Amy Pond
Amelia "Amy" Jessica Pond was the first companion of the Doctor in his eleventh incarnation. She was the girlfriend and later wife of human nurse Rory Williams. She was also the mother of River Song (Melody Pond). When River married the Doctor, Amy became his mother-in-law.
Biography
Birth and early life
Amelia Jessica Pond was born in Scotland in 1989. Her parents, Augustus and Tabetha Pond, were swallowed by the crack in her wall. She was raised by her aunt Sharon in the small town of Leadworth. Despite living so long in England, Amy never lost her Scottish accent. (DW: The Big Bang)
Meeting the Doctor
Amelia met the Doctor at Easter in 1996, when his TARDIS, damaged by his regeneration, crashed in her garden. He offered to take her with him, but first, to keep the TARDIS engines from phasing, took a quick trip into the future, saying he would be five minutes. He returned twelve years later. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
Adolescence
While waiting, Amelia was obsessed with her "Raggedy Doctor". She created dolls, comics and dress-up games around him and made her friends take part. Sharon sent her to four psychiatrists to convince her the Doctor wasn't real. She bit them. (DW: The Eleventh Hour) In secondary school, her best friends were Rory Williams, whom she thought gay, as he paid no attention to girls, and Mels, who was actually their daughter, born in the 52nd century. Mels made her understand Rory had been paying attention to her and she returned his affections. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler)
Second meeting with the Doctor
The Doctor returned when she was nineteen and calling herself "Amy" to distance herself from her "fairy tale" name. She was Rory's girlfriend and had a job as a kissogram. At first distrustful, she helped him defeat Prisoner Zero and warn the Atraxi to never return to Earth. While the Doctor took two years to take the TARDIS to the moon and back to break in the new engines, Amy became engaged to Rory. She was to be wed on 26 June 2010. The night before, the Doctor returned to keep his promise made fourteen years earlier. She joined him on condition she be returned before the following morning. She did not mention her wedding. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
Travels with the Doctor
Amy's first trip in the TARDIS was to Starship UK in the 33rd century which was secretly piloted by a Star Whale. Amy freed it from its torture, certain it would steer the ship freely, as it was kind-hearted. (DW: The Beast Below) Heeding a call for help, the Doctor and Amy set off for war-torn London in 1941 to meet Winston Churchill and inadvertently aid the rebirth of the Daleks. Amy helped deactivate the oblivion continuum bomb inside Bracewell by convincing him he was human. (DW: Victory of the Daleks)
The Doctor took Amy to a museum in the far future and thence to rescue the mysterious River Song. All three went to Alfava Metraxis to help the Church defeat an army of Weeping Angels. Amy nearly died because of Angel Bob. (DW: The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone)
After this trauma, Amy told the Doctor she was getting married and tried to seduce him. Fearing she was losing sight of the important things in her life, he collected Rory and took them to romantic Venice, 1580 to fix their relationship. Amy barely escaped being converted into a Saturnyn by Rosanna and her son. She rescued Rory from a violent Francesco, killing for the first time. (DW: The Vampires of Venice)
Soon after, the TARDIS crew was trapped between two worlds by the malevolent Dream Lord. He taunted Amy about her triangular relationship with the Doctor and Rory, forcing her to choose between them. When Rory was killed in one dream, she realised she did not wish to live without him. Amy came to terms with her feelings for Rory on finding him alive in the real world and made it clear to him for the first time that his feelings were fully reciprocated. (DW: Amy's Choice)
In Cwmtaff, Wales, Amy witnessed the revival of a city of Silurians. After an aborted attempt to form an alliance between humans and them, during which Amy spoke for mankind, Rory was shot, killed and erased from reality by another of the cracks in space and time. Initially devastated by her loss, Amy lost all her memories of him. (DW: The Hungry Earth, Cold Blood) The Doctor, feeling guilty, took her to many wonderful places. On one of these trips, they met Vincent Van Gogh, with whom Amy developed a close bond. She was deeply upset that, despite their efforts, he still killed himself. (DW: Vincent and the Doctor)
The TARDIS materialised in a park in Chesterfield and dematerialised, leaving the Doctor stuck in Essex and Amy trapped in the TARDIS. (DW: The Lodger) After they were reunited, Amy, looking for a pen in the Doctor's jacket, found her engagement ring. She could not attach any memories to it, but felt a strange connection.
