Amy Pond
Amelia "Amy" Jessica Pond was a young Scottish woman who was the first companion of the Doctor in his eleventh incarnation. She was also the wife of Rory Williams and mother of Melody Pond, later revealed to be River Song.
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)
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.
Amy passed her driving test first time round, though it may have been due to the fact she wore a revealing skirt on the day of the test. (DW: Space)
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. While waiting for another two years for the Doctor to return after he took the TARDIS to the moon and back to break in the new engines, Amy got engaged to Rory and was due to be wed on the 26th of June 2010. The night before the wedding, the Doctor returned to keep the promise he made to Amelia on Easter 1996 and took 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 after they trick the Doctor into helping them. Amy also helped to deactivate the detonation of the oblivion continium inside Bracewell by convincing him that he was human. (DW: Victory of the Daleks)
Soon after, Amy and the Doctor met River Song for the first time in Amy's perspective and defeated an army of Weeping Angels. During this time, Amy nearly died under the power of Angel Bob. (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. Amy was nearly converted into a half Saturnynian by Rosanna and her son Francesso. (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 as she realised she couldn't live without him. (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)
Ganger Amy
America
After their honeymoon, Amy and Rory returned to Earth. During this time, they got their own house and a pregnant Amy was kidnapped by Madame Kovarian and the Church at an unknown time. Amy was replaced with a Ganger synchronized to her senses so that she couldn't tell she had been removed from her time.
Following this, 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 killed on a beach by an astronaut. His companions burned his body. Amy, Rory and River then returned to the diner and met a younger version of the Doctor, who had also received a letter. Amy was shocked to see him alive and well, but accepted that he was a younger Doctor than the one they had seen 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 Richard Nixon, Amy began talking with River about the possibility of killing the astronaut in the past to keep it from killing the future Doctor. Amy kept thinking this while the Doctor examined stolen NASA equipment 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.
Amy then began traveling the USA to 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, Amy was eventually "shot" by Canton and brought to Area 51.
After rescuing River from her jump off a skyscraper, Amy had a nanorecorder placed in her palm to record messages if a Silent was encountered. Under the pretense of being an FBI agent, Amy was sent with Canton 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 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 husband.
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)
Further travels
After the TARDIS received a distress signal, Amy and Rory were taken to the 17th century, the pirate ship, the Fancy. Accused of being stowaways, Amy was forced underdeck to be put to work while Rory and the Doctor were to walk the plank. Grabbing pirate attire and a sword form below deck, Amy returned to save them. After cutting one of the pirates and accidentally cutting Rory as well, Amy saw the Siren take the pirate. When she tries to take Rory, Amy protects her husband by standing in front of him. However, this only irritates the Siren and she shrieks, sending Amy flying across the deck. Retreating below deck with everyone else, Amy was again successful in defending Rory from the Siren. Soon, Amy waits in the gunpowder room while the captain and Doctor head into the TARDIS to prep it to take them away from the ship. However, when the Doctor and captain Avery learn that the Siren needs a reflective surface in order to retrieve her victims, the TARDIS is taken by the Siren while Avery's son has been polishing a medallion he wears to remind him of his father. Luckily the Doctor manages to return in time and scuff up the medallion before the Siren could come. However, during a storm, Avery's son, the last of the crew and finally a drowning Rory are taken by her. Deciding to let the Siren taken them, Amy, Avery and the Doctor end up in an spaceship that was taking up the same space as the Fancy. They find the crew, Avery's son and Rory hooked up to machine to keep them alive. It is then revealed by the Doctor that the Siren is actually a virtual doctor that once toke care of the crew on the ship. After signing a consent form to look after Rory, Amy and the Doctor take him back into the TARDIS, where she performs CPR to revive him. Amy and Rory then headed off to bed. However, the Doctor was once again in scanning her for pregnancy. (DW The Curse of the Black Spot)
After the Doctor follows a false distress signal, Amy meet the eccentric residents of a planetoid called House. Amy doesn't know how to react to the residents because of their behavior and is shocked to find out that the "planet" has a living consciousness. After the Doctor sends her and Rory on a fool's errand to find his sonic screwdriver, Amy ends up locked in the TARDIS with House, who has possessed the now empty shell to leave for the main universe. Following Rory's answer as to why House shouldn't just kill them, Amy "entertains" House by running through the TARDIS corridors with Rory. She is separated from him and ends up two hours later in his timeline due to House's manipulation. She ends up separated from Rory twice more. However, the real Rory runs into her and snaps her out of the trance. After Rory was given a mental map to an archived previous control room, Amy opens the telepathic doors by thinking of the codewords. They end of in the console room of the Tenth Doctor, where they lower the shields. This allows the Doctor and Idris to materialise in the console room, atomizing Nephew with their landing. Following this, House deletes the console room along with 30% of the other rooms for fuel, but living things in rooms that are deleted in up in the main console room. Amy helps the Doctor buy time for Idris to die and release the TARDIS matrix. This destroys house, restoring the TARDIS to normal. Per her and Rory's request, the Doctor remakes their deleted room without bunks beds and they hope the Doctor can get them somewhere restful. (DW: The Doctor's Wife)
