The other day I saw a notification on Facebook, which was promoting a Doctor Who-related video. It said something like, “Amy Pond meets herself…,” and right away, I thought I knew which episode the video was referring to.
(Daily Doctor Who #358)
Only, it turns out that I was wrong. And that got me thinking that Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) has met herself a lot.
I was trying to think if she’s the only companion who has had that experience, and while she almost is, it’s not quite the case.
Jo Grant at least saw herself across a room in Day of the Daleks, when a time-wimey thing happened and she and the Third Doctor briefly crossed over with their future / past selves.
Rose Tyler also saw herself in Father’s Day, when she convinced the Doctor to (unwisely, it turned out) take her back to the moment of her father’s death multiple times. The two versions of Rose didn’t really interact at all, however,
And of course, Clara Oswald met herself dozens of times when the TARDIS was throwing a bit of a hissy fit at her and causing her all manner of temporal problems.
This was in the short scene that we normally call Clara and the TARDIS, which really was more of a gag scene than anything else.
But Amy Pond has met herself at least three different times (or actually, six times if you think about it), and two were in full-on regular episodes.
The Big Bang
In an alternate timeline (which eventually gets rebooted away), Amy Pond meets her childhood self, Amelia (Caitlin Blackwood) and together run around a museum together before the collapsing universe wipes the younger Amy out of existence. This is the episode that came to mind when I saw that initial Facebook post that got me thinking about this.
Space / Time
This two-part mini-story features a weird time travel accident in which the TARDIS materializes inside itself. The slightly separate timeframes that both TARDIS’ exist in results in Amy Pond emerging from the inner one slightly before she leaves the exterior one…if that makes sense. Anyway, the upshot of this is that for a short time, there are two Amy Ponds in the TARDIS at the same time. Of course, later on there are also two Rory’s, so he is another companion who eventually meets himself.
The mini-story calls back to The Big Bang by using part of the same line from Amy when she first meets her previous self, “This is where it gets complicated.”
The Girl Who Waited
The only example on this list not written by Steven Moffat, this story by Tom MacRae features Amy getting trapped in an accelerated time-zone, so that when Rory and the Doctor finally catch up with her a few hours later, 36 years have passed Eventually, the Doctor is able to do a timey-wimey thing and the two Amy’s exist and fight alongside each other for a period of time. All of this comes to an end when the younger Amy is saved and returned to the TARDIS, while the older one falls in battle.
This is the story that the Facebook post was actually referring to.
So, two of these situations occur in timelines which get erased, but it’s interesting it’s such a pattern. And even more intriguing to think that these three events have Amy meeting herself once in the past, once in the present (more or less), and once in the future.
People always talk about how Rory dies all the time, but it seems to me this is just an unusual a coincidence.
Blue Towel Productions 