History Recap / DoctorWhoS33E04ThePowerOfThree

** Possibly partially averted by the fact that the doctor is not human: conceivably defibrillators do restart Time Lord hearts.

** Then again, maybe defibrillators '''do''' work this way on Time Lords.

One day, [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture ten years]] after Amy and Rory started traveling with the Doctor (in their relative time), billions of tiny black cubes fall out of the sky. Professor Brian Cox is on TV talking about it and everything. The Doctor and his Ponds -- including [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E02DinosaursOnASpaceship Rory's dad Brian]] -- investigate, with the help of UNIT's new scientific leader, [[CanonImmigrant Kate Stewart]]. The Doctor decides to come live with Amy and Rory for a while and gets to know them as they do their everyday jobs and live their everyday lives. Amy is now a travel journalist, Rory is considering working fulltime.

Only the cubes don't do anything. The Doctor can't bear the endless waiting, and takes Amy and Rory on more and more adventures just to stave off the boredom. They fight Zygons, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E03ATownCalledMercy end up in Henry VIII's bedroom]], and so on. Months pass, then a year. Meanwhile, Brian is getting increasingly worried about his son and daughter-in-law when he figures out what [[TrappedInAnotherWorld kinds]] [[LaserGuidedAmnesia of]] [[KilledOffForReal things]] usually happen to the Doctor's companions in the end. The Doctor decides to shelve his rampant AttentionDeficitOohShiny for a while and comes to properly live with the Ponds, because he just misses them terribly when they're not around. Brian keeps a daily video log of the cubes, but all they do is sit, and be utterly, completely indestructible.

* ArcSymbol / ArcWords: Christmas light during the final scene. Earlier, a Christmas song is played.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: The cubes can, among other things, stop people's hearts, fire lasers....and play "The Birdie Song".

** Such as what's happened to some of his previous Companions: those who have left, those who have been left behind, and those who have died.

** The Doctor's inability to handle the boredom of living in normal time on Earth echoes his Third incarnation's irritation of being stuck on Earth for much of his career, and this is only reinforced by his cooperation with UNIT and the presence of a Lethbridge Stewart.

* CanonImmigrant: Kate Stewart made various appearances in spinoff media before appearing in the show. Her previous on-screen adventure was a straight-to-video release with companions Sarah Jane Smith and Victoria Waterfield, called "Downtime".

* CuddleBug: The Doctor spends a '' lot'' of time in this episode kissing Amy's forehead and cuddling with her, because he knows she's considering a life without him. Rory even gets in on it, grabs the Doctor's face and very sweetly kisses him on the cheek.

* FandomNod: With a helping of TrollingCreator. Since about a year before this episode aired, there were theories floating around the internet that Rory is secretly the Master. This episode shows [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E8HumanNature a fob watch on Rory's nightstand]].

* GilliganCut: The Doctor drops Amy and Rory off at the Savoy in 1890 for their 10th Wedding Anniversary, [[TemptingFate promising "no surprises"]]. Cut to them sitting in a burned out hotel:
--> '''The Doctor:''' Bit of a shock. Zygon ship under the Savoy. Half the staff, impostors.
* GuyOnGuyIsHot: Amy is appreciative of her husband kissing the Doctor on the cheek.

-->'''The Doctor:''' Sweet, yet savory. ''(holds up a custard-dipped fish finger)'' Sound familiar?

* ItCameFromTheFridge: Amy is cleaning out the fridge, there was milk two months out of date, and when she picked up the yogurt, she simply screamed and threw it.

* NoodleIncident: The Doctor takes Amy and Rory to the Savoy, which is invaded by Zygons and Amy accidentally gets married to Henry VIII. The Doctor also once ran a restaurant and ended up inventing the Yorkshire pudding.
** One of Rory's patients at the hospital shows up in a wheelchair...with one of his feet stuck in a toilet. Apparently, [[OhNoNotAgain it's not the first time.]]
* OddFriendship: The Doctor and Kate, reflecting the OddFriendship between her father, the Brigadier and the Doctor.

-->"So. Here you are, depositing slug pellets all over the earth. Made attractive, so humans will collect them, hoping to find something beautiful inside. Because that's what they are. Not pests or plague, creatures of hope. Forever building and reaching. Making mistakes of course. Every life form does. But. But— they learn. And they strive for greater and they achieve it. You want a tally. Put their achievements against their failings, through the whole of time. I will back humanity against the Shakri every time."

-->'''Amy''': It was also when we realized something the Shakri never could: what "cubed" actually means. [[TitleDrop The Power of Three]].

