DOCTOR WHO: Arthur Darvill Says It’s Time for Rory to Man Up

Arthur Darvill co-stars on Doctor Who as an Everyman type, the one through whom the viewer can learn about and access the world of Time Lords, Daleks, and Companions. In this week’s episode of the iconic sci-fi series, Darvill’s Rory steps up to the plate when his wife, Amy Pond, is in danger, and Arthur took a few minutes to talk with reporters about the episode in advance.

Warning: minor spoilers ahead!

This episode could be called ‘Rory’s Choice’,” says Arthur. “It’s a real one that tests Rory and Amy’s relationship actually. Every time you get a script, you know, we always kind of anticipate are they going to be good. But this one we got and we were like ‘wow, this is really good but really hard.’ And Karen [Gillan]’s really brilliant in it. I can’t give too much away but she has to play something very different to what she normally plays and that was a real challenge for her and she really pulls it off. She’s great.”

The situation Amy finds herself in pushes the couple to their emotional limits. Rory has to find her and save her, but, of course, this being Doctor Who, it’s not a simple rescue mission. The Doctor is dealing with something else, so Rory has to handle this without a lot of support.

“He really steps up to the plate and proves himself even more than he has in the past,” Arthur says. “He does alright without the Doctor. As well as testing Amy and Rory’s relationship, it tests the Doctor and Rory’s relationship as well. Rory mans up a little bit. As much as Rory can be a bumbling idiot sometimes, I think he’s proven to the Doctor & everyone else that he can step up to the plate.”

But what we really want to do know is: does Rory die again?

“Yes he’s bit sick of that to be perfectly honest,” laughs Arthur. “I think I kept seeing it as a bit of a running joke and I’ll ask Steven if there’s any kind of big reason for that constantly happening and he’s as bad with us as he is with all you guys, with the press and with the public. He won’t tell us anything. So I have no idea if this is going to keep happening. I don’t know if he’s got a big plan for it. But I personally hope that Rory just stops dying. A lot of times this happens because he’s put himself in the way of danger for other people.”

Fans have been wondering why Rory and Amy didn’t have more of a reaction to the fact that they didn’t get to raise their daughter. The show spent so little time onscreen dealing with an event that was so huge, but Arthur explains that for the couple, what’s normal for us isn’t normal for them.

“They’re so affected by what’s happened to them and by everything they go through every day,” he explains, “that this can happen and it can be not as freaky as it would be for your average person. And, you know, they’ve completely been sucked into the Doctor’s world. To return to real life now and to react kind of like how normal people would react to things – they can’t really do it. I don’t think they will quite compute it. Obviously they are freaked out, but then I don’t think you want to see an episode where they just kind of sit and chat about it. There’s more stuff to be getting on with.”

Arthur was able to tease a little about what’s coming up the rest of this season on Doctor Who, revealing that, “The finale just blewwwwww my mind! It’s about as epic as Doctor Who has ever got. And it answers some more questions which I think everyone’s dying to hear the answers to.”

Before we get to the, though, is next week’s episode, titled “God Complex”, which Arthur describes as “almost like The Shining.” Creepy! Also coming up is an episode with James Corden that involves the Cybermen again.

“The Girl Who Waited” airs Saturday, September 10 at 9/8c on BBC America.