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Doctor Who: Amy’s Choice
(1 episode, s05e07, 2010)

Timestamp 215 Amy's Choice

Life is but a dream.

In quiet Upper Leadworth, a very pregnant Amy is mixing up a cake in the kitchen when she has a false labor alarm. Rory finds her eating the batter when the Doctor arrives. It’s been five years since they last saw each other and the Doctor is surprised to see Amy with child.

They take a tour of the quiet village, but when they stop to rest on a bench, a bird’s song puts them to sleep.

They awaken in the TARDIS, back to their normal selves, but all having shared the same dream. The console is also wonky. Another bout of birdsong forces all of them back to the bench. They all question what’s going on and the Doctor tells them to trust nothing. This is going to be a tricky one.

The trio awakens in the TARDIS and the Doctor gets cross with the console. Amy asks about the TARDIS manual, but the Doctor has long since ejected it into a supernova because he disagreed with it. The team discusses the situation until the TARDIS stops moving and goes dark.

Then they’re back in Leadworth. The Doctor rules out virtual reality, but focuses on Rory’s newfound medical degree before deciding to visit the local retirement home. He notices something suspicious about the residents, including Mrs. Poggit, before the birds send them all back to the TARDIS.

Once there, they meet a mysterious, noncorporeal man named the Dream Lord. He is testing them, revealing that there are two worlds. One is real, one is fake, and each holds a deadly danger. They must figure out which is real.

The birds send them back to Leadworth where the Dream Lord poses as a doctor. He poses a challenge: “If you die in a dream, you wake up in reality, healthy recovery in next to no time; ask me what happens if you die in reality.” The Dream Lord disappears, as have the senior citizens, leaving the travelers to explore the village for clues.

When the Doctor mocks the pastoral village, Amy fakes labor pains to scare him. She reminds him that he should never make fun of her world. They spot Mrs. Poggit, but as the Doctor starts to observe her, the birds sing again.

The TARDIS is getting colder. Amy and Rory go in search of blankets while the Doctor pokes at the console. Amy and Rory have another tense conversation about their pending nuptuals before returning to the Doctor and helping with the console. The scanner activates to reveal their pending danger: A cold star approximately forty minutes away. The Doctor is at a loss for an explanation and Rory is upset about the Time Lord being the hero, but the Dream Lord’s taunting and the sound of birds sends them back to Leadworth.

The pastoral scene is broken by piles of dust where children used to play. The Doctor believes that they were disintegrated by Mrs. Poggit, and after a quick discussion with the Dream Lord — there’s only one person who hates the Doctor as much as the Dream Lord does — they encounter a herd of alien-infested senior citizens. The aliens are the Eknodines, aliens who lost their homeworld and now want to take over Earth by eliminating humanity.

Amy and Rory run while the Doctor tries to reason with the Eknodines. The Dream Lord tries to send the Doctor back to the TARDIS, which would leave him completely helpless. The Doctor locks himself in a butcher’s freezer before the trio drifts off.

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor and Rory disagree over which world is real. While Amy fashions blanket ponchos for everyone, the Dream Lord arrives and takes Rory and the Doctor back to Leadworth. Rory hauls a comatose Amy upstairs to defend her against the horde while the Doctor escapes the freezer and hijacks a bus to save the villagers.

The Dream Lord taunts Amy, asking which man she would choose, reminding her that the Doctor doesn’t completely trust her. After all, she doesn’t even know his name. The Dream Lord travels to Leadworth and taunts the Doctor, telling him that it’s time to make a decision. The Doctor arrives at Amy and Rory’s house just as Amy returns to this reality. He climbs to the second floor through the window, but Rory is soon hit with the Eknodine gas and turned to dust.

Distraught that the Doctor cannot save Rory, Amy declares that Leadworth is the dream because she Rory’s not here. She storms outside, begging for the Eknodine to kill her, but they won’t because they know what she’s trying to do. She takes the van’s keys from the Doctor and rams them both into the house.

All three of them awaken in the TARDIS, covered in frost. The Dream Lord congratulates them on their victory by restoring power to the TARDIS and steering them away from the cold star. He then vanishes, but the Doctor is unconvinced. He decides to blow up the TARDIS, calling the Dream Lord’s bluff because the Doctor knows who he is.

In a bright flash of light, everyone wakes up on the TARDIS. The Doctor presents a speck of psychic pollen from the candle meadows of Karass don Slava, which apparently induced the dream state by warming up in the time rotor and feeding on the Doctor’s darker instincts. The Dream Lord was a manifestation of that energy.

The Doctor works on a new course while Amy tells Rory that she didn’t know which reality was the dream. All she knew was that she couldn’t live without him. As they share a passionate kiss, the Doctor leaves their destination as Amy’s choice.

When the Doctor looks at his reflection, he sees the Dream Lord staring back. When he checks again, the reflection is gone.


This is a wacky story that plays around with the Doctor’s darker instincts. This time, instead of the Doctor having to confront and overcome this darkness in himself, he has to face an external foe. Which, we saw before in The Trial of a Time Lord with the Valeyard.

What this story has working for it is the spark that I wanted to see between Amy and Rory. I believed their love in this episode, which is a big step up over the last few adventures.

What this story lacks is a way for the viewer to figure out the mystery. The ground rules are easy: Two scenarios, one of which is real. But the hidden twist is a piece of information that only the Doctor has, making him critical to the story rather than a companion on the adventure. These stories are certainly much more fun when the audience can play along at home.

We also get a repeated theme from the last adventure with orphaned aliens looking for a new home.

Rating: 3/5 – “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.”


UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Hungry Earth and Doctor Who: Cold Blood

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The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

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