Amy's Choice (TV story)

Amy's Choice was the seventh episode of the fifth series of BBC Wales Doctor Who. It focused on Amy's relationship with the Doctor and Rory as well as the darker side of the Doctor.

Synopsis
It has been five years since Amy Pond last travelled with the Doctor, and when he lands in her garden again, on the eve of the birth of her first child, she finds herself facing a heartbreaking choice – one that will change her life forever. They will have to choose which is the dream world and which is reality.

Plot
Upper Leadworth, 2015. Amy Pond is stirring some icing in a bowl but starts to feel pain in her pregnant body. Rory immediately arrives on his bike (with a pony tail on his head) and Amy screams Rory's name so he can get inside thinking the baby is coming. But it isn't a contraction, merely a false alarm. As Amy's pain subsides, both of them are about to resume their daily lives when the TARDIS materializes outside their kitchen window. The Doctor exits the TARDIS whilst Rory and Amy hurry to greet him, before hugs are exchanged and the Doctor states how happy they look five years after they last travelled with him. Rory and Amy take the Doctor on a walk through their new hometown, explaining that most of the village's population are quite elderly. The trio sits down on a bench and discuss life in Upper Leadworth, the Doctor desperately trying to hide his exasperation with the dull tedium of it all. They fall asleep to the sound of birdsong, and suddenly wake up in the TARDIS, five years previously. Rory describes a dream he had, (consisting of the above events) and it becomes apparent that Amy and the Doctor shared the same dream. They all figure out that something is wrong, but before they can decide what, they fall asleep and find themselves in Upper Leadworth again.

The Doctor then goes to a retirement home, stating "There's something out of place-let's go and poke it with a stick." Inside, the Doctor notices something odd about all of the residents, especially an old woman named Mrs. Poggit, who makes the Doctor try on a jumper to check the size for her grandson. The three then fall asleep again, waking in a powerless TARDIS. Soon after, a strange man who refers to himself as the 'Dream Lord' appears. The Dream Lord explains that he is testing them: One of the worlds they are drifting between is fake, the other is real. In each world, they will be in deadly danger. They have to decide which one is actually real. The catch is that if they are killed in the dream world, they will wake up in the real one for good. However, death in the real world is just that, death. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory then fall asleep again.

Waking up in Leadworth and arguing over which world is real, the Doctor notices that all of the old people have gone. The three venture outside, noticing Mrs. Poggit watching a group of school children. Before they can get close, the three again fall asleep to the birdsong. Back in the TARDIS, they find out the first deadly danger: the TARDIS is drifting towards a cold star, and they only have 40 minutes before they are killed. Waking up in Leadworth, they find the children missing, with piles of dust in their place. The Doctor and Amy soon deduce what has happened. When they turn, a large group of old people are walking towards them. The Dream Lord appears and taunt that the 'Attack of the Old People' must be the dream, while the Doctor deduces who the Dream Lord was because there was only one person in the universe that hated him as much as he did. The geriatrics reveal they are the Eknodine, aliens which use humans as hosts, completely hidden except for eyestalks which they can poke out of the mouths. The Alien in Mrs. Poggit reveals that their homeworld was destroyed, and that they will destroy the human race to make a new home for themselves. The Eknodine try to kill the three, but the Doctor, Amy, and Rory split up and manage to escape. Amy and Rory manages to reach the safety of their cottage, beating up an old lady in the process. The Doctor however...

Stumbling through the streets as sleep/awakening is tearing on him, an army of seniors are in relative close pursuit. Entering a butcher shop only to be greeted by the Dream Lord, trying the backdoor before running behind the counter. The Dream Lord politely greets the old ones with a pun and mockingly claims he cannot watch, with a final push the Doctor locks himself inside the storage room before passing out. Waking up/Dreaming that he is in the TARDIS with the others. A brief discussion on which reality is the real one, while the Doctor rants the Dream lord reappears, then slyly proclaiming that he should split them up, so that he may have a chat with the young lady. The Doctor and Rory promptly fall asleep again, but Amy remains in the freezing TARDIS scenario.

Rory "awakens" to find the house under siege from the elderly, so he quickly gets the still-unconscious Amy upstairs to the nursery room they've prepared for their unborn child, apologizing for each step he bumps her on. The Doctor, meanwhile, calmly primes his sonic screwdriver and opens the door, supercharging the lightbulb and blinding the Eknodines for long enough to escape. Finding a man and a van under attack by a senior citizen, showing signs of annoyance he leaps into action and rescues several people with the van. Getting them to the safety of a stone church before going off to find his friends, the Dream Lord emerges in a Nascar-suit and taunts the Doctor regarding his waning relationship with past companions.

