Prisoner Zero

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Prisoner Zero (short story)

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Prisoner Zero
Species:	Multi-form
First appearance:	The Eleventh Hour
Appearances:	PROSE: Prisoner Zero
Main actor:	Olivia Colman
Main voice actor:	William Wilde
Other actors:	Marcello Magni, Eden Monteath, Merin Monteath, Matt Smith, Caitlin Blackwood

You may wish to consult Zero (disambiguation) for other, similarly-named pages.

Prisoner Zero was a multi-form shape-shifting alien, incarcerated by the Atraxi for certain crimes. He escaped to Earth when the TARDIS explosion caused cracks throughout time and space, hiding in an extra room of Amelia Pond's home for twelve years until he was tricked into revealing himself by the freshly regenerated Eleventh Doctor and recaptured by his jailers to be executed. Before being taken away, he warned the Doctor against the Silence.

Biography

In 1996, Prisoner Zero was a prisoner in an Atraxi extra-dimensional prison. When a crack in the universe opened into Amelia Pond's bedroom wall, Prisoner Zero escaped through to Amelia's house in Leadworth. It hid in a room in Amelia's house, placing a perception filter on the room's door so it would not be found. It hid on Earth for twelve years, watching Amelia grow up. It sometimes ventured into the village, posing as comatose people in Royal Leadworth Hospital whom it had established a psychic link with, a process that took months. If the person it was copying was dreaming about having someone else with them, Prisoner Zero would appear to be multiple lifeforms touching each other. It was actually one creature with many limbs and orifices.

The forms it took were of comatose people. In 2008, Rory Williams, who worked at the hospital as a nurse, took pictures of them with his mobile phone, knowing the people he saw shouldn't be up and about. It was during this time that Prisoner Zero established a psychic link with Amelia (later Amy) Pond.

The Eleventh Doctor belatedly returned to Amelia's house to save her from the multi-form. After Amy had seen its natural form, Prisoner Zero took a shape-shifted form but was confused as to which voice to use for each form. The Atraxi, who had followed the Doctor, broadcasted a global warning that they would incinerate "the human residence", Earth, if Prisoner Zero did not surrender. After escaping from Prisoner Zero, the Doctor and Amy went into the village square, where residents of Leadworth were taking pictures of the Sun, obscured because the Atraxi had put a force field around the Earth. The Doctor noticed that Rory was facing the other way, taking a picture of Prisoner Zero, who was disguised as a man with a dog. The Doctor attempted to draw the Atraxi to Prisoner Zero by overloading all the electrical devices in the surrounding area with his extraterrestrial sonic screwdriver, but the screwdriver burnt out and Prisoner Zero escaped again.

Prisoner Zero went to the hospital and killed all the doctors and nurses. It took the form of a woman with two children to fool Amy and Rory, but gave itself away by talking with the woman's voice through a child's mouth. It snarled at Amy and Rory and chased them down the corridors. The Doctor arrived through the window just in time, and revealed his master plan to Prisoner Zero.

Prisoner Zero takes the form of the Eleventh Doctor and a young Amelia. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)

Believing that surrender would mean execution, Prisoner Zero said it was prepared to die in flames with the whole planet. The Doctor suggested Prisoner Zero open another crack to escape, but Zero said the cracks were not its doing, but cracks in the skin of the universe. It taunted the Doctor about his lack of knowledge. "The Doctor in the TARDIS doesn't know." It added that "the Pandorica will open. Silence will fall". When cornered by the Doctor, who had given the Atraxi Prisoner Zero's location and pictures of all its previous disguises, it tried to avoid Atraxi detection by using a psychic connection with Amy to imitate her younger self and the Doctor. The Doctor thwarted this by stimulating Amy's recent memory of Prisoner Zero and forcing it to take on its own form. The Atraxi detected and secured Prisoner Zero. Defeated, it gave one final ominous warning: "Silence, Doctor. Silence will fall." (TV: The Eleventh Hour)

Much later, the Eleventh Doctor would later muse that while he foiled the mysterious plans of Prisoner Zero, he never actually learned what Prisoner Zero's plans were. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor)

Behind the scenes

• In an issue of Doctor Who Magazine, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan referred to Prisoner Zero as a "Face Tendril". Steven Moffat also referred to it as such, as did the trading card.
• Despite being the first villain of the Matt Smith era, Prisoner Zero wasn't seen in any trailers or publicity images.
• Steven Moffat's DVD commentary on The Eleventh Hour reveals that there was originally a line of dialogue establishing that Prisoner Zero had impersonated an army and invaded a planet, but the line was cut. Moffat states that he was never quite happy with the explanation and it is better left to the imagination.
• J. K. Woodward, who worked on the Star Trek crossover Assimilation², released a piece depicting Prisoner Zero assimilated by the Borg.