10 Greatest Cold Opens In Doctor Who

Amy's Choice is an episode that would stand up on its dream-hopping premise alone, but it does far more than just that, giving a spotlight to the series long arc regarding Amy's affections and wrapping her dilemma up in an extremely compelling metaphor of an episode.

The cold open sees the Doctor arrive in Upper Leadworth, some time after the events of The Vampires of Venice, to find Amy heavily pregnant and Rory sporting a questionable ponytail, and we are left wondering why they have abandoned the TARDIS - nothing feels quite right.

The time-jump, though it turns out to be a dream, isn't too much of a stretch to believe, especially given it takes place in a series that included two time jumps in its first episode - something that, over the years, would become somewhat of a 'Moffatism'.

After wondering around aimlessly for a while, our three protagonists take an impromptu group power-nap on a bench and find themselves back in the TARDIS control room. The scene that follows, in which the trio discuss which world is real and which is the dream, sets up the central dilemma of the episode in a very natural way, before the threat of the week (Toby Jones' delightfully creepy Dream Lord) has even been established - the scene is also rife with comedic moments.

As the sequence comes to a close, the camera swirls around the Doctor in a disorientating way as he proclaims "this is going to be a tricky one". This particular cold open leaves you with one burning question: Which world is real? And that is more than enough of a hook to keep watching.