Meanwhile the Dream Lord plays around with Amy, hinting that anything could happen now that they are alone. Defiant as always Amy ignores the lecherous creep, snapping back at the man until he makes it obvious to her that she is not the first girl to travel with the Doctor. He questions Amy's romantic inclinations, claiming that Rory is nothing compared to the Doctor, at the same time suggesting that "settling for" Rory would be preferable to loving and losing the Doctor. He tells her that they are waiting for her to decide; "Amy's men, Amy's choice." Amy wakes/dreams that she is back in Leadworth, just as the Doctor enters through the window of the nursery, more unsure of which reality is which then ever. Rory is then attacked by Mrs. Poggit, and the venom begins to dissolve him to dust. Before he dies, he tells Amy to "look after our baby." Distraught, Amy decides that the Leadworth reality is the dream, that it cannot be real because Rory isn't with her. She and the Doctor make their way past the suddenly-docile Eknodines to the van. Before giving her the keys, the Doctor asks her if she is sure about what she is about to do. Amy replies that she is, that even if it is real, she doesn't want to live in a world without Rory. As the Dream Lord silently watches, the two drive the van straight into the house, killing themselves (and several Eknodines in the process)

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory then wake up in the TARDIS, alive, but almost frozen. The Dream Lord appears, and concedes defeat, congratulating them on finding reality. He pulls the TARDIS away from the cold star before turning heating back on, and then vanishes. The Doctor, however, is not convinced, and sets the TARDIS to self-destruct, despite Amy and Rory's protests, creating a blinding flash of white light.

The three then wake up in the TARDIS again. The Doctor shows Amy and Rory some specks of Psychic Pollen from the Candle Meadows of Karass Don Slava that had fallen into the Time rotor and heated up, creating the dream state. After blowing the pollen into space, the Doctor reveals that the Dream Lord was actually just the dark side of his own personality, manifested by the pollen. Rory asks Amy what had stopped the Leadworth dream, having forgotten his 'death'. Amy tells him, confessing that she did not know which world was real, but could not live without him. Rory kisses Amy, and, when asking the Doctor where to go next, tells him that it is "Amy's choice". As he works the TARDIS' controls, the Doctor briefly sees the Dream Lord's face in the console, smiling sinisterly at him.

Cast

 * Eleventh Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
 * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
 * The Dream Lord - Toby Jones
 * Mr. Nainby - Nick Hobbs
 * Mrs. Poggit - Audrey Ardington
 * Mrs. Hamil - Joan Linder

The Doctor

 * The Dream Lord brings up the Doctor's relationship with Elizabeth I.
 * The Doctor says he is 907.
 * The Dream Lord talks about the Doctor's many relationships with different women.
 * The Dream Lord makes a sly reference to Donna Noble, by saying "Loves a red head our naughty Doctor."
 * The Doctor again mentions the fact that he disagreed with the TARDIS instruction manual.

TARDIS

 * The Doctor reveals to Amy and Rory that he threw the TARDIS Instruction Manual into a supernova because he 'disagreed' with it.

Time travel

 * The Doctor initially assumes that the TARDIS has jumped a time track.

Story notes

 * The hostile aliens possessing the old folks are a race known as the Eknodine.
 * Technically, the entire episode took place in the TARDIS.
 * The box under the TARDIS console the Doctor opens has the words: "TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Build Site: Gallifrey Blackhole Shipyard. Type 40. Build date: 1963. Authorised for use by qualified Time Lords only by the Shadow Proclamation. Misuse or theft of any TARDIS will result in extreme penalties and permanent exile." written on it. This is also written on a plaque on the console itself, as shown in the TARDIS tour on the BBC website.
 * This is the first story of Series 5 not to have any cracks, silence or foreshadowing of the finale.
 * There is no indication of how much time has passed since DW: The Vampires of Venice.
 * The sign outside the old peoples' home reads "SARN Residential Care Home". Planet Sarn was the setting for DW: Planet of Fire and was also the name of a character in DW: Time and the Rani.
 * This is the only episode of Series 5 that is not referred to in any way later in the series.
 * This episode aired on the same day as the K9 episode, The Cambridge Spy was first broadcast on Disney XD in Britain. It also aired on the same day that The Fall of the House of Gryffen was first broadcast on Network Ten in Australia.
 * The van the Doctor uses to rescue the survivors has the license plate 'ADW 308N'. Fan speculation believe this could be an hint to the conclusion of the story. ADW meaning A Dream World, and the numbers on the plate adding to 11, the current incarnation of the Doctor.
 * No one in in this story was actually in danger; those who died were only from the Doctor's mind

Ratings

 * Overnight ratings were 6.2 million (5.9 million on BBC1, 0.3 million on HD) for a 33.0% share.
 * The Appreciation Index was 84.
 * The final BARB ratings were 7.55 million (7.06 million on BBC1, 0.49 million on HD).

