Ok before I start I will point out that at this moment of being really fed up of writing this I really appreciated how my blog decided to completely delete this whole entry just as I was finishing it! Arghhhhh! I thought it was quite a witty entry too. It's almost like this blog now has a lost entry just like the lost episodes of Doctor Who, except of course no one is clamouring to read the fabled lost entry in quite the same way as people are praying to one day be able to watch Marco Polo. Right I really am starting this entry this time..again!
The episode is actually pretty damn good and I'd say it grows on you the more times you watch it for reasons I will go into later.
The basic premise is Amy and Rory are back living in Leadworth having left their days of adventuring through time and space behind. Amy has got pregnant and Rory has grown a pony tail which is nice for him. The Doctor drops in to pay them a visit and soon they are all passing out on a bench in the middle of the village. They then wake up back in the TARDIS convinced that what they have just witnessed was all a dream. However they then fall asleep in the TARDIS and find themselves back I'm the village. This of course leads to the question of which world is the real one and which is the dream?
It's like that story of the man who had a dream he was a frog. When he awoke he didn't know whether he was a man who had dreamed he was a frog or a frog who was now dreaming that he was a man. That's cool, I like that a lot.
Soon both worlds are being haunted by an apparition known as the Dream Lord who seems to be the one playing the game with the heads of the Doctor and his companions. He seems to take particular delight in torturing Amy into choosing between her two men and that really is at the heart of the matter. In the world of the village Rory has everything he wants. He has the women he loves safe and sound and a baby on the way. He wants this world to be the real one. Then there is the TARDIS and the world of the Doctor. It is up to Amy to make the ultimate decision of which world is real and is so doing is making a choice between her future husband and the Doctor.
The reason I see this as an episode that grows on you is down to the mystery of who the Dream Lord is. It is made clear early on that he is a character who knows the Doctor very well and therefore when I first watching this my fan brain was going into overdrive about all the various characters from the shows history he could turn out to be. Therefore when the truth is revealed and we find out that the Dream Lord is actually a creature from the Doctor's own mind brought into being my some psychic pollen then it all feels a little disappointing. However on future revisitations of the episode, when you know who the Dream Lord is from the start it's actually very well played. The scenes between the Dream Lord and the Doctor are fantastic and it's clear that it's the Doctor's own self loathing. Ring brought out of himself to taunt him.
It's also the turning point for Rory and Amy. When Amy thinks that Rory is died (score that one up as death number one for Rory. He'll have several!) then she realises what she has to lose and how much she loves him. Sounds soppy I know but it works really well in the episode.
Also given that you could argue that Matt Smith is actually the 12th Doctor and we know that the Valeyard was formed somewhere between his 12th and 13th incarnation then could the Dream Lord be the Valeyard?? Probably not but it's fun to think so.
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