Lucy Hayward

The TARDIS materialises in what appears to be a contemporary Earth hotel. The Doctor and his two travelling companions, Amy Pond and Rory Williams, begin to investigate. The Doctor is certain that they are somewhere fascinating and he soon recognises that they have arrived in an alien structure specifically designed to take on the appearance of a hotel.

They then meet a group of three humans; Rita, Howie and Joe. They also meet the alien Gibbis - a cowardly, mole-like alien from Tivoli. Each of them having previously been taken from their routine lives and have now found themselves in the hotel. The four explain that there is a creature in the hotel that consumes others. It does this by enticing them to enter one of the many rooms in the hotel which contains their greatest fears, upon which they become brainwashed to ‘praise him’ and allow themselves to be taken.

The Doctor also discovers that the hotel is inescapable, its doors and windows walled up, and its halls and rooms can change on a whim. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory soon find that the TARDIS has also disappeared and The Doctor warns them all from opening any door they are drawn to, for fear of being possessed by whatever they discover inside them.

The Doctor

Despite this warning Amy, Howie, and Gibbis enter a room, so as to escape from the mysterious creature, only to discover it full of Weeping Angels. The Doctor arrives and reveals that the Weeping Angels are not real but are just harmless illusions. Upon seeing Gibbis' reaction to the Weeping Angels, Amy realises that it wasn't her room, but his, as the Weeping Angels were the only creatures to invade Tivoli and try to kill rather than conquer the inhabitants. Gibbis however, unnerves Amy by telling her that her room is still somewhere in the hotel.

As The Doctor tries to ascertain the situation Joe, who is already possessed, is drawn away from the group and is killed by the creature, that The Doctor has deduced is an alien Minotaur. Howie then becomes possessed after entering a room against The Doctor's warnings. His room contains attractive girls who mock him for being nerdy and stuttering.

Rory, Amy and Rita

The Doctor devises a plan to confront the Minotaur by using the hotel’s speaker system to broadcast Howie's voice so as to lure and then trap the Minotaur in the same room as The Doctor. On talking to the Minotaur, The Doctor learns that the hotel is a prison that has trapped the Minotaur for eons and the creature wishes for this to end but the prison keeps it alive.

Terrified of the Minotaur, Gibbis lets Howie go so allowing the creature to chase Howie down. He is killed before The Doctor can save him. Rita and The Doctor bond privately, with him offering to take her through time and space once they escape. However, she has been hiding her own devotions to the Minotaur and separates herself from the remaining survivors to avoid putting them in danger when the Minotaur comes for her. The Doctor is distraught and full of grief when, despite The Doctor trying to find Rita before she is taken by the creature, she is caught by the Minotaur and so follows the same fate as Joe and Howie.

Both Amy and The Doctor are also lured to look into two specific rooms. But Rory is unaffected because he has no strong faith in anything - hence the reason all he sees are exits throughout the hotel that the others cannot see. The Doctor, Amy, Rory, and Gibbis then regroup, and The Doctor surmises that the three who have already been killed, by the Minotaur, believed that some higher fate controlled their lives. That by being exposed to their fears in their room they looked to their faith for answers. The Minotaur was then able to take control by breaking their faiths and converting this energy into a form that it could consume.

Gibbis and Howie

The Doctor then becomes concerned when Amy suddenly begins praising the Minotaur. As the Minotaur comes for Amy, The Doctor and the others grab her and take her to the room she was entranced by. Inside, they find an illusion of the 7 year old Amelia Pond sitting on her suitcase staring at the stars still waiting for the return of her ‘Raggedy Doctor’ (see "The Eleventh Hour"). Realising that it is Amy's faith in The Doctor that is being challenged he breaks Amy's faith in himself. He does this by admitting his own faults and stating that he is just as fallible and that how most who come with him die or get hurt. That he is not a hero, but a mad man in a box, and that it is time they saw each other for who they are and that she is Amy Williams. With her faith in The Doctor broken the Minotaur outside the door collapses to the floor.

With the Minotaur dying, the hotel is revealed to be part of a large simulation. The Doctor identifies it as being a prison ship, and the Minotaur as a relative of The Nimon – an alien species that feeds off the faith of others and who need people to worship them in order to survive. The spaceship’s automated systems having provided it ‘food’ by bringing aboard beings that had a strong faith. The Doctor realises that Joe was a gambler, who believed in luck; Rita was a Muslim; Howie was a conspiracy theorist, who believed the government controls everything, while Gibbis believes that his planet is going to be invaded again but has survived so far due to the extreme pacifism of his species. The Doctor also realises that it was Amy's faith in him was the cause of their arrival on the spaceship.

After the Minotaur dies, The Doctor finds his TARDIS nearby and offers Gibbis a lift home. He then takes Rory and Amy back to Earth, giving them a house and Rory's dream car as a goodbye present. While Rory goes inside the house The Doctor explains to Amy that he can't keep putting them in danger and that it is best for the two of them to stop travelling with him otherwise their faith in him will ultimately lead to their deaths.

After saying goodbye The Doctor sets off alone in the TARDIS. As Amy watches the TARDIS dematerialise Rory comes out of the house, with a bottle of Champagne, to discover the TARDIS and The Doctor gone. It is left to Amy to explain to him that The Doctor is saving them.