"The Idiot's Lantern" is the seventh episode of the second series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast on 27 May 2006 on BBC One. It was written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Euros Lyn. The episode is set in London in 1953, at the time of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. In the episode, the incorporeal alien the Wire (Maureen Lipman) intends to regain a physical body by consuming enough energy from the minds of the coronation's television audience.