Amy and the Doctor 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, caught up in a trap for the Doctor set by an Alliance of the Doctor's enemies. She was reunited with Rory, who had been recreated as an Auton. Her memories of him returned. When his Auton programming activated, he shot her. (DW: The Pandorica Opens)
The Doctor placed Amy in the Pandorica to keep her alive. Rory watched over her for two thousand years until, in 1996, she was resurrected by her younger self. The TARDIS had exploded and caused the cracks in time. To repair them, the Doctor sacrificed himself into the cracks. Amy restored the family she had lost, as well as a human Rory. The Doctor was erased from time. (DW: The Big Bang)
Amy was married to Rory. At the reception she caught sight of River Song passing by the window, and found River's diary on the table. Amy recalled details of the Doctor, then remembered him entirely and restored him to reality using only her time-altered mind. The Doctor, Rory and she bade goodbye to the other guests and departed on another adventure: an Egyptian goddess loose on the Orient Express in space. (DW: The Big Bang)
Amy kept her maiden name rather than becoming Amy Williams; the Doctor began referring to Rory as "Mr. Pond" (DW: The Big Bang)
Honeymoon
The Doctor gave Amy and Rory some time 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. (SJA: Death of the Doctor) Amy insisted the Doctor carry her mobile phone with him to keep in touch. (WC: The Night After Hallowe'en) Amy and Rory almost crashed on an unnamed planet. After this the Doctor suggested a moon made of honey as a destination. He said that there were some lovely views, but it was technically alive and slightly carnivorous. (DW: A Christmas Carol)
Near the end of their honeymoon, the TARDIS materialised inside itself after Rory had an accident while helping the Doctor conduct routine maintenance. Amy encountered a future version of herself, with whom she flirted. The Doctor used the resulting space loop to end it. (DW: Space / Time)
As a Ganger
Amy and Rory returned to Earth soon after they had left. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut) A pregnant Amy was kidnapped by Madame Kovarian and the Church. She was replaced by a Ganger duplicate to which her mind was linked, giving the illusion she had not been abducted.
About this time, she received a TARDIS blue invitation sending Rory and her to Utah on 22 April 2011. They joined the Doctor and River Song for a picnic at Lake Silencio. A mysterious astronaut shot the Doctor three times to prevent regeneration. After burning his body, they returned to a diner to find a younger Eleventh Doctor also had been invited. Amy persuaded him to find the younger version of the fourth guest in 1969. Malevolent aliens, the Silents had been controlling Earth since the Stone Age. They kidnapped Amy and told her she would "bring the silence". After the Doctor started a revolution against them, Amy rejoined the Doctor on travels through time and space with Rory in tow. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut, Day of the Moon)
Landing in the 17th century, Amy helped the Doctor stop a Siren abducting the crew of a pirate ship. The Siren was a virtual doctor from an invisible spaceship in the same space as the Fancy. Its crew commandeered the ship to see the stars. Amy proved herself capable with a sword against pirates whom she fought to keep the Doctor and Rory from walking the plank. She saved a drowned Rory's life with CPR after Rory convinced her she could do it. While she slept on the Fancy, Amy awoke to notice the woman again looking through a hatch, this time directly at her. (DW The Curse of the Black Spot)
The Doctor steered the TARDIS into a bubble universe to look for Time Lords who had sent a distress signal. Amy and Rory were trapped inside the TARDIS by House, who planned to use it to escape to find new food. To amuse itself, House used the TARDIS's temporal nature to torment Amy; she was made to believe Rory had been abandoned to die of old age. They were saved by the Doctor, who regained entry to the TARDIS, and used its very soul to expel/kill House. (DW: The Doctor's Wife)
A solar tsunami sent the TARDIS crashlanding in the 22nd century. Amy became involved in a Ganger revolution, helping them achieve equality despite being wary of the Ganger Doctor.
During this time, Amy saw the Eyepatch Lady twice. The Doctor dismissed her as a "time memory." Amy let his impending death slip to the Doctor, thinking him his Ganger. After the Ganger Doctor had stopped the revolution, the Doctor destroyed her Ganger body after promising to find her. Amy awoke in her real body on Demon's Run to find herself full-term pregnant with the Eye Patch Lady, Madame Kovarian, ordering her to push. Amy entered labour with a horrified scream. (DW: The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People)
Becoming a Mother
Amy named her daughter Melody after her friend, Mels. Unknown to her, Melody was taken by Madame Kovarian and replaced by a flesh avatar to help trap the Doctor. The Doctor and Rory appeared with an army, took Demons Run and rescued Amy. After the Battle of Demons Run, Amy discovered Kovarian's ruse. River appeared and told them she was, in fact, Melody. The Doctor left in search of the baby, leaving Amy to be returned home by her adult daughter. (DW: A Good Man Goes to War)
When a month or two had passed, Amy tired of waiting. She had Rory drive through a field in Leadworth to make a crop circle saying "Doctor". The TARDIS arrived, to be hijacked at gunpoint by Mels, on the run from the police for stealing a car. The TARDIS crashed in Berlin in 1938; shot by Hitler, Mels regenerated into River Song. Controlled by her programming, she gave the Doctor a poisoned kiss. Amy convinced her the Doctor was worth saving and saw her daughter sacrifice her remaining regenerations to revive him. They left River in a hospital to find her own path, and again rejoined the Doctor for adventures. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler)
Nearing the end
The TARDIS landed on Earth in 2011 after tracing a distress signal from a Tenza named George to a block of flats. Amy and Rory knocked on nearly every door, but failed to find him. They entered a lift and were dropped into a giant doll where George kept everything he feared. The house was inhabited by Peg Dolls. Amy was caught and added to their ranks to chase Rory and other people there. When George overcame his fear, Amy was restored to normal along with the other victims. (DW: Night Terrors)
On the universe's second most popular vacation planet, Apalapucia, Amy accidentally admitted herself into a facility for Chen7, a plague deadly to beings with two hearts like the Doctor. Matters grew worse when the Handbots running the facility mistook her for a patient and kept almost killing her. She hid and waited for rescue. Rory and the Doctor accidentally locked onto her timestream thirty-six years late. Embittered, she refused to help rescue the "young" Amy, but was finally persuaded and reverted the timeline. (DW: The Girl Who Waited)
Departure from the Doctor
In a prison for a Minotaur-like creature where everyone had a room holding their nightmare, Amy found hers: her younger self, waiting for the Doctor. To defeat the Minotaur, the Doctor destroyed Amy's faith in him. After this, he returned Amy and Rory to a new house, leaving them behind to save them from further risks. Amy was upset, but accepted it, asking the Doctor to tell River to visit them if he saw her. (DW: The God Complex)
At some point, Amy became a model and was involved in a campaign for Petrichor, a perfume whose name and campaign, perhaps coincidentally, evoked an adventure with the Doctor. By the time the Doctor encountered Craig Owens and a minor Cybermen invasion, Amy was famous enough to be seen signing autographs. (DW: Closing Time)
After an alternate timeline was reverted and the Doctor had died, Amy, remembering everything, sat in her garden, despondent over his death and her cold-blooded murder of Madame Kovarian, until River, fresh from the crash of the Byzantium, arrived to cheer her up. River told Amy the truth behind the lies she had told, including the Doctor's "death". This lifted Amy's spirits until she realised that she had been destined to be her best friend's mother-in law since she was eight. (DW: The Wedding of River Song)
In 2020, Amy and Rory travelled to Cwmtaff to wave at their younger selves (perhaps trying to warn them of the Time Field that would temporarily erase Rory). (DW: The Hungry Earth)
Alternative timelines
In one timeline, Amy had been left alone in the Apalapucia facility for over thirty-six years. This time alone made her bitter and hardened, nearly insane from lack of human interaction. She made a make-shift sonic probe to help her fight the Handbots and turned one of them into her pet, which she named after her husband Rory. When the Doctor and Rory arrived at this time, she refused to help them rescue her past self, but after having a conversation with her younger self, agreed to help rescue her if she would be taken also. She was betrayed by the Doctor; only one Amy could be saved. The older Amy gave her existence so her husband and she could have a life together. (DW: The Girl Who Waited)
In another alternate timeline, the Doctor wasn't killed and a fixed point in time was altered. Amy led a group that included Rory and River. They tried to fix time without killing the Doctor. Eventually the timeline was reverted when the Doctor married River and revealed she would be shooting the Teselecta. (DW: The Wedding of River Song)
Known family
- Rory Williams - husband
- River Song (Melody Pond) - daughter
- The Doctor - son-in-law
- Augustus Pond - father
- Tabetha Pond - mother
- Sharon - aunt
Personality
Amy was adventurous and reckless, with a dry wit and strong will. Because of her difficult childhood and abandonment by the Doctor, she was rarely open with her feelings and often mistrustful and wary. She held people she cared about at arm's length, as she did in her early relationship with Rory (DW: Let's Kill Hitler, The Eleventh Hour, The Vampires of Venice) and her attitude towards the Doctor upon his return. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
As a child, Amelia was stoic and able to care for herself. She prayed to Santa Claus for help with the crack in her wall and was unsurprised to meet the Doctor. She lusted for the adventure of travel with him on their meeting. When he did not return, she grew into a cynical and aggressive young woman, but deep down she remained the girl she had been in their first meeting. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
Amy was often flippant in the face of danger, except for her traumatic ordeal in the forest aboard the Byzantium. She exchanged barbs with Rosanna Calvierri even when facing a forcible blood replacement and cracked jokes while confronting apparent doom on the TARDIS. (DW: Flesh and Stone, The Vampires of Venice, Amy's Choice)
Amy was flirtatious. In Leadworth she made a living as a kissogram and was sexually attracted to the Doctor (DW: The Eleventh Hour), Vincent Van Gogh (DW: Vincent and the Doctor) and the Roman soldiers at Stonehenge (DW: The Pandorica Opens). She tried to seduce the Doctor once. (DW: Flesh and Stone) Rory claimed she only passed her driving test on her first go because of her revealing skirt. (DW: Space) Due to her attraction to the Doctor, she had no problem being naked in front of him after her mutation into a butterfly-woman was reversed, not even attempting to cover herself. (DWM: Supernature)
Amy was troubled and lonely. She was often left alone by her aunt Sharon, who refused to deal with her fear of the crack in her wall. After meeting the Doctor, she was obsessed with her "Raggedy Doctor" and refused to believe he was imaginary, biting psychiatrists when they tried to convince her otherwise. Mels, a school troublemaker and her close friend, once pointed out she often misbehaved in school. Despite this, she was a protective, maternal figure for Mels, leading her - while regenerating into River Song after being revealed as Amy's daughter Melody Pond - to remark "You got to raise me after all." (DW: Let's Kill Hitler)
Amy loved her husband, Rory, passionately and called the Doctor her best friend. (DW: Day of the Moon) Her bond with him was almost religious. She felt he could always fix things. (DW: The God Complex) Despite her tough exterior, Amy could not always hide her emotions and was devastated when faced with the loss of loved ones such as Rory, Melody, the Doctor and Vincent van Gogh. Amy broke down in tears when the Doctor left her on Earth with Rory. (DW: The God Complex, The Vampires of Venice, Vincent and the Doctor, The Impossible Astronaut, A Good Man Goes to War/Let's Kill Hitler)
In her time on the TARDIS, Amy was capable of heroism, saving the lives of the Doctor, Rory, River and others. She was willing to remain in the clutches of the Silents to let her friends escape (DW: Day of the Moon). Her mind, altered by her growing up with a crack in space and time in her bedroom wall, restored erased beings to the universe (DW: The Big Bang) with only her memories. She knew time could be rewritten and hoped there was some way to rewrite it to avoid the Doctor's death. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut, The Wedding of River Song).
Amy was capable of cruelty; she certainly possessed a ruthless streak. In an alternate timeline, when Madame Kovarian, being killed by her eye drive and had gotten it most of the way off, she asked Amy to help her because it was what the Doctor would do. Amy said "He's not here" and put Kovarian's eye drive back on, killing her for having stolen her baby from her. She was later conflicted about this. (DW: The Wedding of River Song)
Appearance
Amy Pond was tall and long-legged, inspiring the Doctor to introduce her to the President of the United States as "Code name 'the Legs'". (DW: The Impossible Astronaut) During her adolescence she towered above Rory. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler) She had coppery red hair, freckles and green eyes. She had a great sense of fashion and loved to experiment with the TARDIS wardrobe. [additional sources needed] She frequently wore short skirts, often with opaque or coloured tights, or leggings. She liked to manicure her fingernails in different colours, most often red.
Behind the scenes
- Amy is the second consecutive main TV companion to have red hair after Donna Noble. This 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 pursuant to 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; it was later revealed that River is Amy's daughter, and that "River" was 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 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 criticised by some viewers for being "too sexy" for a family programme like Doctor Who. In response, Piers Wenger, an executive producer for Series 5, stated, “The whole kissogramme 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.
- Amy is the second companion in the new series pursued romantically by a real historical figure. She was proposed to by Vincent van Gogh. Previously, William Shakespeare made amorous advances towards Martha Jones.
- Amy has a fondness for Romans - her husband Rory has a habit of dressing as one. 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.
- Caitlin Blackwood has blue eyes while Karen Gillan has green eyes. This doesn't necessarily cause a continuity error as in real life people have been known to have their eye colour change over time.
- The Series 6 episode DW: Night Terrors was originally filmed for broadcast during the first half of the season, prior to the events of DW: The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People. Karen Gillan, therefore, is actually portraying the Ganger version of Amy in this episode. However, the later decision to reschedule the episode into the post-A Good Man Goes to War continuity resulted in all overt references to this (including Amy's clothing and another vision by Amy of Madame Kovarian) were deleted.
- Neil Gaiman revealed in DWM's production notes that in his episode (The Doctor's Wife), he had originally intended for there to be a scene in the TARDIS swimming pool, but Karen Gillan cannot swim.
- Amy's last name post-Big Bang has been subject to debate in fan circles as to whether she is now Amy Williams. The series makes it clear Amy has kept her last name (as indicated in the closing credits of episodes produced in Series 6). There has been at least one case of a spin-off production breaking from this: the audio drama BBCR: The Eye of the Jungle refers to Amy as Amy Williams.
Footnotes
{C}{C
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
{C}{C {C}{C {C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
{C}{C
