Amy and The Doctor

The TARDIS takes The Doctor, and his new companion Amy Pond, to a spaceship on top of which has been built a Manhattan-style city full of skyscrapers bearing the names of the counties of England such as ‘Devon’, 'Essex', ‘Kent’, ‘Surrey’ and ‘Yorkshire’. The Doctor informs Amy that the spaceship is a colony ship from the Earth, which has been devastated by solar flares, containing the remnants of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. On exploring this spaceship, known as STARSHIP UK, The Doctor quickly deduces that it has no engines. So what provides its propulsion system to enable it to travel in space?

But both The Doctor and Amy are being observed, dotted around the corridors and rooms are strange fairground type booths containing enamel-painted heads which swivel around to show either; a happy face, an unhappy face or an angry face. Known as Smilers, The Doctor notices that all these booths are spotlessly clean and the population seem to give them a wide berth.

The Doctor and Amy are also being followed by cloaked figures called ‘Winders’. One of these uses a telephone box to call his master, Hawthorne, a senior member of the government, who in turns notifies a masked lady of the arrival of the two strangers and the way The Doctor deduced that there are no engines (when he placed a glass of water on the floor and observed that there were no vibrations).

Starship UK

While The Doctor descends to the lower levels, to discover why there are no engines, he tasks Amy to locate a small girl called Mandy, who they earlier observed all alone and crying - due to the recent loss of her friend Timmy who, on failing at school, has disappeared - to find out why everybody is afraid of the Smilers. Mandy, aware that she has been followed confronts Amy. However, Amy becomes curious about a locked workman's tent marked 'keep out' blocking their way. Despite Mandy's protestations, Amy unpicks the lock and a nearby Smiler watches and rotates its head from a happy face to an angry face. But when Amy enters the tent she is confronted by what appears to be a monster's tentacle. She manages to flee this horror only to be confronted by four of the Winders. One of whom sprays Amy with a gas from a ring on his finger, and she falls unconscious.

Amy regains consciousness in small room which is revealed to be a voting booth. A machine with television screens scans Amy and identifies her. It also reveals her being 1,306 years old but her marital status as ‘unknown’. The screen then shows a man in a smart suit who tells her that she will now be shown the truth of the spaceship's travels, and afterwards she will be faced with a choice of pressing one of two buttons. She can either ‘Protest’, but she is warned its use might have terrible consequences for everyone aboard the spaceship, or she can choose ‘Forget’, where everything will continue unchanged but she will be made to forget everything she learns in the booth. After watching a fast succession of subliminal images Amy quickly chooses to ‘Forget’. An image of Amy then appears on the screen, telling herself to send The Doctor back and to stop him investigating the spaceship.

Mandy

Meanwhile The Doctor meets the mysterious masked woman, who reveals herself to be Liz 10, and who is curious about the spaceship as The Doctor. Before disappearing Liz 10 gives The Doctor a device to help him locate Amy. This he does just as she comes out of the voting room. On entering the voting room himself The Doctor deduces that the machine has made her forget everything she learned in the last twenty minutes. After tinkering with the machine to no avail, The Doctor presses the 'Protest' button, which causes the door to close, trapping both himself and Amy in the room. The floor then slides open, sending them both hurtling down a chute. They arrive in a dark cave whose floor is covered in red liquid and food waste. The Doctor soon deduces that they are in fact standing on the tongue of a large beast and that the cave is in fact a large mouth. After using his Sonic Screwdriver, to irritate the creature, The Doctor and Amy find themselves drenched in vomit and in an overflow pipe.

They are confronted with a door and another ‘Forget’ switch which The Doctor rightly deduces if used will readmit them back into the main part of the ship but will also make them forget what they have just seen. On refusing to press the switch, two watching Smilers not only rotate their heads, to show their angry face, but also open the door of the booths and, to the astonishment of The Doctor and Amy, stand up and start to approach them. Rescue comes from Liz 10, who has followed The Doctor using the device she gave him earlier, and who has a gun capable of temporarily disabling the Smilers.

Liz 10 reveals that she is Queen Elizabeth the Tenth. She also tells The Doctor that she believes her government to be conspiring against her, and feeding her subjects to the beast. Hawthorne, aware that Liz 10 is close to uncovering the truth about STARSHIP UK has her, along with The Doctor, Amy and Mandy, brought to the bowels of the ship, known as ‘The Tower of London’. There The Doctor discovers that a Star Whale is providing the spaceship’s power and propulsion. But is being goaded by a ray penetrating its brain that is hurting the creature. The Doctor and Liz 10 are outraged at the cruelty being unleashed on the Star Whale, with the latter demanding it be set free. Hawthorne insists he is simply obeying orders from a higher authority, implying Liz 10 herself is that higher authority.

Amy is Attacked

The Doctor then reveals that Liz 10 has actually been Queen for hundreds of years (and not ten as she thinks), but has chosen to forget her past years of rule whenever she discovers the truth about the Star Whale. She is forced to watch a video of herself explaining how the British people faced with the destruction of Earth were saved when the Star Whale - thought to be the last of its kind in the universe - appeared like a miracle, and allowed itself to be captured and used to power the spaceship. Liz 10 is then forced to vote herself by choosing either to ‘Forget’ or ‘Abdicate’. She is informed that by pressing ‘Abdicate’ will release the Star Whale but would also destroy the spaceship and all who are on board.

Angry with those who allowed this to happen and disappointed with Amy for having voted earlier to 'Forget', so allowing the creature’s suffering to continue, The Doctor is faced with a dilemma – he can’t allow the Star Whale’s suffering to continue but at the same time he can’t kill all the humans aboard the spaceship. Instead he has no choice but to kill the conscious functions of the creature, in order to avoid it feeling anymore pain, so avoid killing the humans.

But just as The Doctor sets up a large shot of power to make the Star Whale brain dead, Amy remembers The Doctor's encouragement to her to 'notice everything' and spots that while the Star Whale attacks the adults it does not attack the children. She then realises that the Star Whale is in fact benevolent, and has been voluntarily propelling the spaceship. Without warning she grabs Liz 10 and forces her to press the 'Abdicate' button and the stimulus to the brain of the creature stops. The creature however, continues to power the ship and Hawthorne observes that they have, in fact, increased speed.

Explaining her deduction that the Star Whale wants to help the children, and so does not need to persuaded to propel the spaceship, The Doctor and Amy are reconciled. As they head back to the TARDIS Amy is about to reveal to The Doctor that she is engaged to be married when she realises that the sound of a phone can be heard ringing from within the TARDIS. When she answers it she discovers that it is Winston Churchill requesting The Doctor’s assistance. On the wall beside the war time Prime Minister the shadow of a Dalek can be seen….