Series 6, Episode 9 | 1 part | First broadcast: 3 September 2011 | Writer: Mark Gatiss | Director: Richard Clark
Cast
- Matt Smith as the Doctor
- Karen Gillan as Amy Pond
- Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams
- Daniel Mays as Alex
Summary
Answering a psychic distress call from a frightened young boy named George, the Doctor tracks the signal to a rundown tower block flat, where George’s fear of the things hidden in his cupboard turns out to conceal a far stranger truth about his own origins. As Amy and Rory become trapped inside a nightmarish dollhouse version of the building’s cellar, the Doctor must convince a father to accept his son exactly as he is.
Interesting Facts
- The episode is framed as a psychological horror story, drawing on childhood fears of monsters hiding in the dark.
- George is revealed to be a Tenza, an alien changeling who unconsciously reshapes reality around his own anxieties.
- The story’s resolution, in which acceptance rather than fear defuses the threat, gives the episode an unusually tender emotional core for a “scary” instalment.
- This episode was originally intended to air earlier in the season before being moved later in production.
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