Series 5 (2010)
Episode title: The Eleventh HourFeaturing: Eleventh Doctor
Companions: Amy Pond
First shown: 3rd April 2010
Related articles: Prisoner Zero
Guide: A new series, a new Doctor and a new episode. So what better way to start it, than with the TARDIS crash landing in Leadworth, June 1996? So starts our new Doctor’s journey as he meets his new companion, seven year old Amelia Pond. Amelia believes that Santa sent the Doctor to help fix a crack in her wall that had been bothering her for some time. She shows the Doctor the crack, who discovers it to be an Atraxi prison, which send the Doctor a psychic message – “Prisoner Zero has escaped.” The Doctor searches the house, but only finds a door out of the corner of his eye that wasn’t there before. He tells Amelia to stay out of the house for her safety before having to attend to the TARDIS. He to use his new, unfinished TARDIS, and promises to be back in five minutes. Amelia packs a suitcase, deciding to travel with the “raggedy Doctor” but he never returns.
The Doctor returns, some time later and searches the house for Amelia, only to be knocked out by a cricket bat. When he regains consciousness, he is confronted by a much older Amelia (who now calls herself Amy). Meanwhile, Prisoner Zero has been hiding in Amy’s house for the time in between the two meetings with the Doctor, and the Doctor show’s Amy the door hidden by a perception filter. Amy enters to room to retrieve the Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver and comes face to face with Prisoner Zero. The duo escape the house and flee into the village, where they meet up with Amy’s friend the nurse, Rory Williams, who says he’s been seeing his coma patients walking around in the village. The Doctor realises that Prisoner Zero is using the forms of the coma patients to hide from the Atraxi. When the Doctor tries to reveal Prisoner Zero to the Atraxi now orbiting Earth, his Sonic Screwdriver explodes.
The Doctor heads to the hospital where Prisoner Zero retreated after Rory and Amy have started evacuating it. He arrives just in time to save them from Prisoner Zero, when the Doctor then reveals his plan of broadcasting the number ‘zero’ across all media forms that all link back to Rory’s phone, which had photographs of the coma patients, allowing the Atraxi to identify Prisoner Zero. However, Prisoner Zero reveals he also has a trick up his sleeve, and assimilates the form of a young Amelia Pond holding the Doctor’s hand, sending the real Amy into a deep sleep. The Doctor realises that Prisoner Zero is using Amy’s subconscious to form into, so he makes Amy dream about Prisoner Zero that she saw back at her house, forcing Prisoner Zero to take his real identity. He is captured by the Atraxi quickly after that, but before he is taken away he warns the Doctor about the cracks in the universe, that “the Pandorica will open... silence will fall.”
The episode ends with the TARDIS completing its repairs, and the Doctor promising Amy that he’ll return in a few minutes after a test drive. When he does he finds Amy really angry, because he’s been gone for a further two years. After she calms down, he offers her a trip in the TARDIS and she agrees, but tells him she must be home by the next morning. The last shot is of Amy Pond’s bedroom, showing toys and drawings of the “raggedy Doctor” before stopping on a wedding dress hanging up, suggesting that she is due to be married.