Amy Pond
Amelia "Amy" Jessica Pond was a young Scottish woman who was the first companion of the Doctor in his eleventh incarnation and the wife of Rory Williams.
Biography
Early life
Amelia Jessica Pond was born in Scotland in the year 1989. She was later orphaned and moved to England to live with her aunt in Leadworth. It was later revealed that her parents were swallowed by the crack in her room. (DW: The Big Bang)
She passed her driving test first time round, though it may have been due to the fact she wore a skirt on the day of the test. (DW: Space)
Meeting the Doctor
Amelia first met the Doctor at Easter in 1996 after his TARDIS crash-landed in her backyard from damage sustained from his regeneration. The Doctor offered to take her traveling with him, but first had to keep the TARDIS' engines from phasing, requiring a quick trip into the future. The Doctor told Amelia he would only be five minutes, but he ended up taking twelve years. During the interim, Amelia became obsessed with her "Raggedy Doctor", creating dolls, comics and dress-up games around him, convincing her friend Rory into dressing up like him. Her Aunt Sharon sent her to four psychologists, whom she ended up biting after they tried to make her think the Doctor wasn't real. Reaching adulthood, Amelia took on the name "Amy", became Rory's girlfriend, and took a job as a kissogram.
Eventually, Amy met the Doctor again. Although distrustful of him at first, she eventually helped the Doctor to defeat Prisoner Zero and warn the Atraxi to never come back to Earth. After waiting for another two years for the Doctor to return after he toke the TARDIS to the moon and back to break in the new engines, Amy had gotten engaged to Rory and was due to be wed on the 26th of June 2010. The night before the wedding, the Doctor had returned to keep the promise he made to Amelia on Easter 1996 and toke her on as his newest companion on the condition that she be returned before the following morning, not telling the Doctor she's getting married. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
Travels with the Doctor and Rory
Amy's first trip in the TARDIS was to Starship UK in the 33rd century. There, she accidentally discovered the ship's secret--it was actually piloted by a Star Whale. Amy then released it from its torture, professing that is was willing to help without provoking it as it was kind-hearted. (DW: The Beast Below)
Following a call for help, the Doctor and Amy then set off for war-torn London in 1941, where they met Winston Churchill and witnessed the rebirth of the Daleks. Amy also helped to deactivate the detonation of Bracewell by convincing him that he was human. (DW: Victory of the Daleks)
Soon after, Amy and the Doctor met River Song and defeated an army of Weeping Angels. (DW: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone)
After learning that Amy was getting married, the Doctor responded by collecting Rory and taking Amy and him on a trip to Venice, 1580. They then stopped a group of Saturnynians from flooding the city. (DW: The Vampires of Venice)
Soon after, the TARDIS crew found themselves trapped between two realities by the malevolent being known as the Dream Lord. The Doctor defeated the Dream Lord after he worked out his reality puzzle and the situation brought Amy and Rory closer together. (DW: Amy's Choice)
In Cwmtaff, Wales, Amy witnessed the resurrection of a group of Silurians. After a failed attempt to create an alliance between humans and the Silurians, Rory was shot and then erased from history. This caused Amy to forget that Rory ever existed. (DW: The Hungry Earth, Cold Blood)
The Doctor later took Amy to meet Vincent Van Gogh. (DW: Vincent and the Doctor) After that, the TARDIS materialised in a park in Chesterfield but it dematerialised, leaving the Doctor stuck in Chesterfield, while Amy was trapped in the TARDIS. Amy spent a time in the TARDIS before the Doctor solved the problem of what caused the TARDIS problems landing. (DW: The Lodger)
Amy and The Doctor later visited "Space Florida" a week prior to the events of the Doctor's erasure . (DW: The Big Bang)
Restarting the universe
Amy and the Doctor met River Song again and became involved in a trap for the Doctor involving an Alliance of the Doctor's enemies. After meeting Rory again, who had been recreated as an Auton, she was shot by Rory as he couldn't control his actions. (DW: The Pandorica Opens)
The Doctor placed Amy in the Pandorica to keep her alive and he set out to restore the universe after his TARDIS had exploded and caused the cracks in time. After the Doctor succeeded in restoring the universe he was erased from time.
