"Good as gold, you are, Doctor."
IN THIS ONE... A Weeping Angel threatens the 2012 London Olympics.
REVIEW: Ooh, this one has Amy as well. Good as Gold starts with some fun banter and jokes that would have worked on the show proper. I'm all in. There's a bit of meta energy going on - Amy reads "adventurer" instructions that imply television schedules, for example - which fits the Moffat era quite well. Then, the TARDIS lands in the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremonies and a torch bearer runs into the ship (played by an actor, they didn't get an actual athlete), and wait a minute... Shouldn't that be the 10th Doctor running on the track at this point?! See Theories for how to fix this boo-boo, but I can't blame the writers. They were ASKED to make it about the Olympics, just not the 2012 ones because he would risk bumping into himself, so oops! I guess the producers couldn't fight off the allure of tying into that year's games, especially since Doctor Who was infamously not included in the opening ceremony. At least the kids threw in a Weeping Angel (who more nefariously than the Isolus tries to kill the Olympic spirit), which is always a bit thrilling. Although just zapping it with the sonic is a big cheat, isn't it?
Thematic links to the previous "Script to Screen" contest include the Doctor's hair being exploded out of shape (like Einstein's, something the contest announcement specifically referenced) and the sinister "last scare" that presumably leads to an untold story. But where the production failed Death Is the Only Answer, Good as Gold is put together much better and feels less haphazard.
VERSIONS: The contest was announced by Matt Smith in-character as the Doctor, as if he, Amy and Rory were trapped in a liminal space (specifically referred to as the Land of Fiction, squee!!!!) and needed young brains to write an adventure to get them out of it. It's also available on YouTube.
THEORIES: So even though the Doctor warns his audience about the 2012 Olympics, it seems that one of the things changed by the Big Bang 2 (or that have fallen into the cracks) is the Doctor's adventure in Fear Her (I have NO PROBLEM WITH THAT!). He remembers it, of course, so he may well mention it, but it didn't happen to US. Indeed, if you watched the 2012 Olympics, Tennant didn't make an appearance. We might also blame the Land of Fiction for this, implying the adventure only exists as a "story" in that dimension, and therefore not happening in ours, though the Doctor's dialog kind of contradicts that (why warn us off the 2012 Olympics, for example).
REWATCHABILITY: Medium - The young writers got the Doctor's voice right and threw in a favorite monster. Who cares if it kind of, sort of, contradicts continuity?
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