Comments | dwrewatch: Amy's Choice discussion questions

_thirty2flavors in dwrewatch

Amy's Choice discussion questions

Jan 16, 2011 22:16

With a bit of delay we hit my favourite episode of s5, Amy's Choice. In which Amy has an imaginary baby, Rory has a ponytail, the Doctor has some issues with self-loathing, and everyone wears ponchos.

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discussion, 5x07 amy's choice

Comments 71

fauxkaren January 17 2011, 05:11:26 UTC

1. I never thought the Leadworth dream was real. To me it always seemed obvious that at least that one was the fake one. I didn't see the Tardis one as being fake too though.

2. YES. I love the Dream Lord. It's the closest we ever get in series 5 to Time Lord Angst(c) from Eleven. lol. I just really love the idea of the Doctor's subconscious fucking with him and bring up his ~issues.

4. Honestly, still a bit confused. I mean, Amy says she loves him and is choosing him etc etc, but idk. It still didn't quite feel sincere to me.

johnmayergirl23 January 17 2011, 15:37:07 UTC

It's the closest we ever get in series 5 to Time Lord Angst(c) from Eleven. lol. I just really love the idea of the Doctor's subconscious fucking with him and bring up his ~issues.

THIS, lol. I love the idea of his subconscious being like FINE, IF YOU WON'T ANGST AROUND LIKE YOU USED TO, I'LL CREATE SOME PARALLEL WORLDS. TAKE OFF THAT BOWTIE AND PUT ON SOME SNOW PATROL, IT'S GONNA BE A LONG NIGHT.

sherrilina January 17 2011, 18:40:59 UTC

FINE, IF YOU WON'T ANGST AROUND LIKE YOU USED TO, I'LL CREATE SOME PARALLEL WORLDS. TAKE OFF THAT BOWTIE AND PUT ON SOME SNOW PATROL, IT'S GONNA BE A LONG NIGHT.

LOLOL Ten's ~revenge! :p

_thirty2flavors January 17 2011, 23:08:32 UTC

LOL IKR? Like of course I love the episode where the villain is the Doctor's inner self-loathing.

kilodalton January 17 2011, 05:50:57 UTC

1) Nope, I had no idea which one was real v fake
2) Yes, I loved the Dream Lord -- his interactions with the characters brought out a lot of their inner fears and emotions, which is something that was far too absent in the rest of the season

... I must admit, my favorite part of the episode was when Amy and Eleven are in the van, and she says that if the real life is the one without Rory, then she doesn't want it, and then Eleven starts to think of Rose ... oh ... wait XD

sherrilina January 17 2011, 18:41:48 UTC

Lol yes that fic is officially part of my head canon now! ;)

_thirty2flavors January 17 2011, 23:09:57 UTC

Yeah, the Dream Lord is pretty great I thoght, especially if you rewatch. I really liked the bits where he bitches at Eleven about how he never goes back to see his "friends" etc once they leave, I liked it even before we knew who the Dream Lord was and even more once we did know. I like the idea that this is something the Doctor has a lot of guilt over, contrary to occasional fandom opinion that leaving companions behind is good and right and those companions need to get over it and deal with it.

kilodalton January 17 2011, 23:52:10 UTC

I really liked the bits where he bitches at Eleven about how he never goes back to see his "friends"

I also like how at the beginning when Eleven is visiting Amy and Rory how he says something along the lines of "you know me, I always keep in touch" or something. When I watched this first-run last year, I had never seen another episode of Doctor Who so I didn't know better, but now it's such an obvious "lol yeah sure whatever Doc you liar" XD

contrary to occasional fandom opinion that leaving companions behind is good and right and those companions need to get over it and deal with it.

... lol fandom occasionally suffers from "projection bias" XD

annissag January 17 2011, 12:39:45 UTC

I'm kind of embarrassed because I completely forgot about the rewatch this weekend. I made a big push to get my school reading done and then got completely hung up reading "Disheveled" (those of you who have also read it will sympathize, I'm sure). So I'm completely unprepared to answer these questions ( ... )

_thirty2flavors January 17 2011, 13:30:41 UTC

But isn't the cold star there to be ridiculous so that there's the possibility of the TARDIS dream being the dream? The Doctor kind of waves it aside but I think it was the story attempting to be like :O :O WHICH ONE IS REAL :O :O whereas if they were just stuck in space, that would be more believable/plausible and would make it even less likely that the Leadworth dream was real.

annissag January 17 2011, 16:06:54 UTC

Well, I thought about that, but there wasn't a similar impossibility in the Leadworth scenario.

Other than the cold star bit, I love this episode. I just can't seem to let the physics go. Which is weird because I don't get that worked up about the sonic screwdriver reattaching barbed wire.

_thirty2flavors January 17 2011, 17:11:16 UTC

Well, I mean in the sense that for us, as the audience, it seems really easy/obvious that the TARDIS dream is real, so the magical cold star might have been trying to create a bit more suspense/mystery in that regard. Idk.

Thread 14

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_thirty2flavors January 17 2011, 23:12:35 UTC

The twist re: the Dream Lord just interested me more, to be honest, but I know some people felt, as you said, cheated. I don't really have much interest in the villains, so the idea of the villain being ~the Doctor himself~ was naturally going to appeal to me.

mewiet January 17 2011, 18:26:53 UTC

1. What did you think of the conceit of this episode? Was there ever a point where you considered the Leadworth dream might be "real"? Did you figure out before the end of the episode that both dreams were fake? If so, what tipped you off? Did you prefer one dream to the other?
Maybe for a flash of a half a second, but that was long before the episode ever aired, and it basically went like this: "It's so obvious that Amy will be pregnant in the dream. But that's so obvious...could it...no. Nope. Leadworth is definitely the dream, but what's the twist?" I did not catch onto the fact that the cold star was also a dream though, it was nice, because usually I do. I was too caught up in the awesome. And of course I did prefer the Leadworth dream, because I am a hardcore Rory/Amy shipper and I loved seeing ExpectantDaddy!Rory and Pregnant!Amy. Plus, all the emotion that flooded out when Amy lost Rory and knew she didn't want to live in a world without him.

2. Did you like the Dream Lord as a villain? Did you find his interactions with the ( ... )

_thirty2flavors January 17 2011, 23:16:48 UTC

I agree, I find the Doctor's dark side fascinating and was super pleased to see it crop up here after being absent for most of the season. Plus the reveal ads a lot more weight to basically all of the Dream Lord's lines, especially IMO the ones about how he doesn't ever go back and visit friends. I like when the show acknowledges this as a fault.

I totally agree about the jealousy/competition between Eleven and Rory. I don't think they're fighting for her romantic love, because the Doctor doesnt' want it, but I do think that once Rory starts hanging around, even though it was his idea, the Doctor starts to feel a bit insecure about it for the reasons Rose says in Father's Day -- he's not the most important man in Amy's life anymore.