Amy’s Choice is the seventh episode in the fifth season of Doctor Who. It follows the eleventh doctor, Amy and Rory as they constantly switch between 2 ‘realities’ trying to figure out which one is real and which one is a dream.
The first reality takes place in 2015. Amy and Rory are married and expecting their first child. The doctor accidentally stumbles upon them and they have a reunion. As they are sitting on the bench talking, they start to hear birdsong. The three of them drift to sleep and find themselves in the TARDIS. They realise that they all had the same dream and try to figure it out. As they are doing so, the birdsong starts again and they drift to sleep. They wake up and they are back on the bench in 2015. The Doctor tells them to not believe anything they hear, see or feel. As they start walking, the doctor remembers that Amy told him that the elderly live way into their 90s; thinking this is weird he decides to go look into it more. The 3 go into the retirement home and the doctor starts to feel very suspicious. As he starts to talk to the elders, the birdsong starts again and the 3 fall asleep. They again wake up in the TARDIS. The doctor tries to figure everything out but as he is doing this, the power cuts. A man going as the dream lord appears and tells them that one of the realities is a dream and one is real life. He explains that both of these realities contains a deadly danger; if they die in the dream then they’ll wake up in the real world however, if they die in the real world they will actually die. They again drift off to sleep and wake up in Leadworth. The elders are gone so they decide to look for them. They find one of the elders walking towards the children. As they are walking towards her, they drift to sleep and wake up back in the TARDIS. After some investigating, they realise they only have 40 minutes till they freeze to death. The Dream Lord reappears and puts them back to sleep.
In Leadworth, all the children have gone missing and as they start to investigate, they see an army of elderly people walking towards them. They try to get them to speak to them but they open their mouths to reveal eyeballs in them.
The seniors reveal that they are possessed by Eknodines. The Eknodines try to kill the trio but they manage to runaway; Amy and Rory to their house and The Doctor to the butchers. As the Eknodines are closing in on them, birdsong starts and they find themselves back in the TARDIS which has gotten colder. The dream lord decides to keep amy in the TARDIS and sends the doctor and Rory to the other reality. He tells amy she has to make a choice. In Leadworth, Rory drags Amy’s body to their childs bedroom and The Doctor escapes the butchers and climbs through the window of Rory and Amy’s house. Amy decides to return to leadworth. As the three try to fend of the attacks, Rory is hit with a deadly gas. He falls to the ground and disintergrates. Amy decides that she must die in this reality. Her and the doctor get into the van and crash into the house killing themselves. They wake up back in the TARDIS. The dream lord congratulates them and turns the power back on. The doctor still has his suspicions and decides to blow up the TARDIS. He explains that the dream lord would have no power in the real world and that both of the realities were actually dreams. The TARDIS blows up and the trio wake up in the TARDIS again. Turns out a couple crystals of psychic pollen had fallen into the time rotor and heated up creating a dream state.
The doctor reveals that the dream lord was a manifestation of his dark side.
I’ve never watched doctor who before so it was really interesting to give it a shot. The entire episode was really cool; I really liked the shift between the different realities. The ending revealing that the doctor himself was the dream lord made it even better for me. The fact that the dreams were based on the doctors dark side intrigues me and I would like to explore the concept of nightmares being the manifestation of the dark human psyche in the future.
Ayanfe III 