| Doctor Who character | |
|---|---|
| Amelia "Amy" Pond | |
| Affiliated | Eleventh Doctor |
| Species | Human |
| Home planet | Earth |
| Home era | 21st century |
| First appearance | "The Eleventh Hour"[1] |
| Portrayed by | Karen Gillan Caitlin Blackwood (young Amelia)[2] |
Amelia Jessica "Amy" Pond[3] is a fictional character portrayed by Karen Gillan in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Amy is a companion of the series protagonist the Doctor, in his eleventh incarnation,[4][5] Amy's storylines have focused on her relationship with Rory Williams, whom she eventually marries; in the sixth series, Amy gives birth to their daughter, Melody, who is revealed to be recurring character River Song.
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Amelia Pond is introduced in the first episode of the 2010 series,[6][7] "The Eleventh Hour" as a seven year old girl living with only her aunt, Sharon.[8] She asks the Doctor to investigate an unusual crack in her wall, but he is interrupted by the TARDIS' cloister bell; he promises Amelia that he will return in five minutes, but is inadvertently late by twelve years. In the intervening period, the Doctor is believed by Amelia's family and friends to be her imaginary friend. She is treated by four psychiatrists as a result of her insistence that the "Raggedy Doctor" is real, biting them for insisting that the Doctor is imaginary.[8] When the Doctor returns, Amy is nineteen years old and working as a kissogram.[8] Amy then helps the Doctor save Earth from the Atraxi, but due to the TARDIS' unstable state, does not see the Doctor again for a further two years, when she is twenty-one and he invites her to travel with him; she accepts on the condition that the Doctor return her by the following morning, not revealing that her wedding is the next day.[8]
At the end of Flesh and Stone, Amy reveals to the Doctor her upcoming marriage to Rory and, in a moment of pre-wedding jitters, attempts to seduce him. The Doctor then finds Rory and takes him and Amy to 16th century Venice, after which Rory continues travelling with them. In "Amy's Choice", Amy is pressured to resolve her conflicted feelings for the Doctor and Rory and realises the depth of her love for Rory. At the end of "Cold Blood", Rory is killed and then erased from history by the cracks in the universe. Because he is part of Amy's own time-line, she ceases to remember him.[9] The Doctor takes Amy to her favourite places to lessen his guilt about Rory's loss and in 19th century France, Amy forms a close friendship with famed painter Vincent Van Gogh, in which Van Gogh expresses romantic interest. In "The Pandorica Opens", Rory reappears in 102 AD as a Roman centurion. He triggers Amy's memories of him, but as she remembers, it is revealed that the centurion Rory is actually an Auton—a duplicate of living plastic—created from Amy's memories to trap the Doctor. Rory's consciousness tries to fight his programming, but he is compelled to shoot and kill her. Amy's body is placed in the Pandorica, which as a "perfect prison", will keep any occupant alive. Auton Rory protects the Pandorica while Amy is kept in suspended animation until she is restored and released by an alternative version of her younger self in 1996.
Once the Doctor realises that Amy is connected to the cracks in the universe and that they originate from a temporal explosion on the date of her wedding, he reminds Amy of her house— too big for only her and her aunt. Amy then realises that her family had been erased by the crack in her wall and she had forgotten them. The Doctor encourages her to remember them, as her exposure to the crack in her wall made her subconscious memory resistant. After he uses the Pandorica to re-boot the universe, the Doctor encounters the sleeping Amelia on the night they met. He tells her the story of how he borrowed the TARDIS from his own people, and how it is "old and new," and "big and small" and "the bluest blue that there is", before stepping into the crack in her wall to seal the cracks for good. Amy awakes on her wedding day and is reunited with her parents. She marries Rory, and at the reception she notices River Song's diary of encounters with the Doctor, now blank. The sight of the diary stirs Amy's latent memories; she declares that her "Raggedy Doctor" was real, and her memory of him restores him to reality. After their wedding reception, Amy and Rory decide to join him once again. They are dropped off at a "honeymoon planet" between the end of "The Big Bang" and the start of Death of the Doctor. The couple continue their honeymoon aboard an interstellar cruise ship which the Doctor saves from crashing into a populated planet.[10]
In the 2011 series, after an unspecified period of travelling with the Doctor, Amy and Rory return to the present and resume a typical domestic routine until Amy receives an anonymous "TARDIS blue" invitation to the Utah desert. There, she and Rory reunite with the Doctor (aged nearly two hundred years since they left the TARDIS) and fellow invitee River Song, before witnessing the Doctor's death at the hand of an astronaut. They then discover the older Doctor also invited a younger version of himself, with whom they travel to 1969 Washington, D.C. to investigate strange occurrences involving the Silence, an alien race who cannot be remembered after they are encountered.[11] While there, Amy informs the Doctor she's pregnant before mistakenly shooting a little girl in an astronaut suit in an attempt to save the future Doctor's life. When the Doctor questions Amy later about the pregnancy, she insists she was wrong and further investigation by the Doctor is inconclusive. In "Day of the Moon", Amy finds strange pictures of the astronaut girl in an old and rundown orphanage, and is thoroughly shocked to find herself holding a newborn baby in one of the pictures. She then re-encounters the little girl, followed by two Silence. After, Amy is kidnapped, only to be rescued by the Doctor, Rory, and River some days later.
