You know the story: boy meets girl, girl meets 900 year old alien time-traveller, boy tags along for the ride, boy dies, reality gets rebooted, girl gets replaced with gooey clone and gives birth to an assassin…
Yes, it’s an understatement of Gallifreyan proportions to say that the Ponds have had a rocky start to their marriage.
The best Amy and Rory moments are the little ones; the tiny, beautiful beats that come between the screaming and the Murray Gold fanfares and the “Come along Ponds!”. Moments like in ‘The Big Bang’, where Rory asks Amy if she’s alright and she tells him to shut up.
Or moments like the following ten…
10. The Slap (Children in Need’s Time & Space)
“One mistake and the whole timeline could collapse,” The Doctor babbles. “We’d be left with two Amy Ponds, and then what would you do?”
Rory pauses just a bit too long, turns to Amy, and she show’s him just what she thinks of his (and the audience’s) idea.
9. Amy asks Rory out (The Wedding of River Song)
Reality’s fatally compromised and The Silence are on the loose, but Amy still has time to find her Rory, just as The Doctor said she would. After machine-gunning down The Silence (always a good way to impress your future husband, ladies), Amy casually strolls away with Captain Williams.
“So, you and me should get a drink sometime,” she says in an ever-so casual manner to a bewildered Rory “And married.” Ahh, young love…
8. Young Rory (Let’s Kill Hitler)
Threaded into the flashback of Amy and Mels’ childhood is a beautiful bit of comedy, as poor little Rory (Ezekiel Wigglesworth, challenging Benedict Cumberbatch for name most likely to turn up in a Dickens novel) is constantly overlooked and forgotten about while playing Hide n’ Seek and Marco Polo.
It’s one of those small moments that endears you to Rory even more than you thought possible and is a great bit of shorthand that adds to our understanding of his relationship with Amy.
7. Inside the Tesselecta (Let’s Kill Hitler)
One of Rory’s greatest lines needs no introduction or explanation:
“Okay… I’m trapped inside a giant robot replica of my wife. I’m really trying not to see this as a metaphor.”
6. Rory dies (Amy’s Choice)
By the end of Series 6 Mr. Pond had popped his clogs so many times not even a master Dutch cobbler could mend them. But cast your mind back to his first ‘death’ in Amy’s Choice, which is maybe the most moving.
It’s not just Rory’s death that matters here, it’s also Amy’s reaction to it, and the fact that she’s willing to die because she can’t bear to live in a reality, real or not, without her fiancé. Now if that’s not love, we don’t know what is. Mind you, we weren’t sorry to see Rory’s ponytail go.
5. “Don’t treat me like an idiot” (A Christmas Carol)
A lovely moment that perfectly encapsulates the Ponds’ entire relationship. Fully aware that The Doctor has no idea how to save their crashing honeymoon cruiser, Amy tells him not to treat her like an idiot, only to turn round to Rory and do exactly that.
She may like wearing skirts shorter than a Cyberman’s lifespan, but it’s clear Amy wears the trousers in this marriage.
4. “Stupid face” (Day of the Moon)
Amy’s been captured by The Silence but her sub-dermal transmitter is still broadcasting. Alone and terrified, she keeps talking… and Rory keeps listening, cradling the transmitter in his hands like it’s the most precious thing in the world.
It’s sort of the sci-fi equivalent of listening to your voicemail, if aliens had kidnapped your partner and their mobile.
3. “I’m a thing, I’ll kill you!” (The Pandorica Opens)
Rory’s an Auton. His love for Amy is the only thing keeping him from succumbing to the programming of the Nestene Consciousness, and it’s painful to watch him fight it. Amy believes he can, and just as we think she’s right, and that Love conquers all – even a great big psychic plastic space monster – ‘ZAP!’. He (unwittingly) shoots her.
Murray Gold’s mournful Lost-esque score kicks in, the TARDIS detonates, and the Plastic Centurion holds the love of his life in his arms as the Universe ends around him.
2. On the other side of the door (The Girl Who Waited)
You could pick ten Amy/Rory moments from this episode alone, but it’s always going to be this one that sticks in your chest, as Older Amy says goodbye to Rory before being erased from time. Hands pressed against the TARDIS doors, they both realise what must be done.
“If you love me, don’t let me in”, she weeps. It’s both Darvill and Gillan’s finest performance across both series, and if you didn’t believe in Rory and Amy before, this was the moment when your heart broke and your mind changed for good.
1. “Where. Is. My. Wife?” (A Good Man Goes to War)
20,000 lightyears away from Amy Pond and her newborn daughter, there’s a man willing to tear apart an entire fleet of Cyberships to get to her. He’s incredibly old, incredibly kind, and armed with nothing but a sonic screwdriver. Oh, and he’s dressed as a Roman.
Who’d have thought gawky Rory Pond from Leadworth could be so… commanding? It’s a pivotal moment in our understanding of his character, and one which secured Rory’s place in a generation of Who fans hearts.
Amy’s incredibly moving speech to Melody, the neat twist that it’s Rory, not The Doctor, that she’s talking about, and the fact we see Rory in an entirely new light, make this not just Amy and Rory’s best moment, but one of the best moments of Series 6.
What’s your favourite Amy and Rory moment? Let us know below…