Following the TARDIS being hit by a solar tsunami, Amy ends up at a 22 century acid mine, where she encounters a substance called Flesh which is used to make Gangers of the crew to work in hostile environments. Following a larger solar tsunami hitting the factory, the Gangers gain independent will. When Rory goes missing, Amy goes in search of him. During her search, she sees the Eye Patch Lady again. After being found by Rory, Amy becomes concerned that he is showing affection for another woman. However, things take a turn for the worse when one of the workers shoots a Ganger when the Doctor tries to establish a peaceful relationship between Gangers and Humans. Taking refuge in a chapel, thought without Rory, Amy encounters a ganger of the Doctor. (DW: The Rebel Flesh)
Horrified to see that a Ganger has been made of the Doctor, Amy is less than happy. Believing that only the Doctor can be himself, she treats his double with much hostility. Eventually, she, the Doctor and the workers end up trapped in acid storage by Ganger Jennifer and a mislead Rory. She is later freed by Ganger Jimmy along with the others. Returning to the TARDIS with Rory, the Doctor, his Ganger, a worker and two other Gangers, Amy is shocked to see the Doctor try to hold off the increasingly maddened Ganger Jennifer while he tells everyone else to escape. It is then revealed the Doctor and Ganger Doctor switched the shoes, which were different colors, in order to prove two different species can cooperate. Leaving Ganger Doctor, they deposit Gangers Jimmy and Dickens at the shore with Cleaves, allowing them to start protesting rights for Gangers. However, after this, Amy doubles over as her real counterpart is ready to give birth. Not believing that she wasn't with them, Amy has her connection to her Ganger disconnected by the Doctor after he promised to find her no matter what. She awoke in her real body on Demon's Run to find herself full-term pregnant and Madame Kovarian (literally) watching over her. Being instructed to push, Amy began to give birth. (DW: The Almost People)
Reunion with the Doctor and Rory
After giving birth to a healthy baby girl, whom she names Melody Pond, Amy is kept locked in a room with her with guards keeping an eye on her. While she dotes on her daughter, Amy tells her about her father, "the Last Centurion" and how he will find them. After Kovarian separates Melody from her and Colonel Manton begins a speech about the Doctor, Amy is visited by one of the soldiers, Lorna Bucket. Amy is given a prayer leaf with Melody's name engraved on it in Lorna's native tongue, but rebuffs her act of kindness. However, she changes her mind when she spoke of meeting the Doctor once before and warns her to be "on the right side" when the Doctor comes.
The Doctor does indeed come and causes chaos amongst the Church soldiers and Headless Monks with the help of his army of debtors. Amy is reunited with Rory, who managed to find Kovarian and recuse their daughter. While the Doctor was preparing things in the TARDIS, it is revealed that the apparent victory they won was, in fact, a trap and that the Headless Monks were advancing on them. While Amy hid with Melody, Rory and the allies fought them off.
Unfortunately, it is revealed that Melody is actually a Ganger made by Kovarian to fool them and that Kovarian has the real Melody. Kovarian severs the link, and the fake Melody melts, causing Amy tremendous grief. Following their "escape" from the trap, River appears. She tells the Doctor why this has happened as well as who she truly is. The Doctor departs, promising to reunite Melody with Amy and Rory. Amy picks up a discarded gun and points it at River, demanding to know what she told the Doctor. After being handed Melody's prayer leaf, Amy is shocked to see the Gamma Forest translation become River Song. Amy is then shocked further as River explains that she is, in fact, grown up Melody Pond. (DW: A Good Man Goes to War)
Known Family
- Tabetha Pond (mother)
- Augustus Pond (father)
- Sharon (aunt)
- Rory Williams (husband)
- River Song (née Melody Pond) (daughter)
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)
Appearance
Amy Pond was tall and long-legged (inspiring the Doctor to indroduce her to the President of the United States with the code name "the Legs"). She had bright red hair, a characteristic which is comented on throughout the series, freckles, and green eyes.
Her finger nails were usually painted in widely varying colours. Contrastingly with the past main series companions of the new series, she seems to prefer wearing short skirts to trousers. Karen Gillan has described Amy's clothing style as "thrown together" and expressed that it is true to the common trends in people of Amy's age and generation.
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. This is not a coincidence, however, as it is later revealed that River is Amy's daughter, and that "River" is translated from "Pond". 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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