Amy's Choice (TV story)

Amy's Choice is the seventh episode of Series 5 and 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. Amy's pain then subsides and 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 him and the TARDIS before hugs are exchanged and the Doctor stating 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 a 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 are transported back to Leadworth again.

The Doctor then goes to a retirement home, stating "There's something out of place, we poke it with a stick." Inside, the Doctor notices something odd about all of the residents, especially an old woman named Mrs. Poggit, who gives the Doctor a jumper. The three then fall asleep again, waking in a powerless TARDIS. Soon after a strange man who refers to himself as the 'Dream Lord', who has shut off the power, appears. The Dream Lord gives them a test: One of the worlds they are drifting between is fake, the other is real. In each world, they will be in deadly danger. The catch is that if they are killed in the dream world, they will wake up in the real one. However, death in the real world is just that, death. The Doctor, Amy and Rory then fall asleep again.

Waking up in Leadworth, 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: they are drifting towards a cold star, and they only have 40 minutes till impact. 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, the Doctor deduced who the Dream Lord was because there was only one person in the universe that hated him as much as he did. The old people reveal they are aliens called the Eknodine, eye stalks which use humans as bodies, poking out of their mouths. The Alien in Mrs. Poggit reveals that their race was killed off, and that they will do the same to Earth. 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 butchers 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.

Rory awakens/dream to find the house under siege, he quickly gets Amy upstairs, apologizing for each step he bumps her on. The Doctor calmly primes his screwdriver and opens the door, super charging the lightbulb and blinds 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 choosing 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 starts to turn 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 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.

All three then wake up in the TARDIS, almost frozen. The Dream Lord appears, and concedes defeat, pulling the TARDIS away from the cold star, and turning heating back on, before vanishing. The Doctor, however, is not convinced, and blows up the TARDIS, despite Amy and Rory's protests, creating a blinding flash of white light.

The three then wake up in the real TARDIS. 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 the dark side of his 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 askin 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 at him.

Cast

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

Production crew
to be added

Story notes

 * The enemies the old folks play are a race known as the Eknodine.
 * The Dream Lord traps the Doctor, Rory and Amy in an alternative world and Amy has to decide what is the real world.
 * 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 the first story not to have any cracks or silence or foreshadowing of the finale. Except possibly the TARDIS exploding.
 * 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". Sarn was the setting for DW: Planet of Fire and is 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.

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 Doctor himself - at least, his dark side.
 * Aunt Sharon will appear. This was false
 * The Dream Lord is an early form of the Valeyard.

Filming locations
to be added

Production errors

 * When Rory and Amy are running from the Eknodine, there is clearly see mud on his back, but he was thrown on his back, into mud, a minute before.

Continuity

 * The Doctor says he is 907.


 * The Doctor mentions again that bow ties are cool. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
 * The Dream Lord refers to what happened between the 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. (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 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)
 * 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).

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