The God Complex (TV story)

 was the eleventh episode in the sixth series of Doctor Who. It marked the departure of Amy Pond and Rory Williams as regular companions after the Doctor decided it was best if they stopped travelling and remained safe.

Synopsis
The Doctor, Amy and Rory investigate a hotel of horror where repeat business is low but the body count is high, where a mighty monster stalks the corridors and the rooms hold visions of angels, apes and creepy clowns. Who - or what - has brought them to this place? Can the Doctor solve the mystery before the residents check out in grisly style?

Plot
Lucy Hayward roams the corridors of what seems to be a 1980s Earth hotel. She is writing of a monster which made all of her former companions 'praise him' after they had found their rooms. She opens one door and finds a sad clown with a balloon; in another room she sees a scary image of an old photographer taking a picture; she opens another door and finds a giant gorilla which makes her scream. Somewhere in the hotel, an eye opens. Lucy starts to praise him and the creature kills her.

The TARDIS is drawn to the same hotel. The Doctor, Amy and Rory begin to investigate. The Doctor recognises it as an alien structure and finds the imitation fascinating. Rory shows him a picture of a Sontaran on the wall and others of a Judoon Captain, a member of the Catkind and Lucy Hayward. Every picture has a tagline beneath it. Lucy's is "that brutal gorillia". They ring the front desk bell and are threatened by two humans from Earth, Rita and Howie, and Gibbis, a cowardly, mole-like alien from Tivoli. The Doctor takes a liking to Rita, noting how clever she is and jokes with Amy that he's firing her as his companion.

Rita explains that each room contains 'a bad dream'. When the Doctor tries to take them to the TARDIS, it is gone. The three people mentions that there is someone else, Joe, whom they tied up because he was acting unstable. They take the Doctor to Joe's room which is full of ventriloquist's dummies. Joe tells him that everyone here has a room, even the Doctor. Joe bursts into crazy laughter.

The group ties Joe up in a chair to carry on a cart while they search for the missing TARDIS or an exit. Howie finds his room. It holds five attractive girls his age who mock him for being nerdy and stuttering. The Doctor pulls him out and they look for elsewhere to hide as a roaring beast nears. Rory finds a door that says "FIRE EXIT" but no one else notices it. Rita and a captive Joe enter a room containing Rita's father, a doctor who berates her on her grades. Amy, Howie, and Gibbis enter a room with two Weeping Angels. Gibbis panics and hides in a closet. The Doctor arrives and tells Amy to face her fear; the angels aren't real.

Joe frees himself and runs off. The creature, an alien Minotaur, senses Joe's presence and kills him. Meanwhile, seeing Gibbis' reaction to the Angels, Amy realises that it wasn't her room, but his. The Angels were the only creatures to invade Tivoli to kill rather than conquer the inhabitants as many others had. Gibbis unnerves Amy by telling her that her room was still out there.

After giving Joe a funeral, Howie begins to "praise him" and the creature starts to track him. Gibbis suggests they give Howie to the creature. Howie's possession by the creature grows ever stronger. The Doctor devises a plan to confront the Minotaur using a speaker broadcasting Howie's voice to trap the beast in a room. All goes to plan and the Doctor talks to the Minotaur. The hotel has been a prison for the Minotaur for a long time. The creature wishes for an end but the prison keeps it alive. It doesn't want to kill; it is running on instinct alone.

Terrified of the Minotaur, Gibbis lets Howie go. The Minotaur escapes and kill him. Amy finds her room; Rita pulls her away before she can go in. Later Rita and the Doctor bond privately. He offers to take her through time and space once they escape; however, she has been hiding her own devotions to the Minotaur and separates herself from the survivors to avoid putting them in danger. The Doctor watches her from the surveillance camera room. She apologizes on the phone to the Doctor, happy that she is saving everyone else. The Doctor is full of rage after Rita dies, knocking over objects and screaming. He realises that only after people fall back on their faiths when confronted by fear are they killed by the Minotaur.

