DOCTOR WHO: "Amy's Choice" (5x07)

[rj_anderson]

A deceptively simple, character-driven episode that at times strains credulity to the limit -- but there's a very good reason for that, as we find out at the end.

And I loved it LIKE PIE.

Comments

[penmage]

My trouble with Amy (and I know you don't want to hear why I dislike Amy, just hear me out) is less a problem with Amy herself and more a pacing problem. I loved her in the first two episodes, but after that, it seemed like the writers were just granting her a relationship with the Doctor that hadn't had time yet to properly develop.

The way she seemed to assume things about the Doctor, know things about the Doctor--with the other companions, by the time they started to make those assumptions, they were earned with time and experience. With Amy, they just seemed to come so quickly, and so cheaply.

I like Amy a lot more in both this episode and the previous one than I did in the Daleks and Angels episode, but I don't think that's the fault of her character as much as it is pacing.

I think she's an absolutely fascinating and strong character, and a really compelling companion to watch--I just want the writing and pacing to give her time to develop her relationship with the Doctor naturally instead of pasting it on.

Does that make sense?

[rj_anderson]

Yes, it absolutely makes sense -- you're right that Amy's jumped way ahead in her understanding of the Doctor from what we would normally expect at this point. But I'm starting to think there may be more to it than that. What looks like carelessness on the surface may be a deliberate choice on the writers' part -- an implication that Amy's had encounters and conversations with the Doctor in the past that we don't know about yet.

How did Amy already know so much about the Doctor in "The Beast Below", for instance, that she could compare him to the Star Whale? It might just have been lazy writing to attribute to Amy a depth of knowledge that she shouldn't have possessed at that point -- that the Doctor, like the Whale, was "very very old and the last of [his] kind." But it might also have been a broad hint that something unusual is going on in their relationship.

I think, for instance, that future!Eleven's comment to Amy in "Flesh and Stone" -- "Remember what I told you when you were seven," -- may imply that there was at least one very deep and meaningful conversation between them that we haven't been shown yet. I think there's a very good chance that at some point in his future (but prior to the end of this season), Eleven went back in time to visit little Amelia, told her all about himself and urged her not to forget him or stop believing in him no matter what anyone said. That would make sense of the otherwise odd shot at the end of "Eleventh Hour" where we see little Amelia look up suddenly and excitedly at the sound of the TARDIS, and then we jump to Amy waking up to the same sound -- it could be interpreted as though Amy has just been dreaming about her childhood self seeing the Doctor again, but I'm thinking it might have been a memory and not a dream at all.

And then there's that missing time Amy spends in the booth during "The Beast Below" -- could the future!Doctor have popped in to see her then?

So yes, I do think your complaint about Amy knowing too much about the Doctor without seemingly having "earned" it makes sense if it's just lazy writing, but I'm not sure that it is. I think I'm going to wait until the end of the season and see how this plays out.