Amy then had her wedding with Rory and was given River Song's diary so that she would remember the Doctor and bring him back into the universe. She, Rory, and the Doctor go on another adventure following a call from "[Her] Majesty" detailing an Egyptian goddess loose on the Orient Express -- in space. (DW: The Big Bang)
Honeymoon
The Doctor left Amy and Rory on a honeymoon planet (a planet on a honeymoon with an asteroid) shortly before his TARDIS was stolen by the Claw Shansheeth of the 15th Funeral Fleet, stranding him. (SJA: Death of the Doctor)
Some time later, Amy and Rory were still on their honeymoon when they got caught in a cloud shell above a planet. Amy donned her policewoman outfit again, and helped the Doctor in his Christmas Carol-like story as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Eventually, all ended well, and she and Rory continued on their honeymoon.
At this point, The Doctor suggested a Moon that was actually made of Honey (although it was neither real honey nor really a moon) as a prospective honeymoon destination. He further commented that although there were some lovely views, it was however, technically alive and slightly carnivorous. (DW: A Christmas Carol)
At one point, the Doctor's TARDIS materialized inside itself after Rory unintentionally caused it to do so. However, the Doctor was able to figure out how to dissolve the resulting space loop. (DW: Space / Time)
America
After their honeymoon, Amy and Rory returned to Earth. During this time, they got their own house and Amy may have become pregnant. Later, the Doctor began cropping up in insignificant historical events, as if trying to get their attention.
Eventually, the pair received an invitation and met the Doctor in America. The Doctor was later killed on a beach by an astronaut. His companions burned his body. Amy, Rory and River then returned to the diner and surpisingly met a younger version of the Doctor, who had also recieved a letter. Amy was at first shocked to see him alive and well, but accepted that he was a younger Doctor than the one they saw shot. Following the request of the older Doctor, Amy had the Doctor set course for Space 1969 and Canton Delaware III.
After landing the TARDIS in the oval office, Amy went to the bathroom. While there, she encountered a Silent, whom she had seen in 2011 right before the Doctor had been shot by the astronaut. It told her that she must tell the Doctor what he must and must not know. Remembering she can't remember the Silent after taking her eyes off it, Amy uses her camera phone to take a picture of it. Before she could leave to try informing the Doctor of what happened, Amy saw an innocent woman blown to ashes by the Silent.
Following the Doctor's finding the location the child calling President Richard Nixon in Florida, Amy began talking with River about the possiblity of killing the astornaut in the past to keep it from killing the future Doctor. Amy kept thinking this while the Doctor examined stolen NASA exquipment in the room, declaring that it must have been stolen because its "cooler" that off earth tech. While River and Rory investigated the Silence's lair below the warehouse, Amy, Canton- who had tagged along since Nixon originally assigned him to the case-, and the Doctor hear the child calling for help. Soon finding Canton out cold after he raced ahead, Amy saw an astronaut. Thinking that it is the same person that will kill the Doctor, Amy grabs Canton's gun and fires a shot before realising that the child they were looking for was in the suit.
It is unknown what happened after that, but Amy began traveling the USA as did Rory and River to tall mark how many of the Silence existed on the earth while Canton put on a farce of the Doctor being a prisoner in Area 51.
After spending three months travelling around the United States, collecting information on how many of the Silence there were, before eventually being fake shot by Canton and brought to Area 51 along with Rory inside a perfect prison they had built to keep their true motives secret.
After rescuing River from her jump off a skyscraper, Amy- along with the other three in the TARDIS- had a nanorecorder placed in her palm to record messages if a Silent is encountered. Under the pretense of being an FBI agent, Amy along with Canton is sent by the Doctor to investigate Graystark Hall children's home. Amy encounters a room of Silence sleeping like bats on the ceiling, but soon finds the little girl's bedroom. Examining the several pictures, Amy is greatly confused as to why there is a photo of herself happily holding the girl as a baby. Suddenly, the little girl in the astronaut suit walked into the room and begged Amy to help her. However, before she could help, Amy is caught by two Silence while the girl escapes from the astronaut suit and flees.
Much later, Amy had awoken in the Silence's lair to be cryptically told she "will help bring the silence" before the Doctor, River and Rory had arrived and shown the moon landing footage had been tampered with by the Doctor to have a recording of a Silent telling its viewer to kill any of its species on sight. While River is in a shoot-out with the Silence, Amy is freed by the Doctor and runs into the safety of the TARDIS along with her husaband.
