In the eleventh episode of the sixth series of Doctor Who, the Doctor and his companions are dropped into a hotel with twisting corridors and an impossible layout. In each room, however, is something designed to frighten one specific person, which summons…oh, just read the review, because it’s time for Mark to watch Doctor Who.
I’ve seen the comparisons made quite a few times around the web since Saturday night, and I’ll echo them here, since it deserves repeating. “The God Complex,” while ultimately different, felt like a long love letter to both The Shining and House of Leaves. I’m sure that the latter is merely what I read into it, and I’m okay with that. But the setting of this episode evoked both a sense of physical horror and wonder that both of those titles created so wonderfully. I think that series six has had some of the most gorgeous cinematography in Doctor Who history. Here, we see how the repetitive nature of the impossible geography of that hotel leaves us feeling disoriented, claustrophobic, and out of our own element. I’m sure the crew only used two or three actual sets to gives the immense size of the hotel, and that’s a feat in and of itself. It contributes to just how creepy this is, and it’s a visual reference to those same long shots of hallways that evoke images from The Shining or techniques of Hitchcock.
But House of Leaves really is the quintessential example of a building defying any sort of logic and acting as a living entity, and nothing is more terrifying to me out of everything here than the fact that the hotel in “The God Complex” could shift, so much so that something that should be right behind you is no longer there. Oh god, I can’t spoil any of you who haven’t read it, but seriously…okay, I’ll make a thread in the comments below because I just have ~so many feelings~ about how “The God Complex” and House of Leaves are basically best friends on the astral plane, and all of us who have read it can just hug one another about one of the best books ever written.
Yet this episode also brought up something else in me: more so than any episode of Moffat’s/Eleven’s run, this made me think of the older Doctors. I think we’ve all noticed how Doctor Who has changed tonally since Moffat started running the show. But all throughout this episode, I felt this story could have involved any iteration of the Doctor, except maybe the first one. That being said, Eleven needed to see this to realize what his relationship with his companions had truly come to.
I think most of the fandom has come to realize that things are…well, they’ve been a bit fucked up for the Ponds. Obviously, that’s because these episodes were written this way, but in terms of the internal logic, Eleven is a version of the Doctor who has, in his own words, been running for quite some time. After the events at the end of Ten’s run, he turned into a man who refused to face his guilt and took companions on to temper those feelings. Amy (and then Rory, but mostly Amy) was an escape for him. But in the process, he ingrained himself in the psyche of young Amelia pond, who became the Girl Who Waited. Twice. What has he done to Amy?
The best part about “The God Complex” (and, actually, one of the only minor flaws I found in the episode) was the fact that this whole episode seemed to be just a single monster-of-the-week episode. In fact, the ending would not have made sense at all if we hadn’t taken a thirty-minute journey through that alien hotel in order to arrive at the conclusion the Doctor does. (And to be fair, that does make the climax seem a bit rushed, but this episode needed to spend time and space with the people in that hotel to have the emotional weight that it does.)
“The God Complex” seems straightforward enough: the alien hotel has rooms containing the fears of the people that are captured and brought there. The references to being “seasoned” or “ready” for the minotaur seemed obvious, too. Perhaps the minotaur would only consume those who had been “seasoned” by fear, which is why rooms existed specifically only for one person. But then it became clear that the entire “Praise Him!” motif and repetition made absolutely no sense once you thought about it. Why would the characters suddenly lapse into saying that, and then believing that the minotaur was someone to praise?
“The God Complex” does a fantastic job of taking what seems obvious and then twisting it around. The surreal nature of the entire thing helps, but as soon as the Doctor begins to peel away the layers of the mystery, we find that our preconceived notions about this place and the minotaur itself are incredibly wrong. We were led to believe that the minotaur was an evil, horrific creature, but like “The Beast Below” in series five, appearances can be lies. The minotaur was suffering, aching for its death, operating almost entirely out of instinct.
And even the hotel itself wasn’t quite what it seemed, and you could feel the horror when the Doctor realizes that he has inadvertently sent two people to their death by telling them to cling to anything that might get them through this. The minotaur actually fed on the energy generated by having faith in something or someone, and the rooms, mere illusions, were attempts to turn a person towards their system of faith, thereby making them victims of the minotaur. It’s a fascinating concept by itself, but I’d missed all the parallels before this. This was specifically about Eleven and his relationship with Amy, because Amy had grown to depend on him. It’s now more present and ever: the Doctor knows he is facing his last days. The secret that was supposed to be kept from him is a secret no more. I do think the parallel between the minotaur and the Doctor was a bit blatant, but I’m ultimately fine with that. As I have said a quarter of a million times, I love character parallels, and I think that the execution was necessary and rather brilliant. The Doctor, an ancient creature to whom death would be a gift. It almost fits too perfectly, doesn’t it?
The episode did give us a great cast of side characters, and you have no idea how badly I wish Rita could have been a companion beyond this episode. Hell, I thought for a while that we were leading towards this happening anyway, but no. No, Doctor Who just teases me with awesome and then takes it away from me. God, they even got hers and Howie’s fears FRIGHTENINGLY CORRECT. I had a parent who would yell at me for not getting A’s on EVERYTHING. My mother was Rita’s father! THIS IS AN EERIE THING TO SEE ON TELEVISION. Also, I was liveblogging the episode while watching it and suddenly realized the irony in doing so. WHAT IF THE MINOTAUR SENT ME TO THE HOTEL. oh god.
But really, two episodes in a row, Doctor Who. You’ve made me tear up twice in a row. I was shocked initially to see the Doctor not only force Amy to stop having faith in him, but to drop her and Rory off at their house. He was forcing two companions off the TARDIS, having come to terms with the fact that his arrogant behavior had put them in danger enough times already. Amy’s goodbye is sad enough, but it may be the best end for a companion aside from Martha Jones, who left willingly. I think we’ve needed to see this on Doctor Who for a long time, especially after “The Girl Who Waited,” and I am happy to have this as canon. The Doctor apologizes to Amy for upsetting her life so much, for using her as a method to hide his guilt and fear, and for putting her and Rory at risk so many times. It’s such a mature thing for Eleven to do. He does promise Amy that he’ll see Amy and Rory again, but he doesn’t have much time until his linear death, so are we getting close to the end of Rory and Amy’s time? I’m not sure yet, and the thought makes me sad. I’ve really grown to love having Amy and Rory around and I know it would be hard for me to grown into someone else.
Okay, no more sad thoughts. How about this: what was your favorite line in all of “The God Complex”? Because SWEET MOTHER OF GOD, there was so much fantastic dialogue in this episode. I really love the fast-paced Doctor episodes, and this one was a treat to watch.
I loved the whole thing.. I definitely cried at the end.
The hotel very much reminded me of "House of Leaves" though.
Favorite line: "Okay, this is bad. For the moment I don't know how bad. But it's certainly three buses, a long walk, and a taxi from good."
I'm not much of a crier but I teared up at 'He's saving us'
Favourite quote is ‘I’ve forgotten that not all victories are about saving the universe.’ I love and adore you Rory Pond.
We've seen mirrors before, in other episodes – in Vincent and the Doctor, when the monster was something that represented inner monsters like mental illness. In Vampires of Venice, when Rory threw part of the Doctor's danger to others into his face. In Amy's Choice again, he viewed the Dream Lord through a rearview mirror at one point. And so on and so forth, too many times to list here. They've popped up enough that I feel confident in calling them a significant recurring motif.
That was me, last week, in my Girl Who Waited review; so you can imagine how tickled pink I was by the imagery of The God Complex. I spoke at length (dizzying length!) about the Doctor's tendencies to put the things he fears in metaphorical boxes. This week, in what can only have been perfect planning on the part of the show's writers, an episode aired that complemented everything I said flawlessly; and needless to say, I was utterly delighted. And that may be an understatement.
"There's a room for everyone here, Doctor. Even you."
The hotel they visit is not a hotel at all, but a virtual construct, that holds rooms that contain everyone's worst fears, stored neatly away as if in boxes. There's one for everyone. But instead of being able to shut them away and never see them, the reverse is true: they are drawn to look inside, to confront them. Even the Doctor, who is so fond of pushing things away into metaphorical boxes in the cupboard, cannot resist the pull of whatever lies within room eleven. It's anyone's guess as to what is actually in there, but if I were to speculate… given what we've seen so far, my money is on the Doctor himself being in there. We know he hates himself, and we know how scared he was of his darker side that manifested as the Dream Lord in Amy's Choice. So I think it a plausible theory that he stared at a reflection of himself.
Reflections of the self play a major role in pivotal scenes here, of course. When the Doctor first meets the beast that rules this place, they are not face to face – we see their images in mirrors as they talk. That is our first clue as to what this episode is really about. The second comes in the form of what the monster says to him.
"You have lived so long even your name is lost."
The first of the parallels is drawn here, as the Doctor appears to be looking at it through a wall of water. The Doctor and the monster have both lived a very long time; the monster has forgotten his name; and so too has the Doctor's true name been lost to the sands of time. In The Lodger, he stated that even he doesn't know why he or anyone else calls him the Doctor. It didn't seem an important line at the time, but I'm growing to believe there was more significance there than on first glance, that the issue of the Doctor's real name will become very important soon.
Not for nothing did I mention the water. When Amy finds her room later, after previously believing it to be the one with the Weeping Angels, she is confronted with a mirror too: her younger self, age seven, waiting on her suitcase for the Doctor to come back. An old fear that has never left her: the fear of being abandoned by the Doctor, of waiting and waiting for someone who will never come back for her. Her fears of abandonment have driven her all her life: she remembers being a child and having her parents disappear into the crack, of waiting all night with her little suitcase, eager to go on adventure, only for her magical friend in the blue box to not return for twelve more years, and then make her wait an additional two. Yet, despite this, she has everlasting faith in the Doctor that he will come back, that he will save her, because he's done it so many times.
And that's precisely what lets the monster in, replacing her faith in him with faith in the beast – that is, the physical beast that stalks the halls of this prison. That's why the Doctor must shatter it. Earlier, we saw the minotaur standing on one side of the water and glass, with Eleven on the other side. Eleven's face is how Amy Pond sees the Doctor: the hero. But a monster lurks within him, as we saw so memorably in Amy's Choice, and The Girl Who Waited; it is how he sees himself when he looks in a mirror. So he uses that aspect of himself, releases it and uses it to shatter Amy's faith in him as easily as the monster broke the glass between the two. The outer hero, peeled away to reveal the beast below; it is this which actually ends up saving Amy, for the loss of her faith in the Doctor is the loss of her faith in the monster. In both monsters. The pane of glass separating Amy's view of the Doctor from what he sees as the reality of himself is irreparably broken. And when her illusions of him vanish, so too does the illusion of their surroundings.
The Doctor is told earlier in the episode by Rita that he has a god complex. This is something that holds true for all incarnations of him – he has a driving need to save and help people. How many times have we seen this in action? Too many to count. It's true that he does do a lot of good, and he genuinely does want to save people, and believe that everyone's important, and it's so easy to fall into the trap Amy did, of idealizing him. But this episode calls all of that into question, asks us to see the Doctor the way he really is. It's easy to forget sometimes that he has a darker side, but last week forced us to recall that, painfully. This week further explores those themes, that the Doctor is not a hero or a god, but a deeply flawed man. A playful exterior masks things dark and terrible; kind actions may be done for selfish motives. He mentions that the minotaur is a distant cousin of a race that descends on planets and sets themselves up to be worshipped as gods. It is an echo of what he heard moments earlier, the reason for his taking Amy along, and it makes sense because of everything we've seen over the years with regards to the Doctor and Earth. He has, in a sense, done exactly this with Earth and humanity – he's saved the planet countless times, frequently takes humans with him as travelling companions whom he can impress with the whole of space and time, has even, in the past, regarded himself as some sort of authority over the world. Remember Harriet Jones? Whatever one feels about her actions towards the Sycorax, the Doctor was in no way justified in removing her from power. He is not a citizen of Britain, or even of Earth; he did not vote for her. He had no right to do that, and yet, because of his ego and the way he'd set himself up as someone to be worshipped on Earth because of how often he'd saved it, he didn't feel he was overstepping his bounds in engineering her downfall. Ten's god complex played out over the course of his run, coming to a logical conclusion in Waters of Mars; but Eleven, born soon after that disaster, has learned from that experience. It feeds his intense self-loathing, and here we see him discard that god complex as he too learns the hard way that he can't save everyone. He is violently upset that he couldn't save Rita, but instead of proclaiming that the laws of time answer to him, he relinquishes his glorified false reflection in Amy's eyes and saves her by the act of claiming to be unable to save her. He then leaves her and Rory behind, fully recognizing that he won't always be able to save them, and that after all they've been through, perhaps it is best for them if he says goodbye while they are still alive, before he can harm them further. He is not a god; he looks into the mirror and sees the beast below, and asks Amy and the rest of us to do the same.
