Amy's Choice
Amy's Choice is the first episode of the Moffat series that actually feels like the 45-minute format is right for it. It takes place on a scale that's actually manageable, with nobody under threat except for the regulars (who, it turns out, were themselves never under threat at all). Previously I've criticised episodes like Victory Of The Daleks and The Vampires Of Venice for their rigid adherence to the three-act structure, a dramatic form invented for a completely different medium with a completely different running time and which strains badly when compressed into three-quarters of an hour; I was surprised then to notice the same in this episode. Firstly, the mystery of the dream world is established; secondly, the threats in both worlds reveal themselves, raising the stakes; lastly, Amy is separated from the Doctor and Rory, forcing her to make her choice. The key difference is that Amy's Choice doesn't present a world-destroying threat, which appears in five minutes and is defeated in about two.
The episode indirectly furthers the arc by placing Amy at the centre of the premise, and of the resolution. This character focus led to a couple of touching moments, such as Rory wistfully tapping the mobile of his baby during a brief lull in the attack. It's moments like that that make me wonder why I've seen people complaining about the lack of emotion in series five as opposed to the RTD era; to me it's more emotive as Moffat has trimmed off the phony, overdriven emotional manipulation, leaving behind only the bits that actually mean something. This is what makes Amy's decision more than just a coin-toss between what's real and what isn't - the choice is not which world is real, but whether it's worth living in. The idea that the audience identification figure could seize the day by committing suicide is actually quite shocking, although it's worth noting that the Doctor was prepared to die (one life, at least) alongside Amy just as she was for Rory. The sight of the Dream Lord leering at them as they set off just makes it darker still; the overall effect is like one of the magic realist McCoy stories, where the moments of oddball silliness just give the drama a more macabre edge. While I liked the Dream Lord however, I thought the snarling ridicule of the Doctor's faux-cool costume and supposedly forced eccentricity were a little too knowing, not to mention directed at the wrong incarnation of the character (*cough*Tennant*cough*).
If there's a conceptual problem with the episode, it's that there's never any doubt that the Ledworth world is fake. While this is mitigated partially by the twist ending in which it's revealed that actually both worlds are dreams, Nye is a little careless in giving the game away at times. It's implied, for example, that children have been killed, which is the sort of thing that simply will not happen under Moffat's watch; also, there's no real way that Amy's pregnancy and motherhood could be incorporated into future episodes in the series. Dramatic irony, or simple awareness of the conventions of the show, is something that heavily undermines the ability of Amy's Choice to sustain its mystery, which is the reason it isn't the diamond-in-the-rough that it occasionally threatens to be. The twist that the second world is also fake is welcome then, but not the save the episode needs considering that the Ledworth world has already been confirmed as fake at this stage, confirming what's already known. A better ending would be to have the frozen-sun world revealed as the phony one first, thereby defying expectations in a genuinely shocking way before revealing what would amount to a double-twist. Only the fact that the episode centres around the world Amy wants to live in, as opposed to the one she does, allows it to retain a sense that anything's really at stake.
Overall, I thought Amy's Choice was a worthwhile and largely successful experiment, held back from true greatness by the transparency of the central mystery.
****