* TheSlowPath: Eleven still considers anything in excess of a few minutes TheSlowPath. He gets intensely frustrated with boredom after a couple of days.

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Amy and Rory have been married for ten years (in their personal timeline). When the story is set is unclear, as she's adding Earth time and Doctor time together.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: There were a number of people on the ship that exploded and we only saw the Doctor, Amy, Rory, and Brian escape. In fact, looked like some of those people were still lying comatose in the background ''as'' we watched the Doctor and the Ponds escaping from the exploding ship.

* TheBusCameBack: UNIT returns for the first time in the StevenMoffat era.

* TheCastShowoff: MattSmith plays football again.

* DevelopmentGag: In one throwaway gag, the Doctor is seen randomly holding a cabbage. TomBaker once famously joked that he wanted a sentient cabbage as the next companion.

* LargeHam: MattSmith gives his grand ode to overacting, and it's ''glorious''.

* AttentionDeficitOohShiny / AllergicToRoutine: Eleven [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E10VincentAndTheDoctor still]] really, ''really'' hates waiting. He counted bouncing a football well over a million times and was annoyed to be informed only an hour had passed.

* WorkingTitle: Was originally known to the public as ''Cubed''. And incidentally, this was ''also'' [[TitleDrop Title Dropped]] in the same sentence by Amy.

** [[spoiler:Ultimately averted though. They only want to kill all humans.]]
* [[spoiler:AllMythsAreTrue: The Shakri are a Gallifreyan myth.]]

** The Doctor's inability to handle the boredom of living in normal time on Earth echoes his Third incarnation's irritation of being stuck on Earth for much of his career, and this is only reinforced by his cooperation with UNIT and the presence of a [[spoiler: Lethbridge Stewart.]]

* CanonImmigrant: [[spoiler:Kate Stewart]] made various appearances in spinoff media before appearing in the show. Her previous on-screen adventure was a straight-to-video release with companions Sarah Jane Smith and Victoria Waterfield, called "Downtime".

** Not so surprising, [[spoiler:considering her lineage.]]

* DumbMuscle: [[spoiler: Kate Stewart]] seems to regard the UNIT troops and possibly the older, not so MildlyMilitary, older commanders as this.

* [[spoiler:HumanityOnTrial]]
* [[spoiler:HumansAreTheRealMonsters: This is the motivation for why the cubes are used, to prevent the spread of humanity throughout space.]]

** [[spoiler:Kate seems a lot like her dad, Alistair]].

* MundaneUtility: The cubes spend so long doing absolutely nothing that people eventually take them for granted. Among other things, they've been put to use as paperweights. [[spoiler:Of course, this is precisely why it takes them so long to act.]]

* OddFriendship: The Doctor and Kate, [[spoiler: reflecting the OddFriendship between her father, the Brigadier and the Doctor.]]

* ShipSinking: The Doctor says he's never been kissed by a [[spoiler:Lethbridge-Stewart]] before.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: [[spoiler: There were a number of people on the ship that exploded and we only saw The Doctor, Amy, Rory, and Brian escape. In fact, looked like some of those people were still lying comatose in the background ''as'' we watched the Doctor and the Ponds escaping from the exploding ship]].

* {{Foreshadowing}}: At the very start of the episode you can hear a voice message saying how a pair of reading glasses were reading to be picked up. Guess what Amy is wearing in the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E05TheAngelsTakeManhattan next episode?]]

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Amy and Rory have been married for ten years (in their personal timeline). When the story is set is unclear, as she implies she is adding real life and Doctor life time together.

* EverybodyLives

* EverybodyLives

* PatrickStewartSpeech: The Doctor gives a nice one in defying the Shakti's Tally:

-->'''Rory''': There are soldiers all over my house, and I'm in my [[GoofyPrintUnderwear pants]].

* TheXOfY: The'''118th''' time the naming structure has been used in ''Series/DoctorWho'' history.

* TheXOfY: Number '''118''' in ''Series/DoctorWho'' history.

** [[spoiler: Also, why ''were'' people being kidnapped?]]
** [[spoiler: Given that both Brian and one other victim was seen taken from hospitals, it's possible that the Shakri wanted to know what sicknesses Humans suffered, in order to better engineer something to perfectly exterminate them.]]

** The Doctor's inability to handle the boredom of living in normal time on earth echos his Third Incarnation's irritation of being stuck on earth for much of his career, and this is only reinforced by his cooperation with UNIT and the presence of a [[spoiler: Lethbridge Stewart.]]