What do I see when I look at the Doctor? As I stated last week, I see a man who cannot be neatly described by one simple label. Only his actions am I able to define, as either good or bad. He is not a god, but he is complex. He does good things for both good and bad reasons; likewise, he does terrible things for reasons that are both bad, and sometimes for ones he believes to be good. I see his darker side, but I also see the many wonderful things he's done and said. I can't separate the two, and I don't try to, because they're part of the same person, and that combination, that contrast, are part of what makes me love him as a character. Whatever else you may say about him, he's never boring.
"An ancient creature, drenched in the blood of the innocent. Drifting in space through an endless, shifting maze… to such a creature, death would be a gift."
These words too, are echos, reflections, of something we have heard before: the Doctor's description of the person he thought had to be in the Pandorica. The description that so perfectly fit himself; and as we know, he, the person he fears and hates so much, was locked into that box, the way he locks all his fears and guilt away in boxes. I knew as soon as I heard that first sentence in this episode that the beast wasn't just talking about itself, that these words held true for the Doctor as well. The line about how it wasn't talking about itself only confirmed my suspicions. The Doctor sees now what we see, the link between himself and this dying creature, and it will inform his actions from here on out, play into the conclusion of the story begun at Lake Silencio in The Impossible Astronaut. I'm eager to see how.
We end the episode with the Doctor staring at another reflection of himself, this time in the TARDIS' instruments, and he turns away from it, to look around as he stands alone. We know what he sees in that reflection, and it isn't at all a pretty thing. A little foreknowledge is a dangerous thing, we've been told; and last week he had a line about changing one's own future that seemed to be about more than just Amy. Now we are told that death would be a gift to someone like him, and the Doctor we saw in TIA seemed to go willingly to his own death, not wanting River, Amy, or Rory to interfere. With two episodes remaining, we are left to wonder where his foreknowledge of his own future will take him, and how much of a gift he would regard a final death as. Time will almost certainly be rewritten, but the question is how it will come about.
I can't wait to find out. Everything is coming together, I can see the pieces moving into place like a puzzle; and I have a feeling that the final picture will be so, so rewarding when its done and a blast to go over again. Can it be Saturday already?
Other stuff –
– Amy and Eleven's goodbye just destroys me. Eleven may be trying to put on a brave face and smile, laugh, but you can tell he's actually on the verge of tears at every moment. And Amy's nails being TARDIS blue doesn't help either. 🙁
– Their new door is TARDIS blue too. Hmmm.
– I loved Rita, I wanted her to be a future companion. 🙁 🙁 🙁
– Yes, I hate the "Amy Williams" line. WTF was that all about? Side-eying you, Whithouse. Of course, I was already, but you know. More so.
– The sight of the Doctor alone in the TARDIS at the end: oh my heart. oh my creys. 🙁 🙁 🙁 I just want to reach through the screen and give him a big hug. Look after you, Doctor, someone has to. More than ever, he needs a friend. And despite knowing what I do about him, I'd still want to be that friend.
– Next week: CRAIG RETURNS! 😀 OMG YAY~
– I'll miss you, Amy and Rory. 🙁 🙁 🙁
It was symbolising that she's now a married woman. She has to accept that part of her identity. Even if she chooses not to take Rory's name. She's MORE than Amy Pond now.
Personally, I didn't have a problem with the 'Amy Williams' (at least in the context) since I think, even the older Doctor (that we saw back in TIA) called her and Rory 'the Ponds', but yeah- also with you on side-eying Whithouse. Especially after he wrote the bit in School Reunion where Rose and Sarah Jane were trying to one-up each other on who had seen more with the Doctor.
Yeah, that episode + his comment in an interview earlier this year about how men are terrified of women's sexuality and we're so terrifying means I'll be side-eying him forever. Gross gross gross. 😡
Your analysis of each episode is invariably flawless. This one continues the trend. Bravo! (Or is it brava?)
I love your meta so much. It's always flawless.
Eleven may be trying to put on a brave face and smile, laugh, but you can tell he's actually on the verge of tears at every moment.
He looks like such a sad puppy by the end 🙁
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I love your meta so much. It's always flawless.
Eleven may be trying to put on a brave face and smile, laugh, but you can tell he's actually on the verge of tears at every moment.
He looks like such a sad puppy by the end 🙁
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I love your meta so much. It's always flawless.
Eleven may be trying to put on a brave face and smile, laugh, but you can tell he's actually on the verge of tears at every moment.
He looks like such a sad puppy by the end 🙁
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OH GOD ELEVEN DON'T CRY ;________;
That entire bit had me in the sniffles. Not just because of the Doctor (although asfsf MATT SMITH WHY), but Amy too. That bit where he's standing in the door of the TARDIS and she's over by the car and they're both looking at each other and wibble smiling and laughing in such a way that it's obvious they're both trying desperately not to break into tears for the sake of the other person. Oh my crais.
CAN I HUG HIM?!?!
His face! I remember being so upset that someone so young was going to be the Doctor, but he's got a brilliantly old face.
I side-eyed the "Amy Williams" line too but Karen down below wrote a nice little bit about it that makes sense. I still wish he took her name though. Or why couldn't they keep their own last names?
Wow, I totally missed the Amy Williams line completely. But my neighbors were watching a boxing match at the same time and constantly screaming and I missed a lot of dialogue. 🙁
That 'Amy Williams' line made me do a bit of a double-take, because I'd seen Moffat's view on the subject earlier… http://twitter.com/#!/steven_moffat/statuses/1009…
That is actually a fantastic comment. I love what he said.
Me too. He did accidentally a verb though.
I took the "Amy Williams" bit more as a "you're not a fairy tale character anymore, you're a real grown up person" kind of thing… but seeing what other things Whithouse has said.. ugh. 🙁
The amy williams line I actually really loved because it showed how she’s grown up from the girl who waited for him,to someone who’s completely differant even if she doesn’t realize that. It shows her that in kind of a cliche sense I guess that she’s a woman now and she isn’t dependent on other people now(such as the Doctor.) and while she may have had fun with all the time and space shenaniganry it’s time to pack up the dolls and imaginary friends because they’re is a life out there just as amazing and its time to start living it 🙂
But that's why it's so gross, surely? I mean. Equating a woman's maturity with her marriage, equating maturity with no longer using your own name- it reeks, in fact, of 'keeping her own name was a final childish rebellion but it's OK now! She's acting like a proper adult and doing the right thing and using Williams!'.
Of course it's to show she's grown up. But I don't think it's unreasonable to be annoyed that a woman growing up is seen as a woman being conventionally domestic at last.
I thought the "Amy WIlliams" bit was really supposed to mean that she couldn't be little Amelia Pond any more – that it was time for her to grow up and move on, to leave the Doctor and his fantasy world behind. It'd be pretty irritating in a different context, but I think in the context it wasn't meant to be a gender or sex thing at all.
"He is not a god, but he is complex."
I see what you did there.
Re-watching this season, and in Curse of the Black Spot, which is in other ways a one-off episode, the Siren comes for the crew through reflections.
I enjoy your Doctor Who comments a lot, Arctic Hare.
I thought this episode was pretty much flawless. Absolutely gutted that Rita isn't going to be a companion, why did she have to die.
HOUSE OF LEAVES THREAD.
LET'S DO IT, Y'ALL.
ENJOY MY REVIEW.
OH MY GOD THAT IS SO PERFECT.
Yes, please spoil me for House of Leaves. I have attempted to read that book a couple times, but the last time I did I realized that the whole thing was just way too fucking confusing and I wasn't even going to attempt getting past the first chapter because I'd never understand it anyway. I know the basic concepts of the book and that's enough for me.
I read about half of that book, but I had to give up because it gave me serious nightmares. Books and movies don't usually have that much of an affect me that much. Something about House of Leaves, though scared the living shit out of me.
It's bigger on the inside.
I've only just started it. But then my parents left and I was alone in the house and now the book is in a drawer under several sheets in the next room. Yes. I'm like that.
The problem is that I have such an active imagination that I jump at shadows and mirrors without prompting. But I read about the House of Leaves and just was fascinated and now it's IN MY HOUSE. Whhhhyyyyyy.
There really needs to be a television way to communicate footnotes within footnotes. (Possible favorite part of that book I am a dork.)
Mark, I know you recommended this to me but I am SCARED TO DEATH to read it, and I'm actually glad you mentioned that it was scary because I had no idea and would have been so unprepared lol.
The first time I ever read House of Leaves, I was home alone for a couple days. And the power was out.
I.. I don't know why I did that to myself.
oh god this book so good and so disturbing. I was in undergrad when I read this and I essentially stopped doing any work the entire week that I read this. The night I finished it I was up until four in the morning reading it and there was a goddamn thunderstorm because THE BOOK WAS MAKING IT HAPPEN.
I honestly want to read it again sometime though because so much of my response to it first time was !!!!!! and then I was sort of terrified to try and read it again. But it is so fantastic.
I loved Rita dearly, but I figured out pretty early she wasn't going to make it. It was Lynda with a Y all over again, except I really, really liked Rita. I blame RTD/Joss Whedon.
I was completely surprised by the ending of this episode. I was sure this was a one-off like most of the episodes in its slot have been. I'm jut glad this show still has the ability to throw me off the way it does.
OMG CRAIG NEXT WEEK YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
First rule of picking up companions is that you NEVER ask them to come with you before the end of the episode. If they have the hope of coming with you, they will definitely die. Only ask them AFTER the crisis has been averted.
EXACTLY
Honestly, Doctor, you should know this by now.
THEORIES ABOUND!!!!
The episodes are not in chronological order. The Doctor just dropped Amy and Rory off at the house they're living in during the Impossible Astronaut.
I don't think so, otherwise why would they have been shocked at his death?
Dun Dun Dun! But didn't Amy mention River?
I'm of a similar but slightly different theory: The episodes are not in chronological order from the Doctor's point of view.
I keep wondering why the Doctor "never answers his phone" and his companions have to go to such silly lengths to get his attention. What is he doing, all those times when he's not answering his phone? Where does he go "between episodes"? And since we don't see what he's doing before he shows up, he could be at any point in his personal timeline, really.
I've been trying to think what to say about this episode since I watched it last night and while I loved Rita, thought the fear/faith twist was great and the monster equals Doctor metaphor was doing quite well until they spelt it out so obviously, I just keep coming back to Amy and Rory and the fact the Ponds are leaving us.
It's been a while since we've had such long term companions and it's hard to see them go. There's no denying they've been great additions to the long list of companions who came before, both as individuals and a couple. And while there's the excitement of meeting someone new, there's still the sadness of losing them.
<img src="http://i55.tinypic.com/14ctduh.gif" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"> Amy, whether she's little Amelia, or grown Amy Pond, is simply amazing and a little bit of all us with her raggedy Doctor. Amy who’s her own person, who loves adventure and rocking short skirts and all this time later still believes in fairy tales. She’s come such a long way from the little girl who waited sitting on a suitcase in her wellies and Paddington Bear coat and yet she still has the same sense of wonder, always wanting to see what planet’s next with no fear whatsoever about what’s to come.
<img src="http://i53.tinypic.com/mt1536.gif" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"> Oh Rory. Fantastic Rory, funny Rory, gorgeous Rory. He’s grown so much since his first episodes and hey, he actually gets to live. I love how much Rory cares, has always cared and continues to care despite how easily it would be for recent circumstances to change him. He’s a wonderful dork with a mean right hook but first and foremost always a nurse.
<img src="http://i55.tinypic.com/2qw0sqx.gif" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"> The Ponds are the kind of love I would love to have. Like I said last week, it's nice to have a love that isn't all grand gestures but that's a quiet steady presence and grounded so firmly in the ordinary. The realising they like each being a nudge from a friend, a first kiss that isn’t to some cheesy cliché complete with fireworks but to the Macarena, are spectacular in how normal they are. Equally though I love their grand gestures too. I will never get sick of their reunions. Whether it’s waiting 2000 years or rewriting time itself, it never seems like a big sacrifice to them because they love each other so of course they’ll take the risk. It would be so easy to lose each other getting swept up in the Doctor or all those adventures across time and space but Amy and Rory never do, if anything it only reinforces how much they should be together.
