Top Five Big Damn Hero Moments: Amy Pond (Doctor Who)

As with Rory, I’m not counting “alternate” versions of Amy.  So, no “Amy’s Choice,” older Amy from “The Girl Who Waited,” or “The Wedding of River Song” (spoilers ahead.)

Saving the Star Whale (“The Beast Below” – Series 5, Episode 2)

A clunky episode, but Amy does a fine job realizing what no one else does:  that the Star Whale came to help Starship UK and the passengers don’t need to hurt it to keep it under control.  Since this epiphany is based on the Star Whale’s similarity to the Doctor (old, kind, the last of its kind, can’t bear to hear children crying,) one might argue that Amy shouldn’t know him that well yet.  It works for me, though – she’s spent over a decade wondering and obsessing about him, so when he finally comes back, I can see her paying close attention and being a quick study.

Disarming Bracewell (“Victory of the Daleks” – Series 5, Episode 3)

Another instance of Amy getting down to the emotional truth of things when everyone, the Doctor included, is going at it the wrong way.  The Doctor tries to get the android Bracewell to tap into his humanity, thus disarming the bomb in his chest (yeah – makes total sense to me, too,) by remembering pain, but Amy encourages him to remember love instead.  Super cheesy?  Oh my, yes.  But also important and life-saving.  Well done, Amy!

Evading the Handbots (“The Girl Who Waited” – Series 6, Episode 10)

Trapped in an unfamiliar world and chased by unintentionally-lethal but implacable robots, without either the Doctor or Rory to help, Amy manages to stay one step ahead.  Obviously, the techie genius badass Amy with a sword comes later, but I’m thinking of that first day.  Already, she figures out how to temporarily short out the handbots, she notices important details that help keep her safe, and she starts learning how to get the Interface to tell her what she needs to know.

Investigating the Silurian Ship (“Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” – Series 7, Episode 2)

With the Doctor, Rory, and Rory’s dad off in another part of the ship, Amy manages her own pseudo-companions, Nefertiti and Riddell, quite handily.  She delegates well and works off their Excellent Questions, and she gleans quite a bit from the computer.  While she puts it all down to “pressing buttons,” she’s in fact pretty darn clever, shrewdly interpreting the data on hand and figuring out how to find the answers she’s looking for.

Keeping the Doctor Honest (“A Town Called Mercy” – Series 7, Episode 3)

The Doctor is in quite a state as he prepares to hand Kahler-Jex over to the Gunslinger; he’s thoroughly messed-up from his own guilt, a bad case of over-identifying with the bad guy against his will, and too much time spent traveling alone.  Amy, however, reminds him that, no matter how hopeless things seem, there are lines they don’t cross and they need to be “better.”  (As I’ve said before, she loses points for cavalierly asking to be dropped off at the end of the adventure when she knows he’s been alone too long, but this scene by itself is lovely.)