"The Lodger" is the eleventh episode of the fifth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast on BBC One on 12 June 2010. It was written by Gareth Roberts, who based the story on his 2006 Doctor Who Magazine comic strip "The Lodger".

The episode features the Doctor (Matt Smith) stranded on Earth and separated from his companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), when an unknown force prevents his time travelling spaceship, the TARDIS, from landing. To investigate, he moves into the flat of Craig Owens (James Corden) and attempts to fit in with ordinary humans while unknowingly playing matchmaker for Craig and his good friend Sophie (Daisy Haggard).

Showrunner Steven Moffat was a fan of Roberts' original comic strip and enthused him to adapt it into an episode for the series. While some elements of the comic strip remain, Roberts wrote most of it from scratch. "The Lodger" replaced a slot held by an episode that was pushed back due to budgetary constraints and was consequently one of the last to be filmed. The episode was watched by a final 6.44 million viewers, the least-watched episode of the fifth series of Doctor Who. However, it achieved the joint highest Appreciation Index of the series at the time of broadcast and received positive to mixed reviews from critics. Praise was given to the acting of Smith and Corden, but reviewers expressed disappointment over the resolution.

After stepping out of the TARDIS in modern-day Colchester, the Doctor is blown off his feet by a blast of air, and the TARDIS, Amy still inside, dematerialises into the time vortex and refuses to rematerialise. With Amy's help, the Doctor tracks the disturbance to the second floor of a house. The Doctor opts to take a room for rent offered by the downstairs tenant, Craig Owens, in order to determine what is present on the second floor without alerting whatever it is to his Time Lord nature. Neither Craig nor the Doctor are aware that people are being lured off the street to the second floor flat and never leaving again, but the Doctor is conscious of localised time loops and disturbances aboard the TARDIS that coincide with noises from the second floor.

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