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(continued)
While I'm sad they're going, I'm glad they're leaving happy. That they're both alive and well and who knows, maybe they'll be back some day, they can lend the Doctor a hand like Martha or he could bring River round to visit (best. family. dinners. ever). No matter how bittersweet it is to lose a companion, I’m just happy they’re together and happy.
I guess that wasn't really a review but she's Amy and he's Rory and you can't help but love them. In the time honoured tradition of characters past, gif spam anyone?
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Your comment is making me tear up again. I love those two, I'm going to miss them so badly. 🙁
Very, very much this, times infinity.
I'm sure we'll see them again, even if for just a few minutes in the finale. There story is nearing the end, but its not finished, finished. And even if it is, they can drop by. Either way, they've come along way, and grown so much, and its time to let the Ponds go.
Look to the future! We may soon have a new companion! New personality, new adventures, new history, new side character….it'll be a breath of fresh air in the wonderful mountains of Doctor Who.
I am still wondering about the logistics of a Macarena first kiss. It seems like a good way to get hit in the face. (Which is one of the reasons I really want to see it as a scene)
That could be what happened: Amy accidentally hit Rory on the mouth, and then she 'kissed it better'…and then they kept kissing…I like this image. I've decided – new Head Canon.
Thoughts on this episode:
1.Rita was perfection, I was rooting for her to be a new companion so badly. Her speaking about her faith and asking the Doctor to let her lose it in private was heartbreaking. And she made tea, she made tea in a crisis. That is so British and I loved her.
2.The monster feeding on faith and not fear was wonderful from a story-telling perspective, I never saw it coming. Beautiful writing right there.
3.David Walliams brings all the lulz even when he is an alien mouse thing.
4.Rory should always be speaking: ‘We’re nice!’, ‘Somebody hit me, was it Amy?’ edfhsaeifnapeifnaepif LOVE HIM <3
5.Amy being forced to lose her faith in the Doctor so she isn’t killed, my poor heart I was in tears.
6.The Weeping Angels would be in my fear room too, srsly.
7.Amy and the Doctor saying good bye, as if I wasn’t crying enough already 🙁 Oh I understand why you did it Doctor, but you still have ~issues~ to resolve with River and the Silence and the exploding TARDIS! Also it made me realise that, from absolutely hating Amy when she was first introduced last season, I would miss her terribly if she left the show. I’ve grown to love her as she’s grown as a character and in many ways she has become my heroine more than Rose, Martha or Donna ever were. I have faith in Amy and I feel in safe hands with her like I did when Ten was the Doctor. It is with this in mind that I would love to share this beautiful piece of fanart:
<img src="http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f162/witchcraft97/amypond.jpg">
By viria13 (http://viria13.deviantart.com/)
did you paint this? It's so beautiful! *weeping over my pathetic stick figures*
that is beautiful!!
I wish I coul dpost some coherent thoughts on this episode but I'm still in shock from that ending.
So here are some funny GIFs courtesy of Tumblr!
<img src="http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f155/Starsea/Doctor%20Who/Who%20Macros/OutOfMyWay.gif">
<img src="http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f155/Starsea/Doctor%20Who/Who%20Macros/RPGMinotaur.gif">
and finally
<img src="http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f155/Starsea/Doctor%20Who/Who%20Macros/RorysRevenge.gif">
ROFL although those gifs remind me how incredibly awkward Rory looks as the door swings. I guess they had to attatch him to the door for it to work.
LOL I had to stop, pause and rewind this several times when i saw it on-screen.
Poor Rory! I'm going to miss him so much!
Well done, Toby Whithouse! You’ve done it again. I adore School Reunion (HATERS WHO USE THIS EPISODE TO HATE ON ROSE KNOW NOTHING) and I find Vampires of Venice to be one of the more enjoyable episodes of series 5, so I was hoping that this episode would deliver AND IT DID. Toby Whithouse for next showrunner, y/y?? I thought the premise was great with a minotaur in a labyrinth which is obviously a very old idea, but then the twist of it feeding off of faith was pretty brilliant.
Rita was fabulous and I loved her so of course she died. She reminded me quite of bit of Martha Jones and I really wanted her to stick around.
Before I get into the meat of this episode, I must ask a very important question: WTF IS THAT GOLD FISH ABOUT? I have no answers or theories. I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT WAS ITS PURPOSE. I would say that it was Melody Pond, but people actually gave fucks about the fish, so it couldn’t be Melody. (The blasé “check in on my daughter!” link that Amy had at the end is not cutting it for me as far as emotional responses to the Melody situation from Amy and Rory.)
The thing the Doctor saw in his room was himself. I refuse to believe anything different. I think “Amy’s Choice” when the Dream Lord was the Doctor showed that the Doctor has some self-loathing issues. As for what the Doctor has faith in, I’d have to refer back to The Satan Pit and say Rose. LOL. JK JK. But there is other stuff from The Satan Pit that would help to answer that question. I think the Doctor believes in history, time, and the universe. He believes that things work a certain way.
But the main crux of this episode centered on Amy losing her blind childlike faith in the Doctor and in the Doctor actually admitting to himself what his relationship with Amy really was. I think it was really telling that when he kissed her forehead and the camera shot from the Doctor’s perspective, he was seeing little Amelia Pond.
Amy’s story has always been about growing up, and in order to do so she needed to lose her childlike faith in the Doctor and see him and their relationship for what it really was.
Something that initially bothered me in this episode the way that the Doctor called Amy, “Amy Williams”, but after talking with some friend about it, I get what the script was trying to do. At first I was bothered because it felt like the Doctor was implying that in order to grow up she needed to take her husband’s last name and he was foisting that identity onto her. But then after talking with friends I realized that he’d already done that. In “The Big Bang”, he insisted that Amy and Rory were the Ponds. And they were the Ponds because that’s the fairytale name. So that little bit of dialogue was in the end more about the Doctor recognizing that he’d been shoving Amy into this fairytale and not letting her grow up and it wasn’t fair to her. So “Amy Williams” then is a name symbolic of no longer being a fairytale. “Amelia Pond” is a name from a fairytale. “Amy Williams” isn’t.
In the end, I’m satisfied with this being the end to Rory and Amy’s time on the Tardis. I would have preferred it if they had chosen to leave themselves vs the Doctor kicking them out, but this episode was as much about the Doctor facing facts and seeing what he was doing to Amy as it was about Amy losing her blind faith in the Doctor, so I’m ok with it.
I agree to your point about "Amy Williams" and the fairytale use of "Pond".
WTF IS THAT GOLD FISH ABOUT?
I know Walliams looks a bit like a mouse-creature, but he was looking at the goldfish in a kind of "GET IN MAH BELLY" kind of way, so I figure he is a cat-creature and they didn't want him to eat them.
I LIKE THIS THEORY. It makes more sense than anything I could think of.
Ugh, "School Reunion", much like a certain Rose Tyler, can go to hell.
SCHOOL REUNION FTW. I will join you on the right as the haters move to the left.
I only want Toby Whithouse to be show-runner if he wraps up Being Human properly first. That show breaks my heart on a regular basis but I just keep watching it. WHY SUCH A GOOD WRITER TOBY WHYYYYY
As for what the Doctor has faith in, I’d have to refer back to The Satan Pit and say Rose. LOL. JK JK. But there is other stuff from The Satan Pit that would help to answer that question. I think the Doctor believes in history, time, and the universe. He believes that things work a certain way.
For what he believes in, I think it could be summed up by saying "his TARDIS."
New poster here. Been reading for a while, but there was something in this post that I just had to respond to… so I finally registered.
[i]As for what the Doctor has faith in, I’d have to refer back to The Satan Pit and say Rose. LOL. JK JK. [/i]
You may have been kidding, but in a way, I think you're right. And to prove my point I refer you to a Classic Who episode (SPOILEROT13'd…just to be on the safe side of things):
Gur Phefr bs Sraevp, n fgbel sebz gur Friragu Qbpgbe ren.
Cneg bs gur nyvra zranpr va guvf fgbel vf gur gur sbez bs inzcver-rfdhr perngherf pnyyrq unrzbiberf. Naq yvxr gur genqvgvbany vzntr bs Qenphyn orvat ercryyrq ol n pebff, gurl ner ercryyrq ol n cflpuvp oneevre perngrq ol nofbyhgr snvgu (gur oneevre vaqvpngrq jvgu n fbhaq rssrpg – na ryrpgebavp uhz – vafgrnq bs n ivfhny rssrpg.)
Ng bar cbvag, gur Qbpgbe (naq ng yrnfg bar bgure crefba) vf genccrq va n fznyy ebbz ol n ynetr pbagvatrag bs unrzbiberf, juvpu fgneg oernxvat qbja gur jnyyf gb trg gb gur Qbpgbe. Va erfcbafr, ur fgnegf punagvat n yvgnal, naq gur uhz bs nofbyhgr snvgu xvpxf va, qevivat bss gur nggnpx. Orsber gur uhz qebjaf gur Qbpgbe bhg, lbh pna urne jung ur'f punagvat; n yvfg bs anzrf: Fhfna, Oneonen, Ivpxv, Fgrira…
Gur anzrf bs uvf Pbzcnavbaf.
Fb lrf, gur Qbpgbe jbhyq unir snvgu va Ebfr, naq Znegun, naq Qbaan, naq Npr, naq Crev…, naq Nzl naq Ebel. Gb oevat hc "Nzl'f Pubvpr" bapr ntnva, erzrzore bar guvat gur Qbpgbe fnvq whfg orsber gur raq bs gur rcvfbqr; "V pubbfr zl sevraqf irel pnershyyl." Ur qbrfa'g whfg pubbfr crbcyr gung jvyy unir snvgu va uvz; ur pubbfrf Pbzcnavbaf gung ur pna unir rdhny snvgu va.
I think you're right. I think the Doctor DOES have faith in his companions. To him they represent the best of humanity, and I think that he believes in that. But I also think that he does believe that there is always an answer to thing and that time and space and history function in certain ways. Idk which of those things it was that was feeding the monster, but yeah. I do think either or both of those things is a good possibility.
I agree the use of Amy Williams was him basically telling her, it's time to grow up now. You have a life to lead with Rory and you need to move on from me. I also love that people jump on it though saying "HEY! Amy shouldn't have too be subservient to a man!" But the neglect to remember that the only reason her name is still Pond is because the Doctor wouldn't let her change it. Looked at in context it means that the Doctor had unintentionally made her subservient to him and that he was releasing her from that.
(Before I get into the meat of this episode, I must ask a very important question: WTF IS THAT GOLD FISH ABOUT? I have no answers or theories. I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT WAS ITS PURPOSE.)
I don't have to screenshot on me but if you go back and look at it there's three fish in the bowl. A Black one, a white one, and a red one 😛
Doctor – Black
Rory – White
Amy – Red
Then they got eaten by mole man…they got separated. 😛
I want Howie and Rita to both be new companions! Maybe that other alien guy too because it would be kind of funny to have a companion for just a couple of episodes who was a complete and utter coward. I can just imagine him having to deal with the Doctor's shenanigans.
Actually, I really do want an alien companion. But New Who keeps giving us humans! What gives? To be honest, though I dearly love Amy and Rory, I really wish we could get new companions soon. One of the great things about Doctor Who is that the constantly changing characters and actors mean it never gets stale. It doesn't mean they have to die or be gone forever! Just…it'd be fun to have some new blood.
i am still in shock of him leaving Amy and Rory………
"Right now, we're about three buses, a long walk and eight quid in a taxi away from good."
YES.
Almost as good as the suitcase good line from 10, I believe.
And I just really, really hope that we do see Amy and Rory again, and not in a the-Doctor-dies-and-we-see-their-reactions-from-afar-sort-of-way, because then I'd be sad, mostly that they didn't get any closure on his death and know he ~hopefully~ avoids it.
and YAY Craig! I hope we see Sophie too!
Logically I knew Amy and Rory would have to leave eventually, all companions do, it was only a matter of time. Actually seeing it happen though? OMG NO PLEASE DON'T GOOOO!*cries forever* I do love that their house was blue, like all the blue in Amy's home from last series, it's a nice connection to the TARDIS and also makes it stand out from the rest of the street.
