History Recap / DoctorWhoS33E04ThePowerOfThree

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->''Every time we flew away with the Doctor we'd just become part of his life, but he never stood still long enough to become part of ours. Except once...''
-->'''--Amy Pond'''

-> Written by Chris Chibnall

One day, approximately [[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 stay 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 nursing full-time.

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.

When the cubes do eventually start moving, they light up, spit out fire, experiment on humanity and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking play "The Birdie Song"]]. The Doctor rushes over to UNIT with Amy in tow, while Rory and Brian discover a starship portal in Rory's hospital and some rather scary aliens. While the Doctor and Amy have a quiet FriendshipMoment, realising that their adventures can't last forever, the cubes start a global countdown after which they directly attack people's hearts, sending a third of Earth's population into cardiac arrest. Fortunately, [[BizarreAlienBiology the Doctor has more than one heart]], and has both of them restored to full health after ChewingTheScenery for a bit. Even ''more'' fortunately, Kate Stewart turns out to be Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, the daughter of TheBrigadier, and the Doctor knows he can trust her completely.

The Doctor and Amy rush over to the starship portal and confront the MonsterOfTheWeek: the Shakri, a bogeyman from Gallifreyan bedtime stories who wants to kill humanity with the cubes as a kind of interstellar pest control. The Doctor saves humanity when he realises he can ReverseThePolarity on the cubes, Kate gives the Doctor a kiss on the cheek, and Brian gives Amy and Rory his blessing in travelling with the Doctor a while longer.

----
!!This episode provides examples of:

* AccidentalMarriage: Amy accidentally marries HenryVIII.
* {{Adorkable}}: The Doctor loves playing tennis on the Ponds' Wii.
* AfraidOfNeedles
* AlienInvasion: The slow invasion by lots of little black cubes falling from the sky all around the world.
** Ultimately averted though. They only want to kill all humans.
* AllMythsAreTrue: The Shakri are a Gallifreyan myth.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: The cubes can, among other things, stop people's hearts, fire lasers... and play "The Birdie Song".
* ArtisticLicenseMedicine: Restart someone's heart after a period of death, and no oxygen to the brain? They at least had the decency to have the newsreaders say that emergency care was being set up for those affected, implying they weren't immediately back to full health, but the people shown coming back still seemed to be doing remarkably well to say they'd just been dead.
* AsHimself: Professor Brian Cox and Lord Alan Sugar.
* AttentionDeficitOohShiny / AllergicToRoutine: Eleven [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E10VincentAndTheDoctor still]] really, ''really'' hates waiting. He counted bouncing a football five million times and was annoyed to be informed only an hour had passed.
* BadassBoast: The Doctor gives one to a ''cube''. ''While playing Wii Tennis''.
-->'''Doctor''': This planet, these people are precious to me. And I will defend them until my last breath.
* BodyHorror
* TheBusCameBack: UNIT returns for the first time in the Creator/StevenMoffat era.
* CallBack: The Doctor talks about a couple previous events and characters.
** 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 also mentions he used to have a [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS2E3SchoolReunion metal dog]] that could float.
** 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.
** Particularly astute viewers might pick up on the Doctor's [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie quite justified fear of defibrillators]].
* CanonImmigrant: Kate Stewart made various appearances in spin-off 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".
* TheCastShowoff: Creator/MattSmith plays football again.
* ContinuityNod: Quite a few background references are present in the episode as well.
** The Doctor, Rory and Amy all eat [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E01TheEleventhHour fish fingers and custard.]]
** The Doctor and the Ponds visit [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E03ATownCalledMercy Henry VIII]].
** The Doctor [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E7TheSensorites still owns that monocle]].
** [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion UNIT has a secret underground base beneath the Tower of London.]]
** The Doctor once again wonders [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E2TheShakespeareCode how humans are able to go about with only one heart.]]
** The [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E1TerrorOfTheZygons Zygons]] show up at the Savoy Hotel in 1890.
* CouchGag: The show's title is a tessellated pattern of Cubes.
* CreepyChild: The little girl... droid... thing.
* CuddleBug: The Doctor spends a '' lot'' of time in this episode kissing Amy's forehead and cuddling her, because he knows she's considering a life without him. Rory even gets in on it, grabbing the Doctor's face and very sweetly kissing him on the cheek.
* DeadpanSnarker: Kate has her moments, especially when she's claiming her team are trained in beheadings and she has death ravens.
** Not so surprising, considering her lineage.
* DescriptionCut: The news reports show Professor Brian Cox saying that "the answer must come from a greater man than I." Cut to the Doctor at work.
* {{Determinator}}: Brian keeps diligently watching the cubes long after the world stops caring.
** The Doctor himself counts, after one of his hearts stops.
* DevelopmentGag: In one throwaway gag, the Doctor is seen randomly holding a cabbage. Creator/TomBaker once famously joked that he wanted a sentient cabbage as the next companion.
* DoomedNewClothes: Amy's PimpedOutDress gets a bit charred, as does Rory's new tux.
* DumbMuscle: Kate Stewart seems to regard the UNIT troops and possibly the older, not so MildlyMilitary, older commanders as this.
* ElaborateUndergroundBase: UNIT has one underneath the Tower of London.
* EmotionBomb: One of the cubes can inflict mood swings.
* EurekaMoment: "Oh, Amelia Pond... you always get what you want. ... ...[[OhCrap [the cubes] got what they wanted]]."
* 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 bedside table]].
* FauxHorrific: One of the cubes [[EarWorm emits the Birdie Song/Chicken Dance on a constant loop.]] [[TakeThat The Doctor and Amy are suitably horrified.]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}: At the very start of the episode you can hear a voice message saying how a pair of reading glasses were ready to be picked up. Guess what Amy is wearing in the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E05TheAngelsTakeManhattan next episode?]]
* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: Although it's obvious someone's behind the cubes, there are no hints as to the identity or motive of this MonsterOfTheWeek until the last few minutes of the show.
* GilliganCut: The Doctor drops Amy and Rory off at the Savoy in 1890 for their 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.
* HistoricalInJoke: The Doctor claims to have invented the Yorkshire pudding.
-->'''The Doctor:''' Sweet, yet savoury. ''(holds up a custard-dipped fish finger)'' Sound familiar?
* HumanityOnTrial
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: This is the motivation for why the cubes are used, to prevent the spread of humanity throughout space.
* IAlwaysWantedToSayThat:
-->'''Rory:''' There are soldiers all over my house, and I'm in my pants!
-->'''Amy:''' My whole life I've dreamed of saying that, and I miss it by being someone else.
* InternalHomage: A massive homage to Creator/RussellTDavies-era Earth-invasion stories.
* ItCameFromTheFridge: Amy is cleaning out the fridge; there is milk two months out of date, and when she picks up the yoghurt, she simply screams and throws it.
* LargeHam: Creator/MattSmith gives his grand ode to overacting, and it's ''glorious''.
* LikeFatherLikeSon: Brian is a GenreSavvy {{Determinator}} who calls the Doctor out. He truly is Rory's dad.
** Kate seems a lot like her dad, Alistair.
* MagicalDefibrillator: Amy restarts one of the Doctor's hearts with shock paddles. That is, of course, not what they do. The Doctor also restarts a good chunk of humanity's hearts after a period of time spent dead with the Cubes, although it does at least mention on the news reports that emergency care is being set up for them, implying they are suffering some ill effect from this.
* 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. Of course, this is precisely why it takes them so long to act.
* 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.]]
* TheOtherDarrin: If you consider the ''UNIT'' video ''Downtime'', in which Kate was played by Beverly Cressman, to be canonical.
* PatrickStewartSpeech: The Doctor gives a nice one in defying the Shakri's Tally:
-->"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."
* PimpedOutDress: Amy wears one briefly when they visit the Savoy.
* PowerTrio: Discussed.
-->'''Amy''': It was also when we realised something the Shakri never could: what "cubed" actually means. [[TitleDrop The Power of Three]].
* PromotedFanboy: Lord Sugar. [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho/articles/Lord-Sugar-and-Brian-Cox-Who-Knew Seriously.]]
* ReverseThePolarity
* RuleOfThree
* ShipSinking: The Doctor says he's never been kissed by a Lethbridge-Stewart before.
* ShoutOut: The Doctor likes to play ''VideoGame/WiiSports''.
** UNIT's collecting and testing the cubes is more than a little reminiscent of SCPFoundation.
** A reference to, of all things, ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'': When the doctor gets his hearts going, he says, "Back in the game," and makes a pose- the exact same words and pose were used by Ziggy in the episode "Dome Dolls."
* SinisterGeometry: The little black cubes.
* SkewedPriorities:
-->'''Rory''': There are soldiers all over my house, and I'm in my [[GoofyPrintUnderwear pants]]!
* TheSlowPath: The Doctor still considers anything in excess of a few minutes TheSlowPath. He gets intensely frustrated with boredom after a couple of days.
* SneezeOfDoom: Rory, the Doctor and Amy are hiding under Henry VIII's bed. The Doctor sneezes.
* SpecialGuest: Professor Brian Cox appears, talking about the origin of the Cubes, and Alan Sugar does an episode of ''Series/TheApprentice'' where the challenge is to sell them.
* TitleDrop: Amy does this in the final line. ''Both'' the actual episode title and the working title, actually.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Amy and Rory have been married for ten years (in their personal time-line). 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, it 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.
* TheXOfY: The '''118th''' time the naming structure has been used in ''Series/DoctorWho'' history.