Joe was a gambler, who believed in luck; Rita was Muslim; Gibbis believes that his planet is going to be invaded again and Howie was a conspiracy theorist who believed the CIA controls everything. By breaking their faiths, it converted it into a form it can consume. Rory has remained unaffected because he has no strong faith in anything. That is why the ship has been showing him exits from the hotel that the others cannot see. Amy suddenly begins praising the Minotaur. The Doctor admits that Amy has a strong faith in him. The creature detects Amy and chases after her.

The four of them run to Amy's room, revealing seven year old Amelia Pond sitting on her suitcase, staring at the stars, waiting for the Doctor. The Doctor defeats the Minotaur by breaking Amy's faith in himself, her deepest belief. He admits his faults to Amy, how most who come with him die or get hurt. He is not a hero, but a mad man in a box and it is time they see each other for who they are. He is a fallible being, and she is Amy Williams. With Amy's faith in him broken, the Doctor watches as the Minotaut begins to die, causing the hotel to reveal itself as a massive holographic ship.

Hacking the ship, the Doctor determines that the Minotaur is of a species related to the Nimon. The Minotaur's kind need people to worship them to survive. Long ago it posed as a god to a race that advanced to the point where they realised what the Minotaur really was. They imprisoned it in an automated ship which fed it by scooping up people through time and space with strong faiths, keeping it alive against its will.

As it lies dying, the Minotaur tells the Doctor, "An ancient creature drenched in the blood of the innocent, drifting in space through an endless shifting maze. For such a creature, death would be a gift." After the Doctor consoles the Minotaur, it says with its dying breath, "I wasn't talking about myself."

The Doctor uses the TARDIS to drop off Gibbis and take Rory and Amy back to Earth, giving them a house and Rory's dream car as a goodbye present. While Rory is inside getting champagne, the Doctor explains that he can't keep putting them in danger. Accepting the Doctor's decision, Amy tells him to tell River to visit them the next time he sees her. Rory comes out and asks where he is going. Amy tells him that the Doctor is saving them.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
 * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
 * Amelia Pond - Caitlin Blackwood
 * Lucy Hayward - Sarah Quintrell
 * Rita - Amara Karan
 * Howie Spragg - Dimitri Leonidas
 * Joe Buchanan - Daniel Pirrie
 * Gibbis - David Walliams
 * PE teacher - Dafydd Emyr
 * The Creature - Spencer Wilding
 * Rita's Father - Rashid Karapiet
 * Gorilla - Roger Ennals

Cultural references from the real world

 * Joe sings "Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head". This is from the centuries-old nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons.
 * One of the girls from Howie's room mentions the Klingons.
 * The 1980s hotel setting is similar to the one in The Shining
 * A shapeshifting prison plucking individuals out of their lives is a similar premise to that of Cube.
 * The Doctor runs back and forth through the shifting hallways and doors of the hotel, reminiscent of the chase scenes in Friz Freleng and Scooby-Doo cartoons.

Foods and beverages

 * The Doctor now appears to enjoy apples. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)

Individuals

 * Amy's room number was 7, a reference to her age when she first met the Doctor.
 * The Doctor's room number was 11, a reference to the fact that Matt Smith is the Eleventh Doctor and that this story is the eleventh of the 2011 series. A similar "11' reference occurred in the eleventh episode of series 5. (DW: The Lodger)
 * The Doctor says he has doctorates in both medicine and in cheese-making.

Species

 * The Minotaur is a distant cousin of the Nimon.
 * A Sontaran, a Silurian, a Tritovore, a Hoix, a Catkind and a Judoon appear in photographs.
 * One of the photos show Lady Silver-Tear's fear was Daleks.
 * The Weeping Angels are Gibbis' biggest fear, and Amy mentions having encountered them.