Not as many hysterics as last week but I did get teary towards the end. The last shot of the Doctor, all alone in the TARDIS, broke my heart into a thousand tiny pieces. Matt continues his streak of being utterly amazing in every episode
I’m sure the crew only used two or three actual sets to gives the immense size of the hotel
Apparently parts of it were filmed at an actual hotel. One that's about five minutes away from my house. Something I didn't find out until several months after filming. There was much anguish when I found out (they were SO CLOSE damn it).
I probably couldn't name my favourite bit of dialogue for this episode, but I have a pair (Plus one) of lines I found to be hilarious:
"Our anthem is 'Glory to [Insert Name Here]'" -It was even delivered by David Walliams! (Who worked with Tom Baker ~Doctor Who connections~)
(Paraphrased) "It's why [The Minotaur] only shows you exits, you don't have anything to feed on." -The Doctor basically confirming that the hotel couldn't come up with anything to frighten Rory with. HE HAS NO FEAR.
"It's a big day for fans of walls." -Because it was, wasn't it? Lots and lots of walls…
Well, the Doctor also said something about Rory having no faith, either (he's not superstitious, etc.) And I think that the hotel did have a room for Rory, but he overcame the fear that it showed him without relying on an external force (he said something about 'having been on the Tardis what was there left to fear' and the Doctor stressed that Rory had used the past tense, like he was shown something, but it turned out that it wasn't such a huge fear after all).
I KNOW! I got to the meat of the book on a six-hour flight to New Orleans. WHAT AN AWFUL IDEA.
…did people really think Rita could have become a full fledged companion? Her name is 'Rita'. Rita is not a very fashionable name (http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=rita&ms=false&exact=false) right now or historically. For me at least, that has always been shorthand for Going To Die or Going To Disappear At The End Of The Episode. The second The Doctor started talking about bringing her along for the ride, I knew she was toast.
(Mind: RTD generally tended to buck this trend, favoring less popular names like Donna and Martha and Mickey, but Moffat hasn't done that much in his run, favoring more historically popular names– like Amy– or recently popular names– like Rory, though I assume Rory is short for something– and Melony. IDK I think about character names a lot. This is a stupid comment.)
…did people really think Rita could have become a full fledged companion? Her name is 'Rita'. Rita is not a very fashionable name (http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=rita&ms=false&exact=false) right now or historically. For me at least, that has always been shorthand for Going To Die or Going To Disappear At The End Of The Episode. The second The Doctor started talking about bringing her along for the ride, I knew she was toast.
(Mind: RTD generally tended to buck this trend, favoring less popular names like Donna and Martha and Mickey, but Moffat hasn't done that much in his run, favoring more historically popular names– like Amy– or recently popular names– like Rory, though I assume Rory is short for something– and Melony. IDK I think about character names a lot. This is a stupid comment.)
Have to admit, I figured that Rita was just short for a more traditional-sounding Muslim name.
(accidently hit "report" when I meant to hit "reply" sorry to anyone who comes to investigate!)
I designed for a play recently in which the main character was named Rita. The script was terrible.
The only thing Rory has ever been documented to be short for is Roderick, but I don't think that's been commonly used for a while either…
Rory is also short for Roranicus.
I really enjoyed this episode! I like it when the show drops the Doctor and friends into a new group of people, so it was fun to meet these new characters. I loved Rita and definitely could have seen her as a companion! This episode also had a lot of really funny lines, really creepy moments, and the Doctor being awesome – all things that I watch this show for. Everyone keeps talking about the parallel between the minotaur and the Doctor and I admit to not noticing that at all until the very end … DUH. I felt silly when my daughter was like "He's not talking about himself" and I was like "ohhhhhhh."
Saying goodbye to the Ponds feels impossible to me. I know I felt that way about Rose, and then when Ten regenerated, but ugh, Eleven, Amy, and Rory are like the BEST THING EVER. They go together like cookies and milk, peanut butter and jelly, fish fingers and custard. I am sad to see them go 🙁
I'm really sick of seeing married women on TV ALL take their husband's last names, though. It's a pet peeve for me.
I know, but this doesn't mean Amy is now going to take Rory's last name. The Doctor is making a symbolic point. He's just making it as harshly as possible.
I agree; its nice to have a woman that didn't take it on. I understand the symbolism, that she was giving up the fairy tale represented by her name, and that she'll probably still use Pond, but still…
Yea, I don't think he was actually telling her to take the name at all. I took it to mean Eleven was telling her to stop running away from the fact that she's married now. She has a whole life with Rory that she has to stop ignoring and go live. Given that he was trying to be as harsh as possible, to break her faith in him as quickly as possible; the line really does makes sense. He needed a concrete concept he could use to break through her delusions about him. Also, if you'll notice through the whole episode Rory repeatedly gets pushed into the background and at the end get's trapped behind a door. Not to mention all the references Rory gives, such as her hitting him with a shoe, where she picks the Doctor over him. Little things, yes, but over time they add up. With his speech Eleven is telling her to stop, or frankly I think she was endanger of actually losing Rory. People can only take so much, even people like Rory. (See him referring to traveling with the Doctor in the past tense and seeing the exit.)
Yeah, I read it as no more fairytale Amelia Pond in Amy Williams.
And I still didn't like it, because it also had weird overtones of Eleven transferring ownership of Amy from him to Rory.
Yes, but she said something along the lines of 'tell my daughter to come visit sometimes.'
Yeah, I wish that too.
Ah, I meant Melody instead of Melony, whoops. Also Michael is historically popular but Mickey as a nickname tends to come and go and in general sounds kind of dated.
Also mind I'm saying this all from an American perspective, idk how name trends are in the UK right now; I don't have data for it. Maybe Rita is super popular right now.
Ugh, all the sad forever. THAT FACE. Ugh.
My tears started when he was having to break her faith.. That part just killed me.
"I took you with me because I was vain. Because I wanted to be adored. ..it's time we see each other as we really are."
"I'm in town planning. We're putting trees on the sidewalks so invaders can march in the shade" LOL.
I had low expectations for this. I just don't scare easily anymore and I imagined that's what it would be focused on. Luckily, I can eat humble pie as it completely went in a different direction. I enjoyed it. Poor rita 🙁
That line was good line, it really was.
And I agree, I like how they twisted the episode's meaning from classic horror story, to one about belief and growing up.
I AM PRETTY DAMN PROUD OF IT.
DID YOU FIND THE SECRET MESSAGE?
I know it's for the best but I don't want them to go 🙁
But, I don't want the Ponds to go. Like the Doctor, I understand that it's definitely best for Amy and Rory to move on with their lives, but watching the Doctor say goodbye to Amy was just so damned sad.
Favorite Quote:
"See, the US government has entire cities hidden in the Norwegian mountains. You see, earth is on a collision course with another planet. And this is where they're going to send all the rich people when it kicks off."
I believe you, Howie.
Yeah, and that does give it a chronological sense, I think.
I was really more upset when Rita died than I was when the Ponds left. I guess I was probably more expecting the latter, and less going into this episode thinking "well I'll fall in love with a character and then she'll DIE RIGHT AWAY," but… there you go. Toby Whithouse was also responsible for what I felt were the most disturbing secondary character deaths last season, Guido and Isabella in "The Vampires of Venice," and I will say that as upset as I was at Rita's death, it didn't actually bother me the way those did. In "Vampires," both secondary characters seemed to suffer pretty gruesome deaths basically as a result of helping out Team TARDIS, with really little point or discussion of it. The Doctor sort of briefly gets angry over Isabella's death (and one could make the argument that his decision to effectively wipe out the presence of the… fish-people whose name I'm not going to try to spell is in response to her death, though I think that's pretty limited), and tries to talk Guido out of killing himself, but it's all very briefly and tonally felt very… off.
In this, however, it's very apparent that the Doctor is taken by Rita and probably would have invited her onto the TARDIS if she'd survived. But the story also wouldn't have been what it was if she'd survived. Her death is not only given a very dramatic scene, but the characters react to it – it's not just "oh, that was bad; now let's fight the fish people!" More than anything, it was her death and the Doctor's realization that he'd inadvertently led her into it that really made him able to do what he did to Amy in the end. And let me say here, starting about ten minutes before it happened, I was really, really hoping she wouldn't die. Like, repeatedly, in my head, "all I want in this episode is for Rita to live." But on this side of it, I'll admit it's difficult to see how the episode could have worked without her death.
But seriously CRYING. I didn't do it at all when Amy and Rory left, but that was probably because I'd already been SO UPSET over Rita.
Otherwise, generally a great episode. My only problems were: the "Amy Williams" thing fell flat with me, and I think whatever the intent it could have been done better; I love Rory, but I find it hard to believe that there's nothing he has faith in or nothing he's afraid of – but I could get that they needed someone who would see an exit instead; and… I wasn't sure what the goldfish thing was about?
But yes, besides that, I pretty much loved it. And House of Leaves references are always appropriate.
Long time reader, first time commenter–and I'm crawling from my keyboard to ask STUFF. So hi and here I go:
*Why are apples no longer "rubbish" to the Doctor?
*Why was that Rubik's cube solved?
*Why was the Doctor wearing those brown shoes?
*Why did Rory speak of his time in the TARDIS in the past tense, which, of course, the Doctor also picked up on?
*Why did Amy "forget" about finding Lucy's note in the hallway?
I watched The God Complex twice. On first viewing I snotted and sobbed & let all these questions sit at the back of my brain, because I wanted to wallow in my feelings, OK? But then I had to get my nerd on and watch again, because that's what Whovians do with their lives.
And then I re-watched The Almost People. And finally, re-watched Day of The Moon.
I don't want to take away from a beautiful Toby Whithouse moment (watch Being Human, Mark–and not that reboot on SyFy shiate), because this episode was as layered as an onion and I'm all about that, but I HAVE THEORIES AND THEY NEED TO BE DISCUSSED, Y'ALL.
This is straight up some Ganger shit. And maybe some Silent shit. Has this entire 2nd half of the season been handed to us with 2 Doctors/2 timelines? (Because I'm pretty sure there were 3 in The Almost People.) You know, just as we've had 2 Amys? And my head is gonna explode because I'm over-thinking this, Good Lord.
I'll stop now.
I think that apples are no longer rubbish because, as he said in The Eleventh Hour, "It's like eating after brushing your teeth; everything tastes wrong." He's gotten used to his new mouth, so everything's fine again. Including apples.
Amy forgetting about Lucy's note, besides being convenient to the plot, was because she got distracted. As I recall, they were all racing out of the hallway when she was picking them up, and the room she ended up in had Weeping Angels, which would be enough to drive the thought of a couple pieces of paper out of anyone's head. When things calmed down a bit (and when it was useful for the plot *cough*), she remembered them.
Of the other questions, I think maybe the Rubik's Cube could have been something like the Doctor just fiddling with it to give his hands something to do and, being the Doctor and all, he solved it. But that feels less assured to me than the other two.
Six years of nitpicking every frame of Lost trained me to never overlook any potential clues in any given episode of Doctor Who. I'm a student of Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, admittedly. It has also made me paranoid to an embarrassing fault. OH GOD, BOBBY EWING IS IN THE SHOWER, WAKE UP!
But four years of Who have taught me well and while I'm probably reading far too much into things, I'm still wondering if those lingering shots on the Doctor's shoes, as well as him eating the apple…sigh…I don't know, it just seems like gentle nods. Gentle nods with neon lights above them, as if to say, "HEY, ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?!?"
And then the literature lover in me saw The God Complex as one gigantic metaphor:
The Hotel=TARDIS
The Minotaur-esque Alien=The Doctor
Hotel "Guests"=Companions
(Somewhere Steven Moffat laughs at me…)
This same discussion is getting kicked around on the io9 episode review. I think the general conclusion is that this Doctor is Flesh, which is terribly disappointing. 🙁
Congrats to Karen Gillan for winning Best Actress at the TV Choice Awards, and on the show for winning Best Drama. All three New Who Doctor's were nominated for Best Actor; David Tennant won. Which i'm still counting as a Doctor Who win.
I didn't know that! Thanks for the head's up. Melody is fairly popular over here, but Donna isn't. Maybe it's completely random; who knows. Obviously not me.
Was I the only one, when the cowardly, rat-faced character was focused on, that kept thinking 'Peter Pettigrew, Peter Pettigrew, Peter Pettigrew'?
I don't want to sound redundant because I agree with most of the comments here but upon watching it again I only have one question:
WHY did the Doctor call Rory "Mickey"?!?!?!
Oh dear. I thought he said "Mickey" both times I watched it. "Beaky" makes so much more sense.
That was Beaky- I know, it wasn't very clear. Loves harping on after the nose, though.
What would be in an interesting plot would be something slowly eroding away the Doctor's memories, and he starts to call his companions by the names of old ones….It could actually have merit, me thinks.
Good idea!
He called him 'Beaky' (reference to the nose).
If the Doctor in this episode was a fake Doctor, I SWEAR TO GOD, I WILL BURN EVERYTHING TO THE GROUND. If we finally got some real character development from Eleven only to have the show be like "LOL JUST KIDDING. IT WAS A FAKE DOCTOR", I will be seeing red.
*Why did Rory speak of his time in the TARDIS in the past tense, which, of course, the Doctor also picked up on?
I read that scene as being about Rory already having mentally checked out of traveling on the Tardis. In TGWW, he said something to the effect of not wanting to travel with the Doctor any more, and I think from that moment on, he was essentially over it. So in his mind his time on the Tardis was already a thing of the past.
THEORY TIME
– 11 in Eleventh Hour hates apples. -> This Doctor just ate one.
– 11 in Night Terrors throws a rubix cube away saying he hates those -> This one appears to have just solved one.
– This Doctor took a moment before he recognized what tea was….. Okay, I can't remember 11 drinking tea, but he should have been able to recognize it faster. Ten only completed his regeneration because of tea!
He keeps switching between the long coat and the tweed. Interestingly enough, it was a tweed Doctor who hated rubix cubes and a tweed Doctor who solved one.
Couple all this up with the theory that the Silence were there during Let's Kill Hitler (when Rory mentions a banging in his head there's a sound cue that sort of sounds like what those Silence followers were making), I think that it is safe to say that there is something fishy going on.
Wasn't there also a moment in The Impossible Astronaut when he said he'd never tasted wine before, even though he had in The Lodger? (I may be imagining things, it's been a while since I watched either of those episodes)
Yes there was – I watched those two out of order and picked up on that.
If we finally got some real character development from Eleven only to have the show be like "LOL JUST KIDDING. IT WAS A FAKE DOCTOR", I will be seeing red.
Wasn't Amy still a real Amy though, even though her actual body was somewhere else being in labor or whatever? (I haven't seen half the season, but that's the impression I got.)
True. That's the way the Gangers were supposed to work. The real person is in like a coma somewhere and their consciousness in in the fake flesh thing. But in the clone episodes, the Gangers became separated from the originals, so they had their own separate consciousness and existence. SO if the Eleven Double theory turns out to be true and it's the first situation then Holy Reusing Plot Twists, Batman! If it's the second situation then my original complaint stands.
I think he has a lot of faith in Amy, though. I went over it in my head a few times and I can't get around the fact that I just can't discount what feels like a very deep, faith-based attachment to Amy. It didn't seem like the faith had to be inherently damaging or to the point of dependence as could maybe describe Amy's faith in the Doctor or Howard's conspiracy theories, as Rita's religious belief seemed like something that was important to her, but that she could also talk frankly and logically about. (Which, I'll admit here, I also liked a lot because she was Muslim, and we so rarely get Muslim characters like that.) With Rita (and possibly the Doctor?) in mind, the threshold for what was considered "faith" didn't strike me as that high so as to be as consuming as was the case for Amy or Gibbis' constant instinct to surrender. And I think Rory's certainly been shown to have a lot of faith in Amy, given how often he's been shown acting altruistically to serve her interests or as even entirely obsessed with her (not showing interest in another girl ever, apparently).
Again, it wasn't that big a thing for me, but I don't find it convincing that he didn't have faith in anything that would have met what I felt wasn't that high a threshold. But I do get why they did it, and he was the most sensible choice for what they needed, as it obviously wouldn't have been Amy, and it would've messed with the narrative if it was the Doctor.
And just to add, because rereading this comment I think it looks like I'm missing your point – what I'd do is take Rita's comment about what exactly she had "faith" in. The thing guiding her wasn't even necessarily a notion of God or some specific religious figure – it was her own faith in herself that she'd led a good life and therefore shouldn't fall victim to some afterlife punishment. Which I thought was one of the most clever moments in the episode. But I guess what I'm saying is that faith doesn't even have to be an unfailing notion of someone or something to save you, so much as something to keep one carrying on, which I do think falls in line with Rory's devotion to Amy. But again, this was really not that big a deal for me, and I get that reasoning, I just don't think it fits perfectly.
I was just checking to see if anyone had posted about the apple, the Rubik's cube and the shoes! Veeeery curious…
After rewatching the very start of the episode after the title- I think the Doctor called Rory 'Beaky.'
It's right after the name of the episode, when the Doctor is first walking around with Amy with Rory on the staircase.
And I think he actually called him 'Beaky'.
Also the House of Leaves. Always in blue because the House is like a TARDIS from hell? Hm.
Speaking of horrifying crossover with Doctor Who- in light of mentioning The House of Leaves- some part of me is hoping Steven Moffat, or one of the other writers, has ever heard of Uzumaki. Though I doubt it.
I did love his episode and the reasons why have been said much better by people above me than I ever could (it was gorgeous and terrifying and amazing) but I need to talk about the 'Amy Williams' line. Having had many arguments about how I'm 'just looking for sexism' (with RL people), it is now the only thing in my head.
And I correct what I said on the liveblog: 'It's Amy POND and Rory WILLIAMS' because Rory has mostly called himself Williams and I forgot that at the time.
I get what the line's supposed to mean. The Doctor has always had a very paternal relationship with Amy, with all the forehead kisses and such. And he's been viewing her as a little girl/ daughter off on a fairy-tale adventure for all this time. So the line is meant to signify him accepting Amy being grown-up and not his Amelia Pond any more.
But the problem is 'Pond' was never the Doctor's name to call Amy nor did it belong to the Doctor. It's Amy's name and just Amy's name. One that she describes herself as. I don't think I need to explain how names are really important for identity or how agency is removed from the character when they're not allowed to define themselves (especially if they're being defined in terms of other people). And with the Doctor's very paternal relationship with her, by calling her by her married name, it feels alot like a father handing over his daughter to her husband.
Ugh
Just no
It's quite probably unintentional but that doesn't matter because the 'women-getting-married-as-growing-up' trope had still been referenced and that is obviously quite sexist.
It's not like I hate Who now. I love it still. This is just another instance of a long list of casual sexism, just irritating enough to take me out of what would otherwise be a perfect episode.
After a long weekend of arguing this I am utterly burnt-out now.
Other highly insightful comments:
The Minotaur looked like the faun from Pan's Labyrinth so I keep expecting everyone to start speaking in Spanish.
I really really wanted Rita so stick around. But sadly she was too awesome.
AMY AND RORY ARE LEAVING! I knew it was coming but nooooooooo! brb crying forever (T_T)
I agree completely with you on this, although at the time my reaction was more sort of 'huhh'? It didn't come across to me as the touching moment it was meant to be. I think my fleeting thoughts were: 'But she's always been Pond, so why is she now Williams?' It felt like I'd been tricked somehow. But now you putting it into words shows me properly why I didn't like it. His reasoning for calling her Williams is because he feels like he's giving her to Rory. What the hell? And If he's Amy's father, what does that make his relationship with River??
I know, his relationship with River became very very weird after it was revealed she was Amy and Rory's kid. I'm not being serious when I say this but it's fun:
It's like the Doctor is Amy's father figure/imaginary friend/uncle-type person, Amy, Rory and the Tardis are River's parents and the Tardis is the Doctor's wife. So River is like the Doctor's granddaughter, daughter of his wife Sexy and his wife as well.
Do you remember waaay back when Amy tried to sleep with him. I thinking it was a little odd back then but now it's just creepy.
I saw the Pond/Williams thing a little bit different. At first glance it does seem a little sexist but when looked at in context of the scene logistically and emotionally, it really does make sense. I took it to mean that the Doctor was releasing Amy from the hold he had over her. I mean really, the only reason why her name stayed Pond in the first place was because he said it should. He made the choice for her, because he wanted Amy to stay the little Amelia. All starry eyed and seeing him as the knight in shining armor who will save the day. Saying "Amy Williams" was a quick way to explain to her that concept in a situation where they really didn't have time to discuss it in depth.
What were they all nominated for? lol. I know this is what google is for, but I figured I'd ask you in case you know off the top of your head.
lol. I was thinking more Hans Moleman.
<img src="http://mimg.ugo.com/201003/38827/cuts/hans-moleman_288x288.jpg">
I loved this episode for all of the House of Leaves references. I haven't seen The Shining because I'm pansy, but I remember being unable to stare at walls (they kept shifting and changing in my mind's eye and I thought my apartment wall was going to eat me) after reading the House of Leaves, for the longest time, and I'm going to have nightmares about this episode forever.
I didn't seriously expect that this Team TARDIS would be around for much longer especially given The Girl Who Waited… I honestly hope this is it for them because this is the least traumatized the Doctor has ever left his companions, no lie.
I initially had a bad reaction to the Amy Williams thing too (because the way it came off in the episode it felt like Amy needed to grow up by taking her husband's last name), and I still think it's BS that it's an identity that the Doctor was foisting upon her. BUT I think it goes back to some thematic stuff from series 5. So to copy pasta a bit from a previous comment:
Something that initially bothered me in this episode the way that the Doctor called Amy, “Amy Williams”, but after talking with some friend about it, I get what the script was trying to do. At first I was bothered because it felt like the Doctor was implying that in order to grow up she needed to take her husband’s last name and he was foisting that identity onto her. But then after talking with friends I realized that he’d already done that. In “The Big Bang”, he insisted that Amy and Rory were the Ponds. And they were the Ponds because that’s the fairytale name. So that little bit of dialogue was in the end more about the Doctor recognizing that he’d been shoving Amy into this fairytale and not letting her grow up and it wasn’t fair to her. So “Amy Williams” then is a name symbolic of no longer being a fairytale. “Amelia Pond” is a name from a fairytale. “Amy Williams” isn’t.
I do still think that it's problematic that it was the Doctor deciding all this for Amy, but then he was the one who decided that it was "Amy and Rory Pond" back in "The Big Bang", so it fits for his character, I guess.
Oh, is that how it works? I'm not familiar with the technicalities myself, but one of my friends recently married and mentioned having to go to all the proper offices and bureaucrats in the weeks after her honeymoon, so I thought it was a post-wedding change. :/
Christopher Ecclestone for The Shadow Line. David Tennant for Single Father and obviously Matt Smith for Doctor Who. Also, Benedict Cumberbatch was nominated for Sherlock.
I honestly hope this is it for them because this is the least traumatized the Doctor has ever left his companions, no lie.
…I don't think that's true at all. Amy had to watch her fiance die (more than once). Amy was kidnapped and basically woke up giving birth. And then Amy and Rory had their daughter taken from them. And then the Doctor forced Rory to decide which version of his wife should life.
I think Martha escaped with the least amount of trauma. She did have to deal with the Doctor being an oblivious ass at times and spent those months in 1914 and spent a year walking the Earth, but idk. She seemed to walk away from everything pretty ok.
Hmm you're right. Martha I guess did get away better but he was a jerk to her too, honestly. The Doctor, not a good person to be with.
I guess I was thinking of Rose and Donna. I'm honestly dying to have a happy ending for Rory and Amy so I hope this is it for them, and nothing along the lines of Rose/Donna will happen to them in the future. Be kind, Moffat!
Honestly? My favourite line was when they were looking at the photographs of people and reading their fears and it turns out that one of the victims' fears was 'Plymouth'. Because I go to university in Plymouth and I laughed so hard I nearly weed myself.
Can the Doctor stop 'falling' now? 🙁 I just want to give him a hug. Why can't I hug fictional characters through my computer screen, world?
My thoughts were all organized and now real life has scattered them, and today is not a day I can put them all back together because family is over, yaaaay. So here's a few paragraphs I wrote while thinking about that whole scene between the Doctor and Amy, and what he tells her.
While I'm sure that the Doctor certainly believes what he's saying (especially in that moment, right then) I don't for one moment believe that what he's saying is actually the total truth. We know there were many reasons the Doctor took Amy with him. Was part of it that he was vain and wanted someone to adore him? Most definitely. He loves showing off. He loves watching the reactions of the people he takes with him to all the ridiculous things he shows them. I think he has, especially since the Time War, a deep seated need to have someone like him, because he hates himself so much it makes it somewhat bearable. Definitely, that was part of it.
But his other previous reasons were just as true. He's lonely. He wants to be able to share in the wonder of things that would otherwise not be amazing to him. He was bothered by the emptiness of Amy's house. He obviously and genuinely likes her. And he made a promise to a lonely little girl to let her come with him when she asked.
Is the Doctor a hero? I would say that yes, yes he is. A very flawed hero whose mistakes tend to come with a very high cost, who can't possibly believe anymore that he actually is, so it's nice to have someone else around who believes in him and his ability to magically make everything better. If the Doctor was as terrible as he thinks he is, he wouldn't hate himself nearly so much.
I think what Rita says to him is significant, but I'm not sure he quite understood what she was getting at. Why is it up to him to save everyone? Isn't that, in and of itself, a form of arrogance?
Finally, a thought that occurred to me a bit later: if we go by how this series was initially meant to run, then not only is the Doctor just coming off of The Girl Who Waited, but not a few episodes before also had the fake-out Rory near death of Curse of the Black Spot. Have all the fake-out deaths not been foreshadowing a companion's death at all, but in fact been about breaking the Doctor's faith in HIMSELF and his ability to keep them safe from all the many many dangers he inadvertently puts them through?
This, exactly. The Doctor is a hero. A flawed one, but since when did all our heroes have to be perfect in every sense? This makes them more real.
Of course, it makes perfect sense. We've all had a time when we feel bad about ourselves. We feel worthless, selfish, mean, stupid, etc. We totally forget everything good we've done or are capable of doing. So imagine what it must be like for the Doctor, who's been living with guilt for so long, and is rather prone to wallowing in self-pity? I just hope that soon (this season or the next) he comes to live with himself, and realise he's good, too.
Hopelessness and the absence of faith save the day again!
LOLLLL. I ENJOYED THAT THIS EPISODE TURNED THE TROPE OF FAITH OVERCOMING ALL SAVING THE DAY.
And I'm saying this as a deeply religious person. So maybe I'm a bad Christian, but whatever. I loled.
I enjoyed the subversion as well. It's exactly the opposite of what you would expect, and therefore it is great.
He may have called them the Ponds but Amy either went with it afterward and called herself Pond or was already calling herself Pond before that. We don't know if he was forcing the name Pond on her, Rory's comment about 'that isn't how it works' could just mean that he's not taking her name. Her calling herself Pond later makes me think she kept her name since she would have already had to decide it before the wedding.
The Jacket too, he was back in the tweed again.
To be honest this was the first episode I found interesting since Doctor Who started up again. 'Let's kill Hitler' was ruined for me because of River's attitude in that episode and for me 'Night Terrors' and 'The Girl Who Waited' were boring outside of the ending and a few lines of the latter. That said:
I loved this episode. I can't explain exactly why I love it, just that I do. The humor was brilliant, the ending pulled me in and just seeing other sides of everyone. By far this is the best episode of the second half of season six, right up there with 'The Doctor's Wife'.
What if, instead of faith, we use the word worship. Each person's faith has a method of worship (gambling, praise, prayer, spreading the word). Rory love Amy, respects her and has faith in her, but I don't know if you could say he worships her when compared to everyone elses faiths.
Rory waited two thousand years for her. When the Doctor offered him an alternative and actively tried to talk him out of it. It's hard for me to see how that's not "worship" if gambling or blogging conspiracy theories or, well, being the Girl Who Waited are, really.
And editing again because I suck and could make things clearer: what I'm saying is that I'm not convinced that they accomplished some bright line rule – that everyone else fit neatly in one category and Rory in the other. They deliberately made the notion of "faith" they were using quite vague so as to encompass a diverse group, but then also wanted to have one person who could see the exits so as to create a contrast so the Doctor could put it together. I get the value of that, plot-wise. But it's my impression that they worked from Amy, wanted the Doctor to have a room too, then made Rory the exception because unlike the others he's only there because he was also in the TARDIS. And then, because of that, it's because he didn't have this external "faith" notion.
And I'm just saying that, given his characterization and what fairly broad rules they offered as to what that meant, I just didn't buy it. *shrugs* But like I said, it didn't exactly ruin the episode for me.
I think it's the faith in "something guiding them, about to come save them" that marks the difference. Rory has infinite faith in Amy, but he's never waited for her to come save him. Actually, most of the time he's the one doing the saving. Rory believes in independent initiative, not in waiting for something miraculous to fall out of the sky. The difference – Amy: "The Doctor will save us"; Rita: "My religion will protect me"; Howie: "Knowledge of conspiracies will keep me safe from them"; Rory: "We should save ourselves".
This, exactly.
As other people have mentioned, I think it was "Beaky". Which is unfortunate because I really like Rory's nose.
Firstly…David Walliams! David Walliams! David Walliams! I fully believe that that is his real face and it is the rest of the time he is wearing a mask, and no one can convince me otherwise. That is all. 🙂
Secondly, I think this is the episode I've enjoyed the most of Eleven's run. Like Mark said, it could have been written by anyone, and for any doctor, and I think that is a great thing. I loved Rita and Howie and I think it made a big difference that I was interested in them as side characters and cared about them living, rather than just seeing them as plot devices for the Doctor and the Ponds to react to.
Also, was I the only one who saw a little bit of 1984 in this? First there was the 'chopper to chop of your head' thing, but also everyone having a specific room which contained their worst fears was similar to room 101 being the room everyone feared the most. I'll admit that these are probably typical horror tropes now so it may just be a coincidence, but still.
I thought of 1984 as soon as he mentioned the chopper and then I shivered because that's one of the things I remember best from 1984. Then that made me think of Room 101 and I decided this episode was probably going to creep me out. Which it did, up until I was too busy being upset.
re: Amy Pond/Williams
I get the feeling that Amy is still Pond rather than changing her name to Williams – although I did wonder why baby Melody was "just " Pond rather than Williams or Pond-Williams, but that's probably just down to Moffatt thinking "GENIUS, RIVER SONG= MELODY POND I AM SO CLEVER" rather than anyone thinking about how Amy might have come to that decision.
In the same way, Whithouse probably didn't even consider the implications of the Doctor dubbing Amy "Williams", which aside from the sexism issue, made me think "didn't anyone think to check back to see how Amy refers to herself? The Doctor would have known what she calls herself surely". I mean, The Doctor doesn't call Amy "Amelia" (well. unless he spots little Amy).
I had more things to say but have totally forgotten whatever point I had. I blame too much X-Files and switching to de-caf tea.
X-files will do that to a brain. I hate it when you forget the point you're making while you're making it. Especially if it happens when you speak up in a lecture with 300 people staring at you.
The writers not thinking about how Amy might come to that decision would be pretty bad if it were true actually since they of all people should be thinking of her mindset, especially when there's a line like that.
The annoying thing about that line is that it made me go 'huh, Williams?, Wha?' and totally took me out of the cute sad moment of the Doctor letting go of Amy. There's lots of ways they could have played the Doctor realizing Amy isn't little Amelia any more without referencing that's she's married.
Also, you know, children can have their mother's name instead of their father's? It's not AS common but it's certainly not as uncommon as people seem to think. Amy's reasoning works or me: Melody Pond sounds cooler than Melody Williams.
Oh yeah, I'm aware of that and I'm sure it must happen – it's just, at least where I live in the UK, I don't know anyone who chose to give their children the mother's maiden name where the parents are married.
Although I suppose, with the situation that Amy was in at the time she might not have thought she'd see Rory again so would there be any point in giving Melody his surname (other than obviously Rory is the love of her life blah blah blah other sentimental stuff etc)? One of my friends occasionally has issues when traveling because she has a different surname to her daughters and it would have made paperwork a lot easier if her kids had the same surname as her.
You keep loving the episodes I hated. And I've hated most of this season of Doctor Who, with the sole exception of the "Doctor's Wife".
These last few episodes especially — supposedly their abducted baby no longer matters to Amy & Rory, just because they know she'll grow up to be River Song (but hey they'll have a cool red car to make up for their missing baby).
Supposedly it's okay for the Doctor to lie to, betray, and effectively murder Amy, just because it's an *older* version of Amy.
The mystery about the "Silence" still makes no sense — and that's a plothole still from the *previous* season, the "Mel" revelation would only be remotely meaningful if we had seen her at least once before, certainly at the wedding and hopefully even before then…
Oh, this season has wholly been absolutely awful. Singular bright spot was The Doctor's Wife. All the rest of it can go dissolve itself into oblivion.
I won't argue the other points, but I thought it was pretty clearly stated that it was NOT okay for the Doctor to do what he did at the end of "The Girl Who Waited." I don't think it was celebrated or meant to be heroic at all.
Not in the least.
Agreed. It was pretty clearly shown to be a jerk ass thing for the Doctor to do.
As for the rest of the points…well, we've all got our own opinions. I'm not saying this season was perfect, but I've really, really enjoyed it.
I agree with a lot of your criticisms. I hated the Silence stuff and I think that the Melody plot has been a total disaster. HOWEVER, if I manage to divorce the last two episodes from the larger series arc, I really liked them. Standing alone, apart from the mess of the rest of the series, I thought they were both some really great stories.
This is pretty much how I feel. The season overall has been a mess but I still managed to enjoy some things.
I agree with you about how the Melody=River plotline has been handled, but if I may, can I just point out that she WAS at Amy and Rory's wedding? I know it's not the same thing as her being in Mels form, but she did walk past and lock eyes with Amy and leave her the diary.
I will also admit that the whole thing with the Silence is getting a little old and annoying. Moffat keeps dropping hints throughout the seasons of them being really important, yet we've gone for WEEKS without mention of them.
GOD THAT IS MY PERSONAL HEADCANON.
OMG I've been thinking thisseries that the TARDIS and Doctor Who has steadily gotten creepier with like… places that are bigger on the inside than on the outside. Now that it's so blatant I realize that this whole series has been an exercise in the House of Leaves hints in the show. It's killing me!
Do not read it in your bed late at night in the quiet with the closet slightly ajar.
DO NOT.
Best lines:
"Our anthem is Glory to [insert name here]."
"All I want to do is go home and be conquered and oppressed, is that too much to ask?!"
<3
I was with you on being anti-SyFy Being Human, but I saw the cast at Comic-Con and now I kind of want to squish them eternally. I mean, I'm not going to watch it or anything, but my hatred has dissipated.
I'm currently subscribing to a version of your Ganger theory, although I'm praying that it's not true since I've been enjoying the Eleven characterization we've been getting this season.
The SyFy BH cast is pretty, no doubt. I just love the original Being Human. Watched the pilot episode on SyFy (I still hate writing it that way) this past winter–honestly tried to give them a fair shot. But no. Just…no. I couldn't get on board.
And by "on board" I mean there was no Mitchell wearing fingerless gloves. TRAVESTY!
This is, hands-down, one of the most admirable things the Doctor has ever done. To drop his friends off, almost force them out of the TARDIS. To admit that not only does he screw his friends up, but he leads them to their deaths. To admit that even the act of taking a companion is vain.
It is all that, and more besides. And yet, you know that he has to take companions. Because this episode showed us something. Eleven is not a new Doctor, fresh and happy, if anyone ever thought he was. He just has been bottling up all that angst inside. It may be his last run-round with the Ponds. But he will find another friend. And one can hope that he doesn't make his new companion wait.
See more thoughts at our blog here.
I don't have much to say (except I wonder how long the Doctor has planned the Ponds' departure from the TARDIS because clearly he's had a plan in place for some time, which just makes it that much sadder, I think), but I ended up making a few gifs from the episode. Here are the… happier ones.
Have a little bit of sonicing.
<img src="http://i51.tinypic.com/2me9xsy.gif">
As a fan of Singin' in the Rain, I cannot pass up someone doing something like Don Lockwood on the lamppost.
<img src="http://i56.tinypic.com/depjt4.gif">
I think someone mentioned on the liveblog how perfect a facepalm this is.
<img src="http://i56.tinypic.com/243hu0n.gif">
But you never answer your phone!
<img src="http://i53.tinypic.com/28utv2a.gif">
Oh, Rory, if it were only that simple.
<img src="http://i56.tinypic.com/10nu61z.gif">
Ah, giffing, how I've missed you.
I don't think Amy's faith in the Doctor is particularly unique. It's just that for once it's treated as the bad thing. Rose was willing to stay on the Impossible Planet even though 1) the TARDIS had disappeared and 2) the Doctor was like 20 miles down without a way to get back up, because she believed he'd save her. Martha's belief in the Doctor saved the world. Donna was shown a world where her life was Total Crap without the Doctor. So why's Amy's faith a bad thing?
The answer is I don't think it was. The Doctor said he "sacrificed" her faith to allow the minotaur to die. You can only sacrifice something that is precious. So the question is why did he leave the Ponds at the end of the episode? Something he saw in room 11, maybe?
The faith the companions hold for the Doctor is always a good thing, in the sense that it enables Team TARDIS to save the world/universe. However as Martha puts it, the Doctor is like fire. It's wonderful, but you get burnt when you get too close (paraphrasing).
Of course the faith wasn't (and never is) a bad thing. But in order to save Amy's life, the Doctor needed to allow the minotaur to die (which is really what the minotaur wanted), and in order to do that, he needed Amy to stop having faith in him, thereby severing the "food line" to the minotaur.
I like how his arm gets caught between the door and the wardrobe (and how he has no hand)
Well, that IS his gun hand… 😉
Man. I loved Rita, but I figured she was going to die, and I knew that even if she didn't, she wouldn't be a companion. Her line that went something like, "You're doing it again" cemented that for me. She'd just called him out on his god complex, and he'd just compared the Ponds to children in front of a suitcase full of candy, so no way Rita was going to fall for it. Still, all of the sads that she died. 🙁
I'm really glad that this episode dealt with Amy's faith in the Doctor the way it did. It's been kind of… exhausting watching her forgive him time and again for all the shitty stuff that has happened to her and Rory, you know? I was glad that Rory at least showed some chutzpah in calling the Doctor out on his arrogance and the way he puts people in danger. I love Amy, and her bravery is astounding, but it's like watching a kid who repeatedly touches a stove and burns herself. What the Doctor did was definitely for the best, gut wrenching though it was.
When it's time for our new companion, I think I'd like a break from Amy's wide-eyed, innocent enthusiasm. It's so painful to watch the companions' lives ruined, their hopes dashed, their eyes opened to the potential horrors out there. I'd like to see somebody who's as hard-luck as the Doctor. Maybe someone who's been around the metaphorical block a couple of times as well. Somebody who would see the Doctor for what he is from the beginning, but would go with him anyway, because maybe together they can find some kind of happiness.
Just a couple of thoughts.
Favourite Line? Hmm. I'd have to go with; "I've stolen your childhood and led you by your hand to your death" because if that isn't poetic and sad as everything, I don't know what is.
Second goes to "I'm not a hero, I really am just a mad man with a box". It brings back the Eleventh Hour. Remember, the Doctor said that knowledge may someday save Amy's life…and it did. If she hadn't truly believed that the Doctor wasn't someone to have faith in, using those words, she'd be dead.
In another call back to a previous episode- your right, the parallel betweent he minotaur and the Doctor was obvious. Remember another obvious symettry between the Doctor and the monster-of-the-week? The Beast Below. But there the comparison was good- both the Time Lord and the Star Whale were "very old and very, very kind". Here they're monsters "soaked in the blood of a thousand innocents". Wow, how things have changed.
All in all, I really enjoyed this episode. Not a favourite, but it had great themes, characters (Rita, and god, that coward guy was hilarious), cinematography, and the end was wonderfully horrible. Oh, there were minor errors, but all in all, good fun.
EXCEPT THE END! Good Lord, I knew your end was coming, but I'm gonna miss you, Ponds…drop by once in a while, kay? *sniffs*
I have a thought…and I dont know if it is actually a theory..or, really, i dont know if it is a practical theory or a joke theory but…
What if Room 11 contained Rory Williams, glowering centurionly? I dont even remember what exactly what i was thinking but what if his rightous anger at/dissappointment in the Doctor has scared him more than he has let on? And the more I think about it the more ridiculous it sounds so i'm just gonna leave it there.
Lots of people are mentioning parallels so I wanted to mention my favorite (aka the only one I noticed on my own).
After Amy starts praising, as they are all running away, Amy turns back and says "He's beautiful" and has to be dragged away from the Minotaur just like Rory had to be from the Siren. Rory's was a beautiful hostile doctor who wanted to heal him while Amy's was a nice (when he wasnt hungry) Man-Bull who had no choice but to try to kill her. And they were both creatures inspired by Greek myths. Both episodes are even 3rd from each end. This has no plot conotations that I can see but it is pretty cool nonetheless.
One thought: the second Rita was asked to be a companion my only thought was:
HOLY GOD NO. IT'S ASTRID ALL OVER AGAIN.
And then she died.
So it WAS Astrid all over again… 😛
I was surprised that there were two very good episodes in a row (but that's because I had low expectations and wanted to get to Craig). Matt Smith is the youngest doctor, but in that scene when he's talking to Amy outside of that blue house, he just looked so old. Maybe he was scrunching up his face, but I felt that this doctor actually was the same doctor as all those past doctors.
Anyway, the remark about Amy Williams didn't bother me, and I'm coming from a background where my mom did not take my dad's last name, nor is it expected to for a woman to take a man's last name upon marriage.
Finally: an episode FOR ME
I'm so happy everyone likes Rita. And I mean, if she had to go I like how she went with dignity and how (unfortunately) her identity worked into what happened to her in a big way, so it wasn't just like hay let's kill off all the unimportant characters for no reason.
I hope they find an excuse to use the actor again though I thought she was aces.
Personally I think this season missed a lot of oppourtunities for the Ponds arc of development but I can't complain about how it ended, especially if Amy gets to join Martha in the club of companions that doesn't have a freakin horrific end .
Also I know it can't be just me thinking that this episode reminded me a lot of a certain AMAZING classic who serial from the 80s.
I think we may be thinking of the same serial…
from, I believe, the last season of the original run of the show?
Just before the end, yes.
Yeah, we are thinking of the same serial. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Whithouse took inspiration from that story for the related scene in this episode.
I thought Rory not having a room had to do not with a lack of faith overall, but more specifically a lack of faith in a controlling force–he has faith in people, I think, but not any guiding force over his life.
I was talking with a friend after watching the episode on Saturday, and we decided that we want Eleven, Rita, and Howie to be the next Team TARDIS. We'll, uh, we'll just pretend that the prison program simply SIMULATED their deaths and they were really just… still alive somewhere else, right?
Because then we'd get brilliant moments with the three of them in the middle of a crowd of hostile aliens, and the Doctor's uselessly sonicing and Rita is actually coming up with a plausible plan of escape and then they glance behind them and Howie is busy googling something on his smartphone.
DOCTOR: Howie, if you wouldn't mind…
RITA: Get off the internet, Howie!
HOWIE: But I just figured it out! It's all another conspiracy, guys…!
And then, every once in a while when we least expect it, there'd be an episode where Howie comes up with some crazy, unlikely conspiracy theory that actually turns out to be /right/ and it would blow everyone's minds.
So. Now I waaaaant.
They're just hiding. Along with Ross Jenkins from the Sontaran two-parter.
Exactly! See, there's a teleport beam that saves people who've been affected by the Doctor's life and then are about to die. Lynda-with-a-Y is there, too, and Astrid (what, thought she got turned into stars? Pfft. Teleport, I tell you!) And they're just hanging around at the other end of the teleport on some planet of good times waiting for the inevitable day when the Doctor shows up and they can have a real party.
Also, somehow skimmed over it before, but please don't use the word "crazy" here. Thank you.
Whoops, my mistake. Sorry about that, and thanks for the reminder!
Okay, I'm pretty sure no one said this but a theory my friends and I have been talking about is that this season is out of order. That God Complex takes place before The Impossible Astronaut, evidenced by the end of the episode where Amy and Rory have just moved in to their new house, abandoned by the Doctor. Impossible Astronaut starts with Amy and Rory have lived in their house for a few months after the Doctor leaves them. It's been some what obvious that the Doctor is never the same one, especially with the new coat and those weird scenes in Let's Kill Hitler. I will be very happy if Moffat has a mind-blowing plot line with subtle foreshadowing.
My favorite line is really more like a speech.
"Forget your faith in me. I took you with me because I was vain. Because I wanted to be adored. Look at you. Glorious Pond. The girl who waited for me. I'm not a hero. I really am just a madman in a box. It's time we saw each other as we really are. Amy Williams, it's time to stop waiting."
Matt Smith's FACE when he says this. HIS GODDAMNED FACE. Not only is that the moment when he breaks Amy's faith, but it's the moment where verbalizing these thoughts, these thoughts we've known he's had ever since Amy's Choice, makes him stop believing in himself. I totally wasn't expecting to cry in this episode AT ALL, and then this show has to go and pull that out of its hat.
AND I LOVED IT. I'm such a glutton for punishment.
By the way – I totally ended up smacking my head and going "Of course!" when I realized that the monster of the week was a minotaur. A labyrinth needs a minotaur. Once I realized that the whole minotaur myth was what they were going for here, it all clicked. I mean, I was already loving it, but it made me love it more. (Funnily enough, I've been meaning to start watching some classic Who, so the very next Who thing I watched after that episode was The Mind Robber. It was kind of a weird coincidence.)
I didn't think of House of Leaves at all, mainly because I've only heard of it and not read it, but also because House of Leaves is hardly the first story to riff on the minotaur myth. I seriously doubt anyone had it in mind when making this episode.
Given Moffat's on the record that he thinks the fact that women are expected to change their name post-marriage is bizarre(his wife certainly didn't!), that's particularly headdesk.
Am I the only one who thought the Doctor's speech to Amy wasn't just about breaking her faith in him? I think we were also being shown the Doctor breaking his faith in Amy. Or to put it another way, they finally saw each other for who they really were. The Doctor put it rather terribly when he called Amy "Amy Williams", because while I don't think it was intended to be sexist it has clearly rubbed the wrong way for some audiences. It is a rather succinct way of telling her he no longer sees her as the fairytale girl, Amelia Pond (evidenced by his image of her as the little girl still). I don't know how else Whithouse would have conveyed that point in a short line of dialogue though.
Anyway. Amy finally was able to see the Doctor as more than the raggedy man who can and will save her and Rory no matter what. The Doctor could finally see her as more than the little girl who travels along side a madman with a blue box.
Not that I'm implying that the Doctor's faith in his image of Amy was what could have fed the space Minotaur. It is clear the Doctor has a belief in something. Himself? Causality? Rose? (JK. ILU KAREN AND YOUR ROSE LOVE) Whatever it is I think it goes beyond belief in a companion.
Side point: How amazing and deliciously ironic was it that Amy told Gibbis (I had to look up the name of the man from Tivoli, I don't recall his name being said anywhere in the episode, but the TARDIS wiki has it!) that the Doctor would save them? She assured him he wouldn't die, she promised. She didn't reassure anybody else of that, and the rest of them died. D:
I am LOVING all of the episodes where the Doctor is finally being called out on his escapism and impact on companions. However it would be nice to have some sort of absolution for the Doctor soon. Right now the Doctor, as a character, is weighed heavily by the Time War and all subsequent events. All of that has led to a large amount of guilt and angst and self-loathing. I think it might be nice to put some kind of closure on what the Doctor has done so that we can move forward and tell new tales without constantly needing to bring into context past events. Maybe I want what classic Doctor Who had? I don't know, I haven't taken the time to watch Classic Who, but I get the impression that we didn't have this large amount of character angst sitting on the Doctor's shoulders. Still, what I'm asking for would be ridiculously tricky to do and I don't know how somebody would pull it off without the entire thing veering into ultra-cheese territory.
Even though Rory didn't fit the arbitrary faith rules the space prison had set up, I think Rory still has one "ultimate fear" just like the rest of the people in this episode. I can't even being to imagine how awful the contents of that room would be. I can't even wrap my head around what my room would be if I was somehow thrown into that scenario. My greatest fear is ceasing to exist because I don't want to stop experiencing things. How do you express something like that in an enclosed space? My brain hurts thinking about it.
THEORY ABOUND
My woke-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-convinced theory is that this whole thing is back to front, and we have just seen at the end of this episode why the Ponds were at home at the start of TIA. It was all making so much sense, I had it all plotted out, starting the series chronogically from the Ponds POV, with episode 9, then 10, 11 and back to 1, until I remembered Amy made the comment about River at the end of this week, the ONLY mention this half of the series, mind. Could some Silence-memory tricks explain this away? Maybe. They could get to America having forgotten all about Melody due to the effect of the Silence, and be stuck in this weird series-long timeloop, constantly learning about River/giving birth to River/rinse and repeat, until ol' Doc comes along and breaks the cycle somehow.
