Amy’s Choice is curious story about surprise surprise… making a choice. Every series has a cheap episode, one where there are not a great deal of special effects and this is the one of those episodes. Written by Men Behaving Badly creator Simon Nye, we get a story which lead a lot of (stupid) people to think their would be jokes about male body parts and larger and women but for those who have an IQ higher than a Big Brother contestant we knew it wasn’t going to be anything like that.
The main villain in this story was the Dreamlord who is essentially the modern day Celestial Toymaker. He doesn’t actually have any power but is having fun causing chaos with the Doctor and his team. There are two worlds that are seen in this story. The first is in ‘Upper’ Leadworth where its inhabited with extras from ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ where Amy is pregnant and Rory has a stupid ponytail. The other is in the TARDIS where they are powerless and heading towards a cold planet where the cold is slowly starting to affect everyone in the TARDIS. The premise of the story is that they have to choose what is real and what is a dream.
I shouldn’t write this but the bit where Rory hits that old woman with a plank of wood and her falling over was quite funny. As was the old woman who fell off the roof onto the floor. Don’t know if that was intentional humour but I would find it funnier if it wasn’t. I thought the idea of the Dreamlord was a brilliant one, it was very sinister and the way that it kept jumping from Upper Leadworth to the TARDIS was very Celestial Toymaker-like. My only issue was the idea that the Dreamlord was the dark side of the Doctor’s personality. The only reason it started was that a few specks of Pysic pollen got into the Time Rota and heated up seems a little to me a bit weak but ultimately this is a minor foible to an other great story.
The three main cast were all on top form. Matt Smith was on brilliant form and his scenes with the Dreamlord were very enjoyable. His trying to work out what was going on was one of the highlights of the episode. The realisation that the Dreamlord was him and that reflection the Doctor saw at the end of the episode was absolutely brilliant. Arthur Darvill is slowly starting to become the surprise piece of casting of the series. In this story he was very good and I don’t know whether its because I’ve become detached from it or whether its because of Darvill and Gillan but I find myself not really bothered by it. Whereas Rose and Mickey and Martha and her Doctor boyfriend did bother me because it because it seemed to distract me from the story whereas in this one I found it be charming and likeable. I also found Karen Gillan to be brilliant, she spent most of the episode with a bump but the choice subconsciously seemed to be for her. To choose between travelling with the Doctor where there is a sense of danger and not quite sure whats going on or to go with Rory, Mr Reliable but actually quite dull. Gillan did a great job in trying to decide between the two but it was when Rory was killed in the Summer Wine version that her decision became clear with her wanting to be with Rory. But it was the Dreamlord that I was most impressed with. Toby Jones played the role brilliantly, he brought a genuine terror and sense that he could actually beat the Doctor. Especially the bit in the Butchers when he basically corners the Doctor with the old people.
Amy’s Choice always had the potential to be a very good episode and to me it lived up to that. The drama was always top notch and whilst the scenes in Upper Leadworth were enjoyable and dramatic it was the scenes in the TARDIS which made this episode. The clostrophobic elements of Inside the Spaceship and the Mind Robber were in evidence here and this was a great stand alone episode.
The main villain in this story was the Dreamlord who is essentially the modern day Celestial Toymaker. He doesn’t actually have any power but is having fun causing chaos with the Doctor and his team. There are two worlds that are seen in this story. The first is in ‘Upper’ Leadworth where its inhabited with extras from ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ where Amy is pregnant and Rory has a stupid ponytail. The other is in the TARDIS where they are powerless and heading towards a cold planet where the cold is slowly starting to affect everyone in the TARDIS. The premise of the story is that they have to choose what is real and what is a dream.
I shouldn’t write this but the bit where Rory hits that old woman with a plank of wood and her falling over was quite funny. As was the old woman who fell off the roof onto the floor. Don’t know if that was intentional humour but I would find it funnier if it wasn’t. I thought the idea of the Dreamlord was a brilliant one, it was very sinister and the way that it kept jumping from Upper Leadworth to the TARDIS was very Celestial Toymaker-like. My only issue was the idea that the Dreamlord was the dark side of the Doctor’s personality. The only reason it started was that a few specks of Pysic pollen got into the Time Rota and heated up seems a little to me a bit weak but ultimately this is a minor foible to an other great story.
The three main cast were all on top form. Matt Smith was on brilliant form and his scenes with the Dreamlord were very enjoyable. His trying to work out what was going on was one of the highlights of the episode. The realisation that the Dreamlord was him and that reflection the Doctor saw at the end of the episode was absolutely brilliant. Arthur Darvill is slowly starting to become the surprise piece of casting of the series. In this story he was very good and I don’t know whether its because I’ve become detached from it or whether its because of Darvill and Gillan but I find myself not really bothered by it. Whereas Rose and Mickey and Martha and her Doctor boyfriend did bother me because it because it seemed to distract me from the story whereas in this one I found it be charming and likeable. I also found Karen Gillan to be brilliant, she spent most of the episode with a bump but the choice subconsciously seemed to be for her. To choose between travelling with the Doctor where there is a sense of danger and not quite sure whats going on or to go with Rory, Mr Reliable but actually quite dull. Gillan did a great job in trying to decide between the two but it was when Rory was killed in the Summer Wine version that her decision became clear with her wanting to be with Rory. But it was the Dreamlord that I was most impressed with. Toby Jones played the role brilliantly, he brought a genuine terror and sense that he could actually beat the Doctor. Especially the bit in the Butchers when he basically corners the Doctor with the old people.
Amy’s Choice always had the potential to be a very good episode and to me it lived up to that. The drama was always top notch and whilst the scenes in Upper Leadworth were enjoyable and dramatic it was the scenes in the TARDIS which made this episode. The clostrophobic elements of Inside the Spaceship and the Mind Robber were in evidence here and this was a great stand alone episode.
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