The Eleventh Doctor Arrives

After having undergone his tenth regeneration (see the ending of the previous story "The End of Time"), the Eleventh Doctor is hanging on for dear life in the open doorway of the TARDIS as his time-machine hurtles out of control, over the city of London, as it crashes back to Earth.

After narrowly avoiding a collision with Big Ben, the TARDIS crash lands on its side in the small village of Leadworth in the back garden of seven year old Amelia Pond. Disturbed in the middle of her prayers the young Amelia goes outside to investigate and sees a bedraggled and newly regenerated Eleventh Doctor struggling from a burnt out TARDIS.

She is at first surprised by The Doctor’s strange appearance and unusual behaviour but takes him inside her aunt’s home and helps him satisfy his bizarre food cravings. After many failed attempts his favourite food turns out to be Fish Fingers and Custard. During their conversations Amelia mentions to The Doctor about a crack in her bedroom wall – which she tells The Doctor has been worrying her due to the strange voice emanating from it.

Amelia Pond

The Doctor decides to investigate it. However, he discovers that it is not just a crack in a wall, but a crack in the universe itself, and on the other side is a prison run by the Atraxi. The Atraxi deliver a warning to them both that ‘Prisoner Zero has escaped’, but before The Doctor can help further he is interrupted by the TARDIS’s cloister bell.

As he rushes from the house, with Amelia close behind, The Doctor tells her that if he does not stabilise the engines then they will incinerate. The Doctor needs to pilot the TARDIS into the future to stop the engines from phasing. As he enters the TARDIS he promises Amelia he will return in five minutes. After the TARDIS disappears she rushes back into the house, and her bedroom, and packs a small suitcase. She then returns to the garden and begins to wait for his promised return.

A Long Five Minutes

But for Amelia, The Doctor does not return. That is not until twelve years later. For The Doctor it is just five minutes and he has some important information regarding the crack in Amelia’s bedroom wall. The Doctor therefore is not prepared for being hit over the head with a cricket bat. When he comes too The Doctor finds himself handcuffed to a radiator and being questioned by a young woman police officer. He soon discovers that not only is the police woman Amelia, or Amy as she is now known, but she is not a real policewoman but is working as a kissogram.

But The Doctor has more important things to worry about then having been gone for twelve years as he explains to Amy that the Prisoner Zero, whom the Atraxi referred too, has been living in Amy’s house by placing a perception filter on one of the rooms of the house. This perception filter makes it so that no-one, but the trained few, can see what is really there.

Amy is understandably shocked at discovering that there is an extra room in the house and, ignoring The Doctors warnings not to, decides to investigate the ‘new’ room alone. Inside she comes face-to-face with Prisoner Zero who is a large snake-like creature. Realising she is in grave danger she dashes back to The Doctor and gives him back his sonic screwdriver which The Doctor uses to free himself just as Prisoner Zero breaks through the door and emerges as a human form with a fierce looking dog.

Amy Pond

Prisoner Zero has in fact taken on the form of a comatose patient, currently in the hospital where Amy’s boyfriend Rory works. Prisoner Zero, with his dog, then chases the two out of the house after the Atraxi’s message from the beginning of the story begins to play through every television, radio and electronic device in the world, adding that the world will be destroyed should Prisoner Zero not give itself up.

The Doctor deduces that they have twenty minutes before the Atraxi weapons power up and therefore he has only that amount of time to save the world. Armed with this knowledge, he uses a laptop and Rory’s phone to transmit a computer virus around the world that sets the clocks back to zero and all computer generated displays to show the number zero, therefore notifying the Atraxi of Prisoner Zero’s presence on Earth and allowing them to track it to Leadworth.

After a standoff in the coma ward of the hospital, during which Amy is nearly killed when the snakelike Prisoner attempts to steal her dreams and memories to use as a form, Prisoner Zero is recaptured. However, much to the dismay of Amy, The Doctor brings the Atraxi back to the hospital roof and, after donning a new outfit, taken from a hospital locker room, he the tells the Atraxi that aliens have invaded Earth before and to look up how they were defeated. The Atraxi discover what The Doctor has done in the past and that he is capable of doing likewise to them and so promptly leave.

Having saved the world once again The Doctor returns to the TARDIS, which by this point has finished repairing itself, and takes it for a quick spin just to be certain that all is well. He again returns to Amy late. However, this time only two years have passed for Amy. Even so he shows Amy the inside of the regenerated TARDIS and she agrees to travel with him on the condition he returns her to the next day. What she does not tell The Doctor is that he has whisked her away in the TARDIS on the eve of her wedding day.