Rumours

 * The 'Dream Lord' was rumoured to pretend to be the Doctor because of a shot of him inside the TARDIS wearing the Eleventh Doctor's costume in the trailer. He was, in fact, the dark side of the Doctor.
 * Aunt Sharon will appear. This was false.
 * The Dream Lord is an early form of the Valeyard. This was left unconfirmed.
 * This episode was rumoured to be Doctor-lite to match the companion-lite episode, The Lodger. This was false.

Filming locations
Skenfrith, Wales, UK

Production errors

 * When Rory and Amy are running from the Eknodine, there is clearly no mud on his back, but he was thrown on his back into mud, a minute before.
 * When the schoolchildren were walking across the field, not all of them were wearing raincoats. However, in the next Leadworth scene, every pile of dust had a raincoat next to it.
 * When Rory was attacked by the Eknodine, he had time to say parting words, yet when others were turned to dust, it was instant. Also, all the others were dissolved from the point of impact downward, yet Rory was hit in the face and his legs dissolved first.
 * In the scenes where the Doctor is driving in the van and picking people up, there appears to be no backseat because three families can fit. However, earlier, when the Dream Lord appears in the van, he is sitting in the backseat.
 * The Doctor's clothing beneath his jacket changes in different scenes
 * The studio ceiling can be glimpsed briefly in the upper right-hand corner when the Doctor says that he threw the TARDIS manual in a supernova.

Continuity

 * This episode is the first since DW: Rose that features the forename of the companion in the title.
 * The Dream Lord teleports around much like the Valeyard did in DW: The Ultimate Foe.
 * The Dream Lord refers to the Doctor as the 'last of the Time Lords' and 'The Oncoming Storm', two nicknames he has been given. (DW: Doomsday, Journey's End et al.)
 * The Doctor mentions again that bow ties are cool. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
 * The Dream Lord refers to what happened between Tenth Doctor and Queen Elizabeth I. (DW: The Shakespeare Code, The End of Time, The Beast Below)
 * The Doctor initially assumes that the TARDIS has jumped a Time track, like it did in DW: The Space Museum.
 * The Dream Lord says "I'm surprised you haven't got a little purple space dog", clearly an oblique reference to K9.
 * The Doctor tries to jump start the TARDIS by kicking it. (DW: Rise of the Cybermen)
 * The Doctor refers to throwing the TARDIS Instruction Manual into a supernova because he 'disagreed with it'. The Doctor had an instruction Manual in DW: The Pirate Planet and disagreed with it (even tearing a page out of it). It's assumed to be the same Manual.
 * The Doctor uses his stethoscope for the first time in his eleventh incarnation.
 * The Dream Lord accuses the Doctor of abandoning his companions in favour of younger friends, echoing remarks by Sarah Jane Smith about the Tenth Doctor and his relationship with Rose Tyler. (DW: School Reunion)
 * The Dream Lord, once alone with Amy, echoes a conversation Jackie Tyler had with the Ninth Doctor about how 'anything could happen'. (DW: Rose)
 * After Rory dies in the dream, Amy asks the Doctor "What is the point of you?", similar to how Gwen asks the same to Jack after Rhys dies (TW: End of Days) and what the Doctor asks a Dalek. (DW: Dalek)
 * The swimming pool is referenced, and apparently has turned up; the Doctor said that "it'll turn up" in DW: The Eleventh Hour. Leela swam in the pool in the DW: The Invasion of Time.
 * Amy says "Can we not do the running thing?", which seems to be a running gag in Series Four and Series Five.
 * The Dream Lord taunts the Doctor, "I bet you're a vegetarian!", in a butcher's shop and then by calling him "veggie", perhaps referring to his failed vegetarianism. This originated at the end of DW: The Two Doctors but he has since been seen many times to have lapsed (even ordering steak in DW: Boom Town).
 * In the dreams, the Doctor wears both variations of his outfit. He wears the teal version in Upper Leadworth and his maroon version in the TARDIS.
 * When Amy is alone with the Dream Lord, he asks her if she thinks The Doctor tells her everything, to which she replies that he does, then the Dream Lord asks her if she knows his real name. This refers back to DW: Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead in which River Song whispers the Doctor's name into his ear and he is shocked that she knows it and later says that there is only one way he could ever tell anyone his name, but never explains what that way is.

Timeline

 * This story occurs after NSA: Nuclear Time
 * This story occurs before NSA: The King's Dragon

Home video releases
BBC Video - Doctor Who Series Five - Volume Three was released on Monday 2nd August 2010 (UK Only) on DVD and Blu-ray, featuring Amy's Choice, The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood.