Good as Gold (TV story)

Good as Gold
Doctor:	Eleventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Amy
Main enemy:	Weeping Angel
Main setting:	The Doctor's TARDIS, 2012
Key crew
Writer:	The Children of Ashdene School
Director:	Saul Metzstein
Release details
Premiere broadcast:	24 May 2012
Premiere network:	CBBC
Format:	1x3 minute minisode
Doctor Who television stories
← Previous	The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe
Next →	Asylum of the Daleks

Good as Gold was a mini-episode of Doctor Who written by the winners of a Blue Peter script-to-screen competition.

Synopsis

Bored of not having any adventures lately, the Doctor and Amy get a bit more than they asked for when they set out on one. Landing in London 2012, there's only one piece of advice that can help them now: Whatever you do—don't blink!

Plot

The Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond are inside the TARDIS, and Amy tells him that the guide book for travelling through the universe says they need to have at least one adventure per week. Complying, the Doctor activates the TARDIS' "Adventure Setting" and they are off. However, the TARDIS starts to malfunction and the Doctor gets blasted by steam. His hair becomes messy and the TARDIS continues to malfunction. The Cloister Bell sounds and the TARDIS console fires out sparks. The Doctor says the TARDIS is going to crash. Amy and he hang on for dear life and they crash.

Once they get up, an athlete runs through the door holding the Olympic Flame. He asks where he is, then realises he was running from something. They all look at the door and see a Weeping Angel.

The Doctor and Amy say, "don't blink", but then the TARDIS fires sparks out of the console. The Weeping Angel takes the Olympic Torch from the athlete. The Doctor says the Angel wants to destroy the Pride of the Olympics and ruin London 2012. He points his sonic screwdriver at the Angel, which cracks and blows up.

The athlete jumps up and grabs the Torch so it doesn't hit the floor and go out. He thanks the Doctor and gives him an Olympic gold medal before leaving the TARDIS to light the Olympic Beacon as the final runner in the Olympic Torch Relay. The Doctor turns around and says that they are now going to go on an adventure.

The Weeping Angel reappears and looks to the centre of the TARDIS.

Cast

• The Doctor - Matt Smith
• Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
• Athlete - Elliot Barnes-Worrell (uncredited)

Crew

To be added.

References

• When the Doctor's hair stands on end from an explosion, Amy jokes that he looks like Einstein.
• A Weeping Angel chases a 2012 Olympic Torch Bearer.

Story notes

• A shortened version of the Doctor Who opening titles was used.
• In announcing the competition, the BBC webcast a specially shot scene in January 2012 featuring the Doctor in the Land of Fiction (from TV: The Mind Robber), breaking the fourth wall and describing the competition. The winning story was chosen despite the fact the Doctor requests in the rules that the story not be set at the 2012 London Olympics, owing to the fact "I've already been there" (referring to TV: Fear Her) and also mentions that he "has been running into myself and it's really embarassing."
• The actor Elliot Barnes-Worrell who played The Athlete was not credited. However, he was later named in Issue 449 of Doctor Who Magazine.
• Although obviously these events did not occur during the real-life opening ceremony, the sound of the TARDIS materialising was heard at one point during the event.
• What appears to be an athletics stadium (where the opening ceremony traditionally takes place) is visible outside, though upon closer inspection, it does not resemble the actual Olympic Stadium in East London. However, the Athlete wears Team Great Britain's official London 2012 kit by Adidas.
• Traditionally, the final torchbearer in the relay (in this case, the Athlete) has the honor of lighting the Olympic Beacon/Cauldron, but in the real-life London 2012 opening ceremony that August, a number of British sporting legends each gave their torches to an aspiring British athlete to light the cauldron, which was made of many kettles with one from each nation represented at the Games.

Ratings

to be added

Filming locations

to be added

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

to be added

Continuity

• Amy wears the same clothes she did in TV: The Doctor's Wife.
• Weeping Angels first appeared in TV: Blink and last appeared in TV: The Angels Take Manhattan.
• The Cloister Bell is heard, last having been heard in TV: The God Complex.
• The Athlete mentions lighting the Olympic Flame. The Tenth Doctor did this himself in TV: Fear Her.
• The Tenth Doctor had previously attended the 2012 Olympic Games in the company of Rose Tyler. (TV: Fear Her). Prior to that, he had also visited 2012 on at least one occasion during or prior to his sixth incarnation (AUDIO: The Raincloud Man) as well as during his seventh (AUDIO: Frozen Time), eighth (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon) and ninth incarnations (TV: Dalek).

Home video release

• Good as Gold has been announced for inclusion in the Complete Seventh Series DVD and Blu-ray box set, scheduled for release in the UK in October 2013. It was not included in the North American version of the set released on 24 September 2013.

External links

to be added