After delivering River back to Stormcage, Amy tells the Doctor that she worries that if she did or became pregnant during part of her and Rory's travels in the TARDIS because there might be some kind of serve birth defect like having multiple heads or worse. Unbeknownst to Amy, the Doctor repeatedly scans her on their adventures to confirm if she is pregnant. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon)
Personality
As a child, Amelia was seen to be brave and not frightened easily even when alone. She prayed to Santa Claus to help her with the crack in her wall, and thus was not surprised to meet the Doctor when he first arrived. She was both repulsed and amused by the Doctor's immediate demand for food, and wished to travel with him shortly after their meeting. In her later life Amelia changed her name to Amy and became very feisty but she showed signs that deep down, she was still the young Amelia Pond she had been during her first meeting with the Doctor. She was very cynical and skeptical due to him breaking his promise to be "back in five minutes" and returning 12 years later. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
During her early travels with the Doctor, Amy romanticised him as a hero who could save anyone. She often remained flippant in the face of danger, with the exception of her terrifying ordeal in the forest aboard the Byzantium, exchanging barbs with Rosanna Calvierri even when facing a forcible blood replacement and cracking jokes while confronting apparent doom on the TARDIS. (DW: Flesh and Stone, The Vampires of Venice, Amy's Choice) Yet after Rory appeared to die in her arms during a lucid dream caused by psychic pollen, she realized the Doctor was not the omnipotent being she had assumed he was. (DW: Amy's Choice)
Amy could be seductive at times and tried to seduce the Doctor on one occasion despite the fact that the next day was her wedding day. (DW Flesh and Stone) Rory also claimed that she only passed her driving test on her first attempt because she was wearing a revealing skirt at the time, indicating that she may have seduced her driving instructor into giving her her licence. (DW: Space)
The Doctor confirmed that Amy was no ordinary girl and it was unlikely that the time crack in her wall was there by chance. Amy shared a very close friendship with the Doctor; this friendship, along with the time crack, allowed her to remember him even after he was erased from time and she managed to bring the Doctor back into her universe. (DW: The Big Bang) She also once referred to the Doctor as her best friend. (DW: Day of the Moon)
Amy loved her husband, Rory Williams, but she also had a habit of playfully insulting him and showed signs that she may have romantic feelings for the Doctor, the most obvious one being the fact that she kissed him. She also stated that the man she loved had "fallen out of the sky" which the Doctor had actually done but when Rory asked her about this she claimed that it was a figure of speech. (DW: Day of the Moon)
Trivia
- She is the only one of the Doctor's female companions in the revived series to prefer wearing skirts over trousers.
Behind the scenes
- Amy is the second consecutive main TV companion to have red hair. This fact was noted by the BBC when it issued a statement in response to the so-called 'Ginger controversy' that erupted in early January 2010 due to misinterpretation of a statement made by the Eleventh Doctor after his regeneration.[1]
- Amy Pond is the first televised companion with whose adolescent self the Doctor has had significant onscreen experience. Nevertheless, she is far from unique in having been portrayed onscreen in her youth.
- Amy Pond is the second character with an aquatic-themed name to be created by show-runner Steven Moffat, following River Song. Other writers, however, have employed "liquid" names; non-Moffat characters like Ocean Waters, Jackson Lake, and Adelaide Brooke have also appeared in the televised Doctor Who universe.
- Amy is the second televised companion to have a Scottish accent, and only the third regularly-appearing Scots character in series history, after both Jamie McCrimmon and the Brigadier. Since neither Frazer Hines nor Nicholas Courtney are themselves Scottish, Gillan is the first Scottish actor/actress to play a recurring Scot in the history of the programme.
- Following the premiere of The Eleventh Hour, the character of Amy Pond was criticized by a number of viewers for being "too sexy" for a family program such as Doctor Who. In response, Piers Wenger, the executive producer for Series 5, stated, “The whole kissogram thing played into Steven’s desire for the companion 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. She is really a two-man woman and that will become clear over the course of the episodes."[2]
- Amy Pond is the first series-long BBC Wales companion who wouldn't consider London their hometown. That said, Jack Harkness, who has nearly been in as many episodes as a full series, isn't from Earth at all. However, she is only the second BBC Wales companion, after the short-lived Adam Mitchell, to have met the Doctor in a place other than London. Debatable, as Donna Noble met the Doctor inside the Tardis before taking her back to London.
- Amy is the second companion in the new series who has been pursued romantically by a real historical figure, she was proposed to by Vincent van Gogh. Previously, William Shakespeare made romantic advances towards Martha Jones.
- Steven Moffat has dismissed the fan theory that River Song is a future version of Amy. (DCOM: The Time of Angels)
- Amy has a fondness for Romans. Karen Gillan, who plays Amy, also played a Roman priestess in the episode The Fires of Pompeii.
- Caitlin Blackwood who plays the younger version of Amy is the cousin of Karen Gillan, although the two did not meet until the readthrough of DW: The Eleventh Hour.
Footnotes
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