Story notes

 * At the time of the script read-through, Lucy Hayward's name was "Lucy Miller". (CON: Heartbreak Hotel) It was ostensibly changed so as to avoid conflict with Lucie Miller, the long-term audio companion of the Eighth Doctor.
 * Rita becomes the latest in a line of characters who are invited to become companions by the Doctor, only to die soon after.
 * David Walliams previously played Quincy Flowers and Ned Cotton in BFA: Phantasmagoria.
 * The Doctor fears that he will either get Rory and Amy killed or have to watch them die. These themes were also touched on in The Vampires of Venice and School Reunion respectively. Both episodes were also written by Toby Whithouse.

Ratings

 * UK Overnight: 5.2 Million
 * UK Final: 6.77 Million

Myths

 * The room with young Amelia is the room containing the Doctor's fear. False. This myth originates from numerous reviews and interpretations of the episode, however the door clearly is not #11, nor is the Do Not Disturb sign visible on the door handle.

Filming locations

 * Seabank Hotel, Porthcawl (Lobby, Bar, Stairwell)


 * Upper Boat Studios (Corridors, Rooms)

Production errors

 * As the group climbs the stairs (all six of them), the edge of the TARDIS was visible. (To see this, look to the mid-right of the screen in this shot. The TARDIS' bottom can just be seen) (11:15)
 * When the Doctor and the gang enter the room containing the ventriloquist dummies, a boom mic is visible in the reflection of the mirror behind the bar (07:16).
 * The Doctor claims that the windows have brick walls on the other side, but many have the reflection of the sun on them.
 * When the minotaur bursts into Amelia's room, Rory literally disappears. He's seen riding the door as it flies back, and then vanishes. Assuming he is knocked unconscious, he would have to be physically attached to the door in some way to not push it closed as he falls to the floor.
 * Lucy Hayward opens the door to Room 214, then Room 215, then Room 214 again.

Continuity

 * The distinct sound of the Cloister Bell can be heard in the Doctor's room.
 * This is not the first time the Doctor has deliberately caused one of his companions to lose faith in him in order to save them. The Doctor emotionally devastated Ace by labelling her, among other things, an "emotional cripple" during his battle with Fenric. This was necessary in order for her to briefly abandon her belief in him, allowing The Ancient One to defeat Fenric DW: The Curse of Fenric.
 * A Rubik's cube is seen again. The Doctor threw one away in DW: Night Terrors when talking to George.
 * Amy has previously encountered the Weeping Angels. (DW: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, NSA: Touched by an Angel)
 * The Minotaur's final words were a prophetic statement delivered both to and about a long-lived traveller, similar to the last words of the Face of Boe. (DW: Gridlock) It also foreshadowed the Doctor's death. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
 * In BFA: The Holy Terror, the Sixth Doctor similarly visited a world designed to imprison an individual, namely Eugene Tacitus.
 * The Doctor had previously been made to view images of that which he most feared due to the Master's Keller Machine. (DW: The Mind of Evil) In that case he saw images of many of his enemies, as well as a world consumed by fire, based on his having recently witnessed such. (DW: Inferno)
 * The Doctor says the minotaur is beautiful when he first sees it. The Tenth Doctor previously made this comment about the Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform and a Clockwork Droid. (DW: Tooth and Claw, The Girl in the Fireplace) Amy says the exact same thing later when the minotaur begins to take over her mind.
 * The Doctor previously encountered a fictional Minotaur (DW: The Mind Robber), as well as the real historical figure, which was a transformed human. (DW:The Time Monster)
 * The Doctor said to Amy at the end of DW: The Eleventh Hour that he was definitely a "mad man with a box" and that understanding this could save her life. Here, he uses those exact words to save her from the minotaur.
 * This is not the first time that the Doctor has offered companionship to a medical student who has impressed him by being level-headed and clever in a crisis. (DW: Smith and Jones)
 * One of the rooms contains what appears to be a cross Physical Education teacher. Rory mentions having had a sadistic PE teacher. (DW: The Doctor's Wife)

Timeline

 * This story occurs after: DW: The Girl Who Waited
 * This story occurs before the various misadventures noted in The Impossible Astronaut

Home video releases
The episode will be released on DVD and Blu-ray shortly after the airing of episode 13.