'The Eleventh Hour' by Steven Moffat

On fire and spinning wildly out of control, the TARDIS plummets towards Earth with the newly regenerated Doctor clinging on for dear life… Meanwhile, in the village of Leadworth, a young girl named Amelia Pond says her bedtime prayers, asking for help with a scary crack in her bedroom wall, through which she can hear strange voices. Interrupted by a loud crash from outside, Amelia is amazed to find a police box lying in a smoking heap in her garden, from which emerges a strange young man named the Doctor. Agreeing to give her new friend something to eat, Amelia takes him back to her house and cooks him several meals, all of which he hates, until he eventually finds he likes fish fingers and custard. Explaining that her aunt is out, Amelia then shows her guest the crack in her bedroom wall, which he identifies as a split in the skin of the world, a break in space/time. After hearing a voice declaring that “Prisoner Zero has escaped”, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to widen the crack; beyond lies a dark prison interior, and a creature that looks like a gigantic eyeball! This bizarre being sends a warning to the Doctor’s psychic paper, and then promptly reseals the rift. Leaving Ameila’s room, the Doctor heads out onto the landing and senses something wrong about a nearby door; however, before he can investigate further, he hears the sound of the TARDIS’ Cloister Bell chiming: the ship’s engines are phasing, and unless it is stabilised it will explode. Explaining that he just needs to hop five minutes into the future, the Doctor leaves in the TARDIS, while Amelia rushes back to her bedroom, packs a suitcase and goes back to the garden to wait… and wait… The TARDIS finally rematerialises and the Doctor races back to warn Amelia that Prisoner Zero is inside her house; however, before he can find the girl he is knocked unconscious by a blow from a cricket bat… Elsewhere, at the Royal Leadworth Hospital, a nurse named Rory shows Doctor Ramsden how all the coma patients in his ward are apparently calling for her, all crying out “Doctor”; however, Doctor Ramsden refuses to believe her staff’s claim that he also saw the coma patients walking around the village, and she sends him home. Back at the house, the Doctor comes to and finds himself handcuffed to a radiator by an attractive policewoman in a very tight-fitting uniform, who accuses him of breaking into her home. The WPC is surprised when the Doctor mentions Amelia Pond, and becomes even more astonished when he points out an extra room on the landing, one she has never seen before. Ignoring the Doctor’s warnings and explanation of a perception filter, the WPC goes inside to look; she quickly finds her prisoner’s sonic screwdriver, covered in slime – and a huge, vicious snake-like monster hanging from the ceiling. Rejoined by the terrified WPC, the Doctor swiftly uses his sonic to seal the mysterious room; he then learns that his captor is not a real police officer after all, but is in fact a kissogram named Amy. Just then the door bursts open and a man and dog emerge – and when the man begins barking, the Doctor realises that the new arrivals are Prisoner Zero in disguise (the multiform creature basing its new form on one of the coma patients in the hospital). When the man and dog are distracted by a voice booming out of nowhere that proclaims the “human residence” is surrounded and about to be incinerated, the Doctor takes the opportunity to sonic himself free of the handcuffs and lead Amy outside. The Doctor then attempts to get back inside the TARDIS, but the ship is sealed shut, as it continues to rebuild itself. On seeing the police box, Amy reveals that she is Amelia: the Doctor took longer than five minutes to return – he took twelve years! The alien voice booms out again, emanating from everything with a speaker in the village: mobile phones, iPods, even an ice-cream van’s tannoy. Nipping into the nearest house, Doctor and Amy find its occupants, Mrs. Angelo and her grandson Jeff, watching the same transmission on every television channel. The Doctor deduces that the message is coming from an alien battle fleet in orbit around the Earth – and in just twenty minutes’ time, these visitors will deal with their escaped prisoner by destroying the entire world. Meanwhile, above the planet, a fleet of huge, crystalline spaceships piloted by enormous eyeball-creatures surround the Earth… When the sky suddenly goes dark, the Doctor tells Amy that the invaders have placed a force field around the planet, in preparation for boiling the Earth. After convincing Amy that he can save the world, the Doctor scans his surroundings for anything out of the ordinary: he soon spots Amy’s boyfriend, Rory, who is ignoring the terrifying sight in the sky and instead using his phone’s camera to photograph a man and dog. As Rory tells Amy and the Doctor that the man is also lying in a hospital bed, an ‘eye-ship’ appears in the sky overhead and begins scanning the area for its escaped prisoner; the Doctor tries to attract its attention by using his sonic to set off car alarms and explode street lights, but this causes his screwdriver to overload, and in the confusion Prisoner