Written by Simon Nye
Directed by Catherine Morshead
“If we’re going to die, let’s die looking like a Peruvian folk band.”
On the outside, Amy’s Choice is an acidic head trip of well directed creepiness, full of sparkling jokes, and framed by the sight of very old people in canes and walkers stalking the countryside, dripping with menace. It’s slick and sophisticated and adult. It’s genuinely frightening, and genuinely funny. It’s a triumphant introduction for writer Simon Nye, best known for his famous 1990s sitcom creation Men Behaving Badly. Like the creators & writers of the American series The Big Bang Theory, it’s a showcase of great writing, informed by the delicious fun of being a sci-fi/fantasy fanboy.
On in the inside, Amy’s Choice is a savage, spirit-shredding critique of the Doctor, Amy & Rory. It’s full of pointed observations about the Doctor’s contradictions, Amy’s indecisiveness, and Rory’s inadequacies. From pony tails to suburban hell to cosmic itinerant, it takes them apart and examines what makes them tick in every detail. It comes to some surprising conclusions…and a bit of ominous foreshadowing.
In other words, it’s a dramatist’s AND a psychologist’s field day.
I find it very hard to review the episode, as nothing at all really happens…yet it feels like EVERYTHING that could possibly happen IS happening, on a monumental scale. Then again, that’s what a personal crisis feels like: the end of the world, no matter what the rational mind tries to say otherwise.
Considering the revelation of WHO the Dream Lord is (SHH…spoilers…), the Doctor’s journey becomes the darkest part of the episode. Every question anyone has ever asked or speculated about is shoved in his face, or that of his companions, with the force of an automobile accident. Why doesn’t he tell Amy his name? Why does he never visit his friends after they leave him? Why…and this is the big one, considering the episodes staggering revelation…is he full of so much self-loathing?
“What is the point of you,” asks a distraught Amy…and that, more than anything else, is the flip side to the general question of “Doctor…who?” It’s also an invitation to explore Matt Smith’s acting talents as never before. There are moments when his eyes do all the work…and it sends chills down the spine.
More than any episode of Doctor Who in years, this is an episode that must be experienced; writing about it simply exposes the inadequacy of words to describe the experience - the equivalent to dancing about architecture. Adjectives are meaningless for a story on this scale - mind-boggling, yet so terribly intimate. In every respect, it’s an incisive analysis of the soul of Doctor Who: the program, the characters, the ethos…and it’s completely wonderful. Frankly, it leaves me speechless.
9