Throughout the course of the first six episodes, Amy is plagued by strange visions of a woman in an eye-patch appearing sporadically and claiming that "she must be dreaming". In "The Almost People" it is revealed that the Amy present is actually an avatar version created with "the Flesh" animated by Amy's consciousness, which the Doctor destroys and sets off with Rory to find the real Amy, who is going into labour.[12] Amy gives birth to her daughter Melody Pond, who, in "A Good Man Goes to War", is kidnapped by the eye-patched woman, Madame Kovarian, and replaced by a "Flesh" version. It is revealed at the end of the episode that Melody Pond is River Song's real name, and that she is Amy and Rory's daughter.[13] Let's Kill Hitler reveals how Melody had regenerated into Mels, the childhood friend of Amy and Rory, whom Amy named her daughter after, and does not reveal her true identity until she regenerates into her River Song incarnation after being shot by Hitler. The episode also reveals how Amy and Rory fell in love. In "The God Complex" the Doctor has to break Amy's faith in him after he discovers that she is the reason they are brought to a prison for a being that kills by feeding on faith. The Doctor says goodbye to Rory and Amy after giving them a house and car.[14] In "Closing Time" Amy makes a cameo appearance and it is revealed that she has become a model and the face of Petrichor perfume.[15]
In "The Wedding of River Song," Amy leads a secret organisation, with Rory as her subordinate, and reunites the Doctor and River in an alternate reality after River adverted the Doctor's death. Amy remembers all of her past experiences with the Doctor but cannot remember Rory. Amy finally remembers him when she saves Rory from the Silence, and murders Madame Kovarian for taking away Melody. Reality is restored when the Doctor and River marry, with Amy and Rory at home, having had no further contact with the Doctor since "The God Complex," but still remembering the alternate events. Later River reveals to Amy that the Doctor did not die in Utah and is in fact alive.[16]
In December 2011, the BBC's Steven Moffat confirmed that Amy and Rory would be leaving the series in 2012 in "heartbreaking" circumstances. [17]
Doctor Who executive producer and head writer Steven Moffat came up with the name for the character.[18] In an interview with Kat Angus of Dose magazine, Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies commented on the character, "So when the new series starts next year with the new Doctor, you don’t just get Matt Smith coming on, you also get Karen Gillan as his new companion. I think Amy Pond will be hugely welcomed, because ... I think he does need someone. A lot of these stories prove that. There’s been a huge, empty space on the TARDIS for a long time now and I think her arrival will be every bit as big as Matt’s. It’s really exciting, and everything I’ve heard about Karen is that she’s brilliant. It’s one of our plans that I’m most pleased with, actually. We’ve held off on companions for a long time, so you’ll get rewarded with a great, big, strong character in Amy Pond, when she arrives. I think that plan’s been good."[19] Gillan revealed in an interview with the Radio Times that she was to play Amy Pond with her natural Scottish accent,[20] though she auditioned for the part in both her natural accent and with an English one.[20] Gillan has commented that she feels using her Scottish accent better fits the character.[20]
Gillan, like some of her predecessors in the role of the Doctor's companion, had already appeared on Doctor Who in a smaller role.[5] Gillan previously portrayed a soothsayer in the episode "The Fires of Pompeii", which aired in 2008.[5]
Steven Moffat said of the casting for the character, "We saw some amazing actresses for this part. But when Karen came through the door, the game was up - she was funny, clever, gorgeous and sexy. Or Scottish, which is the quick way of saying it. A generation of little girls will want to be her. And a generation of little boys will want them to be her too."[21][22] Doctor Who executive producer and drama chief at BBC Wales Piers Wenger concurred, "We knew Karen was perfect for the role the moment we saw her. She brought an energy and excitement to the part that was just fantastic."[5]
Gillan commented she was happy to have been cast in the role, and stated, "I am absolutely over the moon at being chosen to play the Doctor's new companion. The show is such a massive phenomenon that I can't quite believe I am going to be a part of it. Matt Smith is an incredible actor and it is going to be so much fun to act alongside him – I just can't wait to get started."[5] A young Amelia was played by Gillan's real-life relative, 10-year-old Caitlin Blackwood. The actresses met for the first time on the set of the show after Gillan urged producers to let her cousin play the part, though Blackwood still had to undergo auditions.[23][24]
In October 2009, scenes with the character were shot in Cardiff alongside the Eleventh Doctor; with the character portrayed in a police costume.[25][26] These were the first scenes shot including the character.[27] In early December 2009, scenes were filmed including the character, with shooting taking place on location in Croatia.[28] The actors were dressed in period costume from a few centuries ago.[28] "The scripts are brilliant and working alongside Karen and the rest of the crew is an inspiration because their work ethic and passion for the show is so admirable," said the actor for the Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith, on working on the new series.[6]
With the premiere of "The Eleventh Hour", two viewers anonymously quoted in The Telegraph complained that Amy's character was too "sexy" for a family programme like Doctor Who. Executive producer Piers Wenger stated that Amy was intended to be "feisty and outspoken and a bit of a number. Amy is probably the wildest companion that the Doctor has travelled with, but she isn’t promiscuous."[29]
In an online poll, with 3,000 participants, taken in late 2010, Amy Pond was listed as the fifth most popular companion.[30]
The character has gone on to be referenced in popular culture. American supernatural drama Supernatural''s seventh season "The Girl Next Door" (2011), a character played by Jewel Staite operates under the alias Amy Pond. Digital Spy felt the Doctor Who reference was "rather random",[31] while IGN "loved" the shoutout.[32]
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| Series | Series 5 | Specials | Series 6 | Specials | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Episodes | 203 | 204 | 205 | 206A / B | 207 | 208 | 209A / B | 210 | 211 | 212A / B | 213 | S/T | 214A / B | 215 | 216 | 217A / B | 218A / B | 219 | 220 | 221 | 222 | 223 | 224 |
| Companions | Amy | Craig | Amy | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Rory | Rory | Rory | |||||||||||||||||||||
| River | River | River | |||||||||||||||||||||