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Eight-year-old George is afraid of, well, pretty much everything. He's so frightened that his pleas reach the Doctor across the vast reaches of time and space. So the Doctor decides to make a house call to the boy's apartment, where his parents are at their wits' end trying to figure out why everything scares him. He's terrified of the elevator noise, of the landlord, of the old lady who lives door and of most of his own toys. His parents, trying to be helpful, tell him to put all his fears into his bedroom cupboard. Except now, for some reason, all the monsters he's stashed away are becoming real.
Meanwhile, Rory and Amy are investigating around the rest of the apartment building when they suddenly find themselves transported from the elevator to a mysterious house that makes no sense. Little clues give reveal they've been shrunk down into a dollhouse. Like the fact that there are creepy, rotting, giggling dolls everywhere. George has been inadvertently transporting people into the dollhouse in his cupboard. In a fit of terror, he accidentally sends his father and the Doctor there, too.
Eventually, the Doctor figures out that the boy is actually an alien child who tried to fulfill his future parents' fervent wish for a baby. The boy doesn't even seem to know this, but he's had a lifelong fear that his parents will send him away. Once his father assures him that he loves him, George is able to overcome his fears and restore everything back to normal. There are some creepier elements that the episode just skips right over, but I'll get to those in the full weecap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The episode opens with a series of mundane activities in what looks like a pretty mundane apartment building. Some kids play. An old lady wheels her groceries into a tiny elevator. In one of the apartments, a red-headed little boy named George doesn't want to go to sleep. The sound of the elevator has scared him. His mother is loving but exasperated and running late for work. She reminds him that he can just take all the things he doesn't like and put them in his cupboard. Before she leaves the room, she performs their nightly ritual by turning the bedroom lights on and off five times. "Please save me from the monsters," George whispers to the heavens.
George takes a flashlight and shines it around his room. Every shadow looks like a monster. Through the crack in the door, he can hear his parents worrying about him. He's scared of everything, they say. Maybe it'd help if they kept their damned voices down. "He needs a doctor," his mother says. George begins whispering again, his wish piercing through the vast expanses of space and time. In the TARDIS, the