For me, it makes a lot of sense from the Doctor's POV as well, although I'm not completely sure why he would choose to invite them to this picnic after vowing not to put them in danger again, but then he hasn't 'done' the picnic yet, so he doesn't know exactly how it all goes down I suppose.
I'll let it stew further.
Ahh! So that's how they afforded such a nice house…
Pressed to come up with a concrete fear, I usually say flying sharks. …No, it's just hit me this instant. Having nobody at all listen to me.
Here's something that's been bugging me. I never got the fairy tale thing they keep talking about. The doctor would say "Amelia Pond, that's a weird name" and I'd say "No, it's a name. What's wrong with the name?" And so forth, etc. Which isn't to say her life's NOT a fairy tale. They've put in all the things, I have no doubt. I guess I feel that they talked about it before I had a chance to see it for myself. So, every time they say something about the fairy tale, or the name, or whatever, I'm too distracted by the words. I never got a chance to arrive at the feeling that I assume they are trying to convey.
Bah! I'm rambling. I overslept.
I'm not going to stand by and let a comment that names nobody listening as a greatest fear have no replies and no thumbsups!
I think the fairy tale is that a handsome prince comes and finds the otherwise-insignificant peasant girl and sweeps her away to a life of adventure and wonder and romance. The Doctor has definitely played the role of the prince in that fairy tale, no?
No, the Doctor's the wise, mad wizard. It's Rory who's the prince. 🙂
Well said : )
Love your comment. And its so true. He does sad soo well.
Word to this.
WOW. What an episode. I was really, really hoping Rita would survive, but haha, NOPE.
Unfortunately, I haven't finished House of Leaves yet – I left the country about 4 chapters in and I've had to order it from the school library. A shame, because I was getting into it and it sounds like exactly the kind of thing I'd like (also I saw one of the pages towards the end and it had DIAGONAL TEXT?! awesome)
Also! Currently the proud owner of a series 5 soundtrack for my birthday 😀 DON'T HATE, I LOVE THIS MUSIC OKAY. And, because I notice these kinds of things:
The music was amazing as always, even the elevator music that wouldn't shut off, which I kind of thought would be significant at the end but apparently not. Especially loved the 'running desperately around wacky corridors' parts, something about that was really funny to me. It was mostly new music, I think, but I heard a variation of "The Sun's Gone Wibbly" and a nice reprise of the wonderful "The Life and Death of Amy Pond" at the end (when the Doctor's breaking her faith, appropriately enough). Also, I could be wrong, but I don't think I've heard ANY "I Am the Doctor" for the past, like, 4 episodes? Not that it's good or bad, just noticing.
I can't remember who said it, but I totally agree that the moment on the holodeck when Amy asks him what he believes in was, in retrospect, one of the most heartbreaking things of all. Just like in "Amy's Choice", he refuses to answer and distracts her with something else to cover up the fact that he basically lost faith in himself too. And that last shot of him alone in the TARDIS reminded me of the end of…Journey's End, I think, where he's alone again too. *sniff* WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME DOCTOR WHO.
Yes, exactly. If the Doctor hadn't broken his faith in himself the Minotaur would simply have switched targets frm Amy to the Doctor.
Although then I have to wonder why Gibbis wasn't chosen first. Curse you logic. You know what? I don't care, this and TGWW are still my favorite episodes, followed closely by the Doctor's Wife.
I thought the music was going to be significant too!
La so late to this party that I doubt anyone will see this comment! But I have FEELINGS which I wish to articulate in my usual poorly-fashioned manner!
Okay. So. Generally I enjoyed this episode. I liked the concept of a hotel with your darkest fear inside the room and LOVED trying to read everyone's fears on the pictures on the walls – bless the Sontaran and the person with the fear of Plymouth XD Mine would totally be a giant spider, FYI. Or maybe Doctor Who being cancelled forever, IDK. SOMETHING TERRIBLE THAT WOULD LEAVE ME SHAKING AND LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY REGARDLESS OF THE MINOTAUR.
I liked Rita as a character, but wasn't a fan of the way the actress played her. I don't know, I just felt she wasn't the most fabulous actress ever and with so many fabulous actors around her she stood out to me as not quite up to scratch. But I loved the character and I LOVED that she was Muslim and I was really sad she died because she was awesome. Also HOWIE oh Howie I am so sad you died and now I am freaked out that I'm going to be busy blogging one day (OR ON TWITTER actually wow thinking about it this series really takes the piss out of people who social network :P) and suddenly I'll be in a scary hotel getting chased by giant spiders. Eek.
But basically most of my feelings are on the end of this episode and on Amy and Rory and the Doctor. There must have been a person in the Doctor's room, because he said 'of course it's you' or something like that. Whom that person is…well most likely himself after the events of the Dream Lord (although that was more about hating himself rather than fearing himself) but maybe it was someone else. I am sure we will never know.
Okay. Now the thing I have most feelings on – Amy and her room and the things which happened. It was a beautiful scene of emotion and sadness and in the context of the episode it was perfect and wonderful and I cried and it was lovely. But if you take it in the context of the series…it just doesn't make that much sense for the thing Amy has most faith in to be the Doctor. It just runs kind of contrary to her entire arc thus far, which has been about the Doctor trying to RESTORE her faith in him. In The Eleventh Hour he has to spend the whole apple/tie-in-door scene convincing her to trust him 'believe for twenty minutes'. Then in the Weeping Angels episode she says 'you don't always tell the truth' and the Doctor from Big Bang has to try and convince her to trust him just this once.
Maybe I could say that after the events of The Big Bang Amy has had her faith in the Doctor restored, she believes he's always going to come back for her and save her. But I just don't feel like much has shown that to me. So far this series he's nearly always done something wrong to upset her and/or kill her. He dies in the first episode and won't tell them anything, and then he won't talk to either her or Rory about the possibility of her being Flesh. He sends them back to the TARDIS which almost leads to their deaths in The Doctor's Wife and then he suddenly tells her that she's actually Flesh and she goes from being in the TARDIS to going into labour. He does then rescue her but he also loses her baby and she's pissed off about that, and then he fails to ever find her. He won't tell Amy or Rory about George but sends them away, and well…if either Amy or Rory had much faith in the Doctor after Girl Who Waited I'd be surprised. Then again I suppose young Amy got the outcome she wanted and missed the Doctor locking her older self out of the TARDIS, so perhaps we can let that one slide.
But basically, as far as I can tell, we've never been shown that Amy has much faith in the Doctor at all. She likes him, she feels he's her best friend, she loves travelling with him. But until this episode I would never have said that the thing Amy had faith in above all else was that the Doctor would come back for her every time. Because that has consistently been shown not to be the case. So although within the episode that was wonderful and beautiful, for me it just clashes horribly with everything we've seen up until this point.
And then the Doctor decides that he's put Amy and Rory at risk one too many times. I have…so many mixed feelings about this. Overriding is my 'NO NO NO DON'T SEND THEM AWAY I LOVE THEM I WANT THEM ON MY TV PLEASE NO' reaction, which we can probably ignore for it being the fangirl within. I can understand why the Doctor did it, but it just…it upsets me that Amy and Rory didn't get any agency in it at all. The Doctor decides that he keeps putting them at risk and it's awful and so therefore they have to go. I think Rory and Amy have probably realised it's dangerous, but Amy at least seems to be completely fine with that. And okay, it's his TARDIS so he has the right to say who comes with him, but it just bugs me that Amy and Rory don't get given a chance to object. But they seem to understand, so maybe it's okay. Rory is certainly happy about it, and Amy gets it. So although I wish he'd asked them or let them decide for themselves whether they want to keep risking their lives, I am generally okay with it.
But then comes my other issue. And it's kind of unimportant in the big scheme of things but it really upsets me. And this is about what the Doctor does when he drops them off. Amy and Rory have a home of their own. We see it in Impossible Astronaut, and presumably it's where they go back to after Good Man Goes to War for the summer before Let's Kill Hitler. Some people have theorised that it's the same house, but the exteriors don't match up and anyway Amy references her daughter at the end of this episode, so it has to be after GMGtW. So has the Doctor just arbitrarily decided that their home isn't good enough for them? That they shouldn't be living there? Amy clearly has no idea where they are when they get out of the TARDIS; she doesn't recognise the area because she thinks they might not be on Earth. Which implies it's not Leadworth, or wherever they were living before. So now Amy and Rory have a random house in a random street possibly miles away from where they want to be. Where they've chosen to be. I know it's a tiny and ridiculously insignificant point but if you haven't noticed I'm big on personal agency. And what's more, having moved around a lot of times in my life, I am really big on the concept of home. It's important to me to have a home which you make your own, which you have chosen yourself because it is where you want it to be and what you want it to be. Getting dropped off at a random house in the middle of a strange town is something I've had to do a lot of times in my life and it is Not Fun. So it just…it bugs me.
But overall, I did love the episode, honest! It was clever and fabulous and the secondary characters were all awesome and actual three-dimensional people. (Well, Howie wasn't massively. But he was One Of Us so I feel kinship!) And the ending, even though it was massively, massively flawed, was still beautiful and heartrending and tragic. And I really hope it is not the last we shall see of my beloved Amy and Rory. I'm not ready to say goodbye.
No, I think it is the home they were living at the beginning of the series. I think Amy's just shocked they've returned. The street looks similar.
I really like your analysis of the episode. While the Doctor has a history of disregarding his companions' choices, he made the right decision in this case.
As for Amy's faith, the Doctor DID sacrifice himself so she could grow up with parents and get married to Rory without anything getting in the way. And then he came back through her belief! That's how powerful Amy's faith is: she believed in the Doctor so powerfully that she brought him back into existence. But that blind faith is now hindering instead of helping her. It's because of the Doctor that Amy was abducted and turned into Flesh; because of the Doctor, her baby was taken from her.
The Doctor's 'God Complex' reminds me very much of Harry's 'saving-people-thing.' I love it when HP and DW collide, as they always will. 😉
He's survived worse. 😉
REALLY obvious dummy. XD
Another film I've never actually seen all the way through.
I'm a little annoyed with all the "it's for the best" sentiment about the Ponds leaving the Tardis. AMY gets to choose what's best for her, and maybe she thinks it's best to die on an adventure. I don't like it that the Doctor chooses for her.
If the Doctor didn't want to travel with them anymore, then that would be one thing. But he explicitly does want to travel with them, and is making a noble sacrifice to save them. Bleh. I understand that the Doctor considers himself morally responsible for bad things that happen to people on the Tardis. But the fact that he feels a God-like responsibility doesn't mean he's right to do so. They're adults, they can choose. They can even choose a life of excitement that may end in fiery death.
Amy just realized the truth that the Doctor is not her savior. The show should have let her choose whether she would stay on the Tardis, now that she understands the Doctor won't save her if she gets in trouble.
And they are the PONDS, not the Williams.
God, this. And normally I'd chalk it up to his poor judgement but this comes off the back of an entire series of him deciding what to do for her.
AMY gets to decide what's worth the risk. AMY gets to decide if she wants protecting. AMY gets to decide if she wants to go back to the kind of life that, tbh, she doesn't seem to want.
And Amy gets to decide if she stays a Pond, and nobody gets to pull that 'it's to symbolise how she's a grown up now, because when women get married and take the ~proper name they're adults' BS on her.
I missed the episode when it went out (and had to catch up with it on iPlayer later) because I was in Plymouth for the weekend. Mostly wandering about muttering 'it's all changed'… I went to university there about twenty years ago. Drake Circus and Portland Place are almost unrecognisable.
That line made me almost choke on a cup of tea (every episode is a crisis; of course I needed tea).
I don't think the Doctor saw himself in Room 11. I think he saw his companions dying, and it all being his fault.
My face when those goddamn dummies showed up:
<img src="http://chatroulettegifs.com/black_guy_eating_cereal.gif">
I HATE VENTRILOQUISM.
I really can't agree on the idea Amy's ending was OK or somehow good storytelling, I have to say. She ends a series where the Doctor has routinely lied to her and made decisions for her (up to and including decisions about her own body) with him *deciding* for her that she has to leave and then there's the terrible 'Williams' thing. (Really, Doctor Who? You're going to symbolise her maturity by having her use her husband's name? Really. You see no problem symbolising maturity with a woman being told to settle down with no say of her own by having her give up the name she chose to keep?)
By contrast Martha is the only companion to leave under her own agency.
I am so disappointed with how they chose to end Amy's story.