Even so, Gaiman was forced to operate with less money than he would have liked; for instance, he had to scrap a scene set in the TARDIS' swimming pool,[11] and instead of being able to use a monster of his own design he had to use an Ood.

Moffat wrote in what Gaiman called "several of [the episode's] best lines" and rapidly rewrote several scenes when budget problems harmed filming locations.

[16] Adrian Schiller previously appeared in the Eighth Doctor audio drama Time Works where he played Zanith.

[3][22] Actor Arthur Darvill noted the floor of the older set had a cheese grater-like quality to it, so when the scene called for the cast to fall on it, they found it uncomfortable to stay down for a long period of time.

[24] The drawing was redesigned faithfully by the production team into the prop for the show, including the use of a coat hanger to start the makeshift TARDIS.

[24] Leah was brought by Blue Peter to see both the set under construction and on location during filming of the makeshift TARDIS scenes, meeting Smith and the other actors and production crew.

[31] Gavin Fuller of The Telegraph praised the acting of Smith, Jones, and Sheen, and called the episode "hugely enjoyable".

[32] Neela Debnath of The Independent praised Gaiman for mixing "romance, tragedy and horror, managing to strike a balance while telling a simple story", though she criticised the frequent deaths of Rory.

[33] SFX magazine reviewer Russell Lewin gave "The Doctor's Wife" four and a half out of five stars, labelling it as "non-stop intrigue and carefully-controlled suspense all the way".

He particularly praised Smith's energetic performance, saying "he pings and fizzes around the screen like a Technicolor firework, lighting up every scene he adorns".

[34] IGN's Matt Risley rated the episode 9 out of 10 and concluded, "Sweet, touching, intelligent, different, utterly imaginative and accessible by both hardcore fans and newbies alike — this is not only Doctor Who, but sci-fi telly at its finest".

[35] Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times admitted he was unsure if he was going to like it with the "grungy setting, wacko characters and peculiar dialogue", but ended up "captivated".

Jeffery felt that the strength of the episode was in character rather than in plot, and cited the defeat of the House as a "slightly disappointing" deus ex machina.