It’s Kat’s turn in the hindsight-seat. Join Deb, Katrina, and Tansy as they take another look at “Amy’s Choice” to see how they feel about it after all this time. (And yes, I know I’m re-using a title, but it’s a good one.)
Have you rewatched this story recently? If so, what did you think, and how did that compare with how you felt about it in the first place? Drop us a tweet or let us know in the comments!
^E
Happy things:
- Kat is excited about Character Options’ new 5th Doctor and TARDIS set from “The Visitation”, especially the hat!
- Tansy
- is joyous about a new Ace and Hex story, The Flying Dutchman / Displaced, from Big Finish!
- recently watched the first episode of Jonathan Creek, which features Colin Baker as the murder victim!
- Deb
- is impressed Big Finish has been recording in lockdown!
- is filled with glee that Great British Bake-Off is back, and Matt Lucas is one of the new presenters!
Berry-ty!
Extra-special thanks to this week’s editor, Steven Schapansky of Castria!
Support Verity! on Patreon
Download or listen now (runtime 1:07:35)
VerityPodcast.com 
Comments on: "Episode 236 – Chasing Amy’s Choice (Again)" (5)
This is still hands-down my personal favorite story of the modern series. I just LOVE how freaking meta it is (about the Doctor, the Doctor’s relationship with their companions, etc). I wouldn’t be interested in seeing such a deep-dive character piece EVERY week, of course, but this one hits ALL of my ‘yes’ buttons. ❤
(Still, I vividly remember in the past many of the Verities not liking this one, so I'll steel myself as I listen — LOL!)
Really interesting discussion this week, Verities! I think Tansy was on to something when she brought up that the show doesn’t address Rory’s reaction to the loss of their baby–if they spent more time on that, Amy’s decision to divorce him due to her infertility would make more sense. She says in Asylum of the Daleks that he’s “always wanted kids,” but we never *see* this in the show. Put your pieces together!
Such meaty content to chew on, even when the storylines aren’t are favorites, this is why we like this show.
I get this, but there are so many ideas going on in the early Moffat that I bet it ended up on the cutting room floor.
If those three actors ever break their pact and come back to the roles for big finish, I think their would be more time to fill in the gaps
If you are going to reevaluate something, then surely you need to watch it again?
I was looking forward to this episode because I heard the first episode about it and disagreed that the criticisms of it were not based on the episode content.
First, this is the doctors imagination, and this doctor is especially socially awkward. Therefore the idea that the scenarios are anti women is nonsense.
Second the choice Amy makes is not between a doctor imagined ‘normal life’ and the TARDIS. It’s between Rory and the Doctor.
Amy chooses, with full agency, Rory.
I hoped after listening to the last episode, the misconceptions about it may have been faced head on.
Unfortunately they were avoided.
I am disappointed
I am happy to cede any and all ground on the actual subject since I don’t have children and, whilst I love my nieces, nephews, godchildren and kids in general to a suitably healthy level, they were never been something I was interested in as part of my own life.
With that said, I don’t quite agree about the age issue for Amy being pregnant that was raised.
Amy is 21 in the “present” of 2010 that the TARDIS scenes are in, but in the Upper Ledworth sequence it’s mentioned as being 2015, so she would be 26 and have been married for 5 years, which seems a reasonable length of time to consider starting a family. 21 year old Amy being saddled with 26 year old Amy’s choices is an unfortunate writers choice, being 26 and 5 years into a happy marriage doesn’t strike me as being overly young to have children, though I may be missing an important point in that train of thought and am happy to be set right.
The missed opportunity here, to me, was that this was so early in the Doctor/Amy/Rory set up, and we’d already seen Amy try to snog the Doctor on the night before her wedding (a move that even Steven Moffat has said he regrets) that the choice never seemed to me to be about adventure vs stability (not directly at least), but literally between Rory and the Doctor (and thus stability vs adventure by association)
So the actual end choice seems a cop-out to me. She has to choose between dying with the two men she cares for (for differing values of care) or living without without either of them, but the more interesting choice to me would be to have her have to choose between a world where Rory had died, and a world where the Doctor had died. Which would she choose? Choosing Rory would at least have confirmed that she did love him more than anything, or that he was ever a “second choice”, which lingered like a nasty aftertaste for much of the season.