Magic TV: Doctor Who: Amy Pond’s Baby Explodes

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Photos copyright BBC

We were warned in A Good Man Goes To War.

The Doctor would rise so high before falling further than he ever has before because this was the day he discovered who River Song really was. But I was not prepared to have my jaw fall during an episode that blew me away.

Thus far we have had the Doctor meeting the mysterious Professor River Song who knows him but he has no idea who she is. Currently she is in the storm cage for murdering a man and just back from a trip to London with the Doctor where Stevie Wonder played for them.

At the same time the Doctor has discovered that the Amy he and Rory have been travelling with is just a flesh avatar. The real Amy has been kidnapped and kept alive by Madame Kovarian and her army led by Colonel Manton. They have joined forces with the Headless Monks to prevent the Doctor rescuing Amy. But the Doctor is not one to simply walk away blowing up the twelfth Cyber legion as a message.

The legions at Demon’s Run are taken down by the Doctor and his allies such as the Silurian people, Vastra, Jennie, Strax, a pirate crew, Dorium and World War Two pilots including Danny Boy. Amy and the baby are rescued and all is well with the world. But the Doctor in all his planning has failed to see that he has been tricked in a double bluff. Lady Vastra points out that this was too easy and the Doctor did all this out of anger. Cleric Lorna Bucket arrives warning them that this is a trap. But the re are no lifeforms registering on their scanners; however the Headless Monks are not alive so won’t register.

All of this was done so they could have a baby with Time Lord DNA mixed in due to Amy’s exposure to the Time Vortex on her wedding night in the Tardis. The Doctor gets a message from Kovarian that the baby is hope in the war against the Doctor. he is the cause of everything that is happening.

As the Headless Monks attack, the Doctor’s friends surround Amy and baby Melody from their enemies getting Melody back again. Lorna joins the fight as she met the Doctor once before and has searched for him ever since.

Kovarian laughs that fooling the Doctor once was a joy but fooling him twice the same way is a privilege. Realising what she means the Doctor runs as River Song narrates a poem about Demon’s Run. The Doctor runs calling out for Amy, Kovarian says wakey-wakey and Melody Pond explodes in her mother’s arms as the flesh avatar she always was.

I cannot tell you how much this moment was a slap in the face. You immediately are horrified and feel for Amy and Rory as she screams staring at the white goo she is covered in. The Doctor cannot say anything and Amy pushes him away despite saying she knows this is not his fault. The mournful soundtrack is haunting as they come to terms with losing the baby. They lose Lorna too as she dies having found the Doctor again. Dorium is also lost as is Strax.

The entire episode has been so carefully layered and structured to the moment the Doctor realises too late that he has not won at all; he has failed and in the process delivered the prize right into Kovarian’s hands destroying the lives of his two best friends, Amy and Rory forever.

The loss of a baby is bad enough but to have her kidnapped, taken away from you forever to be turned into a weapon specifically to kill the Doctor is worse. You know she is out there and the life you had in your head for her, the plans you had, the moments that are robbed of that make lifetime memories are gone because of the man in the blue box. These parents will never smile again or have a happy birthday party. Rory says it all in three words “yeah we know.”

In those words he conveys the pain and grief he and Amy share now. And you can tell it is directed at the Doctor. There is so much consequence in their words and body language that the Doctor really cannot understand. Most people live to have children someday and raise them to be better and to give them better lives than they had growing up. There is a hole in their hearts that will never be cured.

The interesting thing is that although we know that River Song is Melody, it doesn’t take away from Amy and Rory’s pain.

A Good Man Goes To War is for me one of the most outstanding episodes of the Matt Smith era not because of the alien aspect but it is the boldest and most human story of them all dealing with the loss of a child. Perfect.