Posted by Janie Logan Jun 6, 2010, 17:38 GMT
Toby Jones guest-stars as the Dream Lord in "Amy's Choice," forcing the Doctor, Amy, and Rory to decide the difference between dreams and reality. Photo courtesy of BBC.
And with that, Amy Pond finally established herself as a Companion of the Doctor. Before now she has just been a companion with a little "c." Since she started traveling with him, she has proven herself to be intelligent (as with the Star Whale in "The Beast Below") and brave (as with the Weeping Angels in "Flesh and Stone").
Only when we saw her make the hard choice in what seemed like a no-win scenario did Amy truly assume this time-honored role of the Doctor's Companion. Thinking back on the first big moments for previous Companions--Rose in "Dalek," Martha in "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood," and Donna in "The Fires of Pompeii"--Amy's was special because of her revelation about Rory.
She loves traveling with the Doctor. He has shown her wonderful and exciting things that she could only dream about since the strange man in the box fell out of the sky when she was a child. Amy went off with him in the TARDIS on the night before her wedding day because she wanted adventure. She knew he was a time-traveler, but I don't think she was sure he could get her back in time for her wedding. And I don't think she cared at that point. She sure wasn't caring very much when she jumped the Doctor's bones for a little fun.
When Rory came along with them in "The Vampires of Venice," I got the sense that Amy thought he was in the way. I saw that he was a nice guy, but I kept wondering what she saw in him. Maybe she just got bored waiting for the Doctor to come and take her away so she figured she might as well get married.
In "Amy's Choice," two scenarios are presented by a small impish man who called himself "The Dream Lord" (guest-star Toby Jones). The Doctor, Amy, and Rory kept falling asleep and waking up in a different place and time. The Dream Lord told them that one of those worlds was a dream and the other was reality--die in the dream, you wake up, but die in reality and you're dead.
There was the world in which the TARDIS had broken down and was heading for an ice planet that would cause them all to freeze to death. In the other, the Doctor was visiting Rory and a very pregnant Amy 5 years in the future. They lived in a quaint English town where there wasn't much to do but sit on benches and listen to the birds.
The Dream Lord came to Amy and informed her that this "experiment" was all about her. She had to be the one to decide which was the dream: "Which one of these men would you really choose? Look at them. You ran away with a handsome hero. Would you really give him up for a bumbling country doctor who thinks the only thing he needs to be interesting is a ponytail?"
The dull village world didn't turn out to be so dull when we learned that monsters were possessing the bodies of old people. While running away from them, Rory was struck down by one of them and died. Amy wanted the Doctor to fix it, but he just kept saying he was sorry. He didn't know what to do. "Then what is the point of you?"
Amy made up her mind right then. This was the dream. And if it was real and they died, then she didn't care because she didn't want a world without Rory. She and the Doctor crashed a van into a wall so that they would wake up in the frozen TARDIS. The Dream Lord congratulated them for choosing the right reality and said, "I hope you've enjoyed your fictions. They came from your imagination. I'll leave you to ponder that."
The Doctor realized what was actually going on. They were both dreams. He blew up the TARDIS, and then they all woke up right back like things used to be. He found some crystals lodged in the heart of the TARDIS that had induced their dream state. Rory still wanted to know who the Dream Lord was.
"The Dream Lord was me. Psychic pollen--it's my parasite. It feeds on everything dark, gives it a voice, turns it against you. I'm nine-hundred-and-seven. It had a lot to go on," the Doctor explained ashamedly. Amy asked why it didn't also feed on her and Rory. "The darkness in you pair would've starved to death in an instant. I choose my friends with great care."
He chose well with Amy, and Amy chose well with Rory. She can look beyond the glamour of a life with the Doctor, which is more than even Donna could do. Rose and Martha were both hopelessly in love with him. Donna was just a great friend, but she still wanted to travel with him forever. She would have, too, if the whole metacrisis thing hadn't happened, forcing the Doctor to wipe her mind of all trace of him.
Amy sees the true worth of a man like Rory--simple, yes, but also noble in his own way. He has a huge heart, and she is lucky to be loved by him. As a Companion, she fits well with this manic, vibrant 11th reincarnation of the Doctor. But it is good, too, that she remembers there is also adventure in regular human life, through relationships and emotions that the Doctor can never quite feel or know.
