Forever Dreaming (comic story)

Forever Dreaming was a Doctor Who Magazine comic strip featuring the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond.

Part 1
The Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond arrive on a summer beach in the 1960s. Everything is very reminiscent of the British summer holiday, right down to the seaside bandstand. The Doctor notes that it is "almost too perfect. Bordering on the stereotypical...". Meanwhile, the pair are being watched by the eye of a giant octopus ride called "North Pier". Unseen voices note that the Doctor's mind is unsuitable, as he doubts what is around him, but Amy believes.

Amy has a strange feeling that she has been here before when she was a girl. She runs off, pointing out a toy shop around the corner of a building, before she becomes her young self, carrying a red balloon. Her Aunt Sharon reprimands her for running off. Young Amy points out a toy version of the Doctor and the TARDIS in the toy shop window, but Aunt Sharon is uninterested, and leads young Amy away. In the course of doing this, young Amy loses her red balloon, which prompts her to realise that she wasn't even born in the 1960s; she was born in 1989. The unseen voices note that Amy's mind is powerful, and that they cannot allow her to leave.

Young Amy yells at Aunt Sharon, saying that she isn't really her aunt, until she becomes her older self. The Doctor asks Amy if she's all right, to which she replies that she thought she was a kid in the sixties, but it must have been a daydream. The Doctor, alarmed, starts to run down to the beach, saying that they have to get out. However, he steps over a child's sandcastle, and becomes himself a sand statue. The statue crumbles, leaving Amy alone.

A man dressed in psychedelic clothes comes down from a swirl of colours, saying "Hello there, pretty Amelia. The girl of my dreams!" Amy asks how he knows who she is. The man responds that they are all in the same dream, somewhere between waking and sleeping. He offers her an ice cream, but Amy has already had one. He says that she can always have it later, because they have all the tomorrows in the world. He says that there is no way back; the dream they are living in is forever. The man reveals that he too is trapped in the dream, and only Amy can save them, if she turns off her minds and sets herself free. Amy won't do anything until the man gives her back the Doctor, but according to the man he's "already closed his eyes on the octopus ride..." Before he disappears, the man warns of 'The Dark'.

At that moment, everything turns from summer fun to darkness. Stuffed dummies sit where sunbathers previously were, and the bandmembers on the bandstands are a dissolving mess in the rain. From behind Amy approaches five dark suited figures, with rosettes, bowler hats and umbrellas. Amy asks who they are. They say they are "the face in the curtain, the creak upon the stair...the shiver down your spine, the childhood nightmare." Amy runs.

The octopus ride has become dark and foreboding. Amy asks herself that if she is dreaming, shouldn't she be able to wake up. She asks herself why she can't wake up; and what if she never wakes up? The unseen voices are revealed to be a collection of formal dressed men in tall chairs, sitting in a circle with dark glasses on. The psychedelic man from before is standing behind them, and everyone is watching an orange glowing orb, the screen to the exterior octopus' eye. One man says that they have to help Amy, because if she is consumed by the Dark, she will cease to exist. But the psychedelic man says that they can only watch and weep. It is then revealed that the Doctor is among the circle of men. The psychedelic man apologises to the Doctor for what will happen.

Amy is cornered at the end of a pier. The five dark-suited men are approaching, and the sea rages below her. Amy says that they are just a product of her imagination, and that they don't exist, but the men say that she'll have to do better than that. They ask if she is afraid, because the more afraid she gets the more powerful they become. Amy climbs over the pier railing, saying that she isn't afraid of them, but one of the men contradicts her. As Amy dangles for dear life from the pier railings, with the sea and disembodied hands wailing below her, the men declare that "everybody's afraid of the Dark!"

Part 2
The Dark try to persuade Amy to fall to her death. Amy suddenly conjures up an ice cream, one that she's always loved since she was three years old. The Dark do not believe this can stop them. Amy says that it's not a weapon, "It just makes me feel happy." The Dark suddenly fade away and the original summer setting returns. The dreamers are impressed at this act the man comments that she has the world "wrapped around her little finger". The psychedelic man appears to Amy again. He tells her that he was a band member and found a place he could go in his mind, which is where they are now. It is called Psychspace, and he had to keep coming back for more and stay longer and longer until in the end he became trapped in it.

Characters

 * Eleventh Doctor
 * Amy Pond
 * Sharon
 * John Lennon
 * Yoko Ono
 * Painter
 * Mathematician
 * Psychic squid

Story notes

 * Although he goes unnamed, the band member is intended to be John Lennon from the Beatles. There are many hints. The most obvious is his appearance. He is near-identical to the real John Lennon. He displays affection of a "hippie" nature, as Lennon did. A woman with the likeness of Lennon's partner Yoko is shown to be with this "band member". Finally the "band member" uses the phrase "Ticket to Ride", a reference to a song which the Beatles were seen performing in The Chase episode 1, "The Executioners".
 * There are other references to the Beatles. The Octopus Ride clearly hints at the song "Octopus's Garden", and so all those captured by the psychic squid could be seen as in the song. Taking this song into account, the Dark could be regarded as "the shade" in which the Beatles sing about sitting in. Other references include the marching band, a reference to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", the fact that the Dark have "Kaleidoscope Eyes" as sung about Lucy in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", the appearance of what appears to be a statue of Mary, the Mother of Jesus as "Mother Mary" in the song "Let it Be", and the appearance of the sun and resultant destruction of the Dark when Amy eats her ice cream could easily be a reference to "Here Comes the Sun".

Continuity

 * Amy dreams she is a child in the 1960s. Sharon, her aunt, is with her. (TV: The Big Bang)
 * Amy remembers buying her model of the TARDIS, which was seen in TV: The Eleventh Hour.