Doctor Who: Script To Screen 2012: Good As Gold

Part 1: Introduction

The Doctor is trapped, surrounded by very noisy hard surfaces in the void that is the Land Of Fiction. Amy and Rory are with him, but off-camera, and conspicuously silent throughout. This definitely isn't cool, in fact it's embarrassing, but the Doctor goes for it anyway with gusto.

Blatantly alone, he appeals through the camera for primary school children of Great Britain (not you Ireland) to get writing a story to enable them to escape.

"So, here's something to get you started - the Olympics! Love those games! From those on Earth, to those right out on the edge of time. Just not the 2012 ones. Been there already, and I'll only bump into myself, which is just so embarrassing."

Part 2: Amy update

The Land Of Fiction has not been kind to Amy, and just as it once transmogrified Jamie into looking quite different, now the same fate appears to have befallen her:

Outside what I am calling the TVC TARDIS, she too appeals to Blue Peter viewers to write a story for her, Rory and the Doctor to star in to save them.

Part 3: Good As Gold

The winning story.

The Doctor and Amy are inside the TARDIS. Rory is still not visible, and now is not even mentioned. This is entirely consistent with the focus of the series. Let's just assume that he refused to take part in their escape and is sitting in another room doing absolutely nothing as usual, as awkwardly as possible.

Amy: "Doctor? It says in The Intrepid Space Traveller Handbook that if you wanna properly call yourself a space traveller you're supposed to have an adventure at least once a week."

Doctor: "Well!"

Amy: "Well. We haven't had an adventure in ages."

Doctor: "You're absolutely right! Adventure it is!"

[HE AIMS THE SONIC SCREWDRIVER AT THE CONSOLE. IT EXPLODES.]

Amy: (small scream) "What was that? What did you just do?"

Doctor: "Er, exactly what you asked me to - I set the TARDIS to Adventure Setting."

[HE PULLS A LEVER. IT EXPLODES AGAIN. AN ALARM GOES OFF.]

Amy: "Are you sure you didn't set it to Kill Amy And The Doctor Setting?"

Doctor: "Now now now now now, hang on, that was meant to happen." [HE PUSHES TWO LEVERS AND IS ENGULFED BY A CLOUD OF SMOKE.] "So was that."

As you can tell, the dialogue here is pretty slick, and honed like the regular series, right down to the incessant music drowning much of this comedy out. And the ever-quonging cloister bell.

What;s impossible to escape though is that this winning story must surely have made the losing contestants quite unhappy. In direct contravention of the stated guidelines, the Doctor and Amy do land at the 2012 Olympics, and even meet the runner about to light the flame, who isn't the tenth Doctor during the events of Fear Her. (in other words, the Doctor must be mistaken, and these are not the 2012 games but another year)

This runner's just been chased in front of potentially billions of people by a Weeping Angel. (who can only move when noone's looking at them) Conversely, perhaps this villain was originally intended to be one of the Silence.

The final shot also repeats the same open ending as in last year's competition, by furnishing the 'sode with an unresolved cliffhanger. How do the Doctor and Amy escape? We'll sadly never know, although the story potential of Amy and the Doctor getting touched and awakening many decades earlier in the same TARDIS is enthralling.

All in all, a promising script with its own voice, and since it doesn't follow either the series or the competition rules, I'm sure the Doctor would be tickled. I wouldn't be surprised if next year they receive fewer entries though. :)

It's just great that these minisodes get made.

Placement: Given the inclusion of Amy and Rory, and the public nature of their appeal, I'm listing this as before The God Complex.