Zero escapes by melting into a drain. The Doctor explains that the escaped criminal hid in Amy’s house for the last twelve years; the authorities have only arrived now because they were searching for the Doctor, after seeing him through the crack in Amy’s wall. While Amy and Rory drive off to the hospital, the Doctor returns to the Angelos’ house, where he uses Jeff’s laptop to hack into a video-conference call between the world’s leading space experts; having gained their attention by proving his credentials as a genius, the Doctor sends them the computer virus he has just written on Rory’s phone, which is designed to reset all the world’s clocks. Leaving Jeff to make sure the authorities transmit the virus across the world, the Doctor commandeers a fire engine and speeds off to join Amy and Rory. Meanwhile, Amy and Rory discover the hospital in chaos, many of its patients and staff slaughtered; they then come face to face with the vicious Prisoner Zero, now disguised as a mother and her children. But as the evil villain closes in on its victims it is stopped by the timely arrival of the Doctor, who smashes through a nearby window with the fire engine’s ladder. Prisoner Zero tells the trio that its pursuers, the Atraxi, will surely kill it, and so it wants to make sure the Earth perishes too; the creature also reveals that the universe is cracked, and ominously warns that “the Pandorica will open, silence will fall…” At that moment, all the world’s clocks reset to 00:00: a message sent by the Doctor to the Atraxi battlefleet, to encourage the aliens to trace the source of the virus to the phone he is currently holding. As an Atraxi vessel appears above the hospital, Prisoner Zero makes to transform into another of the coma patients – but the Doctor is one step ahead, and he uploads the photos om Rory’s phone to the Atraxi so that they know their escaped prisoner’s disguises. In retaliation, Prisoner Zero uses its link with Amy to render her unconscious, then makes her dream of her younger self and the Doctor so that it can take their forms. Speaking to the sleeping Amy, the Doctor encourages her to dream of Prisoner Zeros true form – causing the creature to revert to its original shape, which is immediately detected by the Atraxi, who promptly restrained their prisoner and then depart. Amy awakes and shares Rory’s delight, but the Doctor is less happy, wanting to call the aliens to account for their actions towards the Earth and its people. Using Rory’s phone to recall the alien ships, the Doctor then finds himself some new clothes in a nearby changing room, and then leads Amy and Rory up to the roof, where one of the crystalline ships is waiting. The Doctor confronts its giant eyeball-like occupant, warning it and its race to stay away from the Earth, which is under his protection – and on realising who they are dealing with, the Atraxi turn and flee in terror. Discovering his TARDIS key glowing with energy, the Doctor rushes back to Amy’s garden, where he is overjoyed to find his ship rebuilt both outside and in. Amy and Rory arrive on the scene, but they are too late: the TARDIS dematerialises leaving Amy behind once again. Time moves on, until one night, Amy is woken from her sleep by the sound of the TARDIS; heading outside she meets the Doctor, who explains how he tried out his freshly-repaired ship with a quick trip to the moon and back. When the Doctor offers Amy the chance to join him in his travels he is surprised by how furious she is – until she explains that he wasn’t gone five minutes, he was away for two years! However, when Amy sees the inside of the Doctor’s ship she soon changes her mind: the Doctor has a new companion. The TARDIS dematerialises, leaving behind Amy’s house and possessions, including all her drawings and models of her ‘Raggedy Doctor’ and his TARDIS – and also her wedding dress…

Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amelia ‘Amy’ Jessica Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Caitlin Blackwood (Amelia), Nina Wadia (Doctor Ramsden), Marcello Magni (Barney Collins), Perry Benson (Ice Cream Man), Annette Crosbie (Mrs Angelo), Tom Hopper (Jeff), Arthur Cox (Mr Henderson), Olivia Colman (Mother), Eden Monteath (Child 1), Merin Monteath (Child 2), David de Keyser (Atraxi Voice), William Wilde (Prisoner Zero Voice), Patrick Moore (Himself)

Directed by Adam Smith
Produced by Tracie Simpson
Executive Producers Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger and Beth Willis
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC HD):
3rd April 2010 @ 6.20 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh Doctor, and introducing Amy Pond and Rory Williams

*This season opener was an hour long

*This episode introduced a new arrangement of the 'Doctor Who' theme tune, new opening titles and a new end credit sequence

*Working title: 'The Doctor Returns'

*A short scene called 'The Raggedy Doctor by Amelia Pond' was later released on the BBC website on 6th April 2020, to cheer people up during the Coronavirus crisis: read by Caitlin Blackwood, written by Steven Moffat and illustrated by Sophie Illes, it features diary entries by youg Amelia Pond, about her friends the Raggedy Doctor, Rory and Mel