This is a Doctor Who post

[vanessarama]

Up till this week's episode I've enjoyed the episodes but not had enough compelling things to say to be bothered posting. I enjoyed the Britain-at-war bits of Victory of the Daleks, loved the camouflage Daleks with wee Union flags on them, but didn't much like the new Ikea kitchen-appliance Daleks (shiny plastic and available in a variety of colours).

But now, it's beginning to get interesting. There's an arc. I think that's what I really missed during the "specials year", having a proper arc to get stuck into. I like clues!

So, who noticed the double-Doctor switch in the forest? It's not just the mysteriously reappearing jacket that gives it away. Doctor number one pats Amy on the head and casually says "Later" as he dashes off. Doctor number two crouches down in front of her, holds her hands, kisses her on the forehead and has tears in his eyes as he speaks to her. He's clearly quite emotional and distressed. Then we see Doctor number one again, and he's back in casual flying-through-the-problems mode again. So what did he say when she was seven that she's forgotten, and why does she have to remember it?

The other thing to pick up on in this episode is that at one point Angel Bob says "The Doctor in the Tardis hasn't noticed". That echoes the first episode where Prisoner Zero mocks him with a singsong nursery-rhyme "The Doctor in the Tardis doesn't know, doesn't know". That's got to be deliberate, and the nursery rhyme-ish phrasing, I think, is something to do with little seven-year-old Amy.

The other thing I'm wondering, and this is really far-fetched; sometimes the Doctor calls her Amy and sometimes he calls her Amelia. That could be for all sorts of reasons, but I think (or am hoping) that it has a bit more significance than just trying to dig into her childhood or call up a different sense of self.

I have a vague idea that Amy isn't real - or that she's been deliberately placed into that point in time and space for some reason. Some Doctor-related reason, of course. We've never seen her parents, nor the auntie she's living with - and what kind of auntie goes out and leaves a seven-year-old alone in the middle of the night? Why does Rory's hospital pass say it was issued in 1990? Can't be a production glitch, because they pay way too much attention to it - and can't be that the story's set in the 1990s if Amy is getting married in 2010. Why does the Doctor mention the duckpond without any ducks again? THERE MUST BE A POINT DAMMIT. And also there are WAY too many coma patients in that one wee little village which only has a post office and a duckpond. They have an entire hospital - for such a small village. Why?

Part of me wonders if this is related to the Doctor being an idiot at the end of 'Waters of Mars' and rescuing people who shouldn't have been rescued. I know that Adelaide rectified that, but there were still two other people floating about on earth who shouldn't have been there. Maybe he really did rip a hole in time by doing that. I always wanted there to be more to that storyline than there was.

I am loving River Song SO MUCH.

You will note I have said nothing about Amy trying to jump the Doctor's bones at the very end of the episode. I'm not sure how I feel about it; it's almost as if it belongs in another episode entirely. Character-wise I don't think it's implausible; we know Amy is impulsive and she's been dreaming and thinking about this man her entire life. I did think that it was cute the way she kept slipping his braces off his shoulder and he kept slipping back into them :) OTOH, it was a bit jarring. Although I do like that rather than being in luuurve with the Doctor she just wants to jump him - makes a refreshing change to the RTD years where everyone fell in love with him except the wonderful shining light that was Donna. I miss Donna.