Steven Moffat is back writing Doctor Who. The former showrunner bowed out just before Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor came on board, but now he’ll be writing at least one episode for Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor. Generally, the fandom seems pretty excited about this, citing episodes like “Blink” as proof of his talent.
I don’t remember him being so popular back when he was actually running the show, though. Back then, people constantly criticized him for underwriting his female characters. Combine that with gaslighting comments denying sexism in the fandom and jokes that came off as sexist and belittling (see his infamous “the Queen should be played by a man” quip) and he fast became a very polarizing figure in Doctor Who fandom.
My favorite Who woman
My trouble in those days started when I fell utterly and totally in love with Amy Pond. She was the first of Moffat’s Who companions and she was everything I wanted in a female character. She was smart, she was witty, she was beautiful, she was… oh wait, this girl is messed up.
I felt I could relate to Amy and her relentless bad behavior, informed as it was by the loss of her parents and then her feelings of abandonment surrounding the Doctor. She was not an easy person to like in many ways, and she masked her hurt and fear of loss behind quips, sarcasm, and flirting. She attempted to cheat on Rory, the man who loved her, with the Doctor, and even after returning to Rory, she pushed him away at every given opportunity. She always seemed to be testing people with snide remarks designed to ask, “Are you going to leave me now like everyone else does?” And when they did, she went to pieces.
I found Amy amazing and I couldn’t separate that from Steven Moffat’s writing. I was immensely grateful that he’d created Amy in the first place. But I always strongly objected to the actual storyline Moffat wrote for her after her first season. It was, to put it bluntly, horrible.
Amy’s trauma
The trouble began in the very first episode of Doctor Who season six, where Amy is revealed to be pregnant. I had the sinking feeling that this would turn out to be a “magical pregnancy,” a trope I hate, and I was right. But it unfolded in a worse way than I could have imagined.
It turned out that the Amy we had followed throughout season six was, essentially, a flesh puppet (a “ganger”) being controlled by the real, unconscious, imprisoned Amy. She had been taken by the Doctor’s enemies because of, guess what, her very special pregnancy, a baby conceived in the TARDIS. As soon as the flesh puppet was destroyed, Amy woke up in a white tube with her legs spread, about to give birth, with a villain looking on enthusiastically as she screamed.
To this day it boggles me that no one thought about the implications of this. Amy wasn’t technically there in her pregnant body but it was still her body. People were therefore experimenting on her body while she wasn’t in it, experiments that had to do with her fertility and the most intimate parts of herself. And, speaking as clinically as I can, Amy’s clothes and underwear must also have been taken off her in that situation, since when she awakes in her real body she’s clad only in a white gown.
This isn’t even the end of Amy’s trauma. Although she wasn’t given the choice of whether to keep the baby (and none of her actions prior to waking up in the tube indicate she thought she was ready for a family) she clearly cares for it very much indeed. But the baby is immediately taken from her by the villains while she cries and pleads for them not to.
The Doctor and Rory recover the baby and bring her back to Amy, and it seems like if they can just win the battle ahead of them, they’ll all be able to go home. Amy and the baby are holed up in a safe spot. But then, as Amy hides, the baby turns to goo in her arms. The baby was also a flesh avatar and the real one has been taken by the villains.
Amy and Rory are mourning their loss when their friend River Song—the Doctor’s future wife—shows up. If you haven’t seen Doctor Who you might still be able to guess the twist here: River is the grown-up baby. And that would be great if it didn’t mean Amy just lost the entire chance to raise her child.
And then, back to adventuring
None of this worked as a storyline.
The following episode takes place after a time skip, so we never see Amy react to the shock and horror of what had just happened. We learn during the course of this episode that River’s previous human form was Amy’s childhood friend Mels, so Amy did get to see her child grow up… but she didn’t get to raise her, so it’s not much of a consolation prize. And then … well, then we’re pretty much back to business as usual. There are multiple times during the rest of season six where the stolen baby and the horror of Amy and Rory’s loss should have very much been brought up, and yet it never is. At times, it’s like the whole incident never happened, until the season six finale.
In the finale, we do get one moment of Amy getting revenge on the people who took her child, which is something, but it came as a massive jolt considering how Amy’s giving birth had barely been mentioned for several episodes beforehand. Then in season seven we finally get a glimpse of Amy’s trauma over what was done to her body, specifically.
She and Rory are on the verge of divorce after yet another time skip, and it turns out this is because Amy has discovered she can’t have any more children. She tells Rory through frantic tears, “You have always wanted kids, ever since you were a kid, and I can’t have them. Whatever they did to me at Demons Run, I can’t ever give you children.”
Yep, turns out the real victim here was Rory. The actual terrible violation that happened to Amy doesn’t factor into it, it’s just the fact that she’s no longer fertile that’s the problem. But the stripping, touching, assaulting of an unconscious woman? That’s not mentioned. How could it be, Doctor Who is a children’s show … well, apparently.
Moffat now
This all happened on the show over a decade ago and who knows, very possibly Moffat would choose to do a different pregnancy storyline (or, gasp, no pregnancy storyline at all) with Amy if he was writing it all again. Who knows? I do think he’s grown as a writer and a person since his Doctor Who days, and I find a lot of his other Who women (Clara, Bill) wonderful as well. I certainly don’t hate his era, if anything it’s my favorite!
And yet my disappointment over what happened with Amy has always colored my view of his work. He wrote a wonderful female character and then took all her agency away, had her violated, traumatized, punished… and seemingly didn’t even recognize what he’d done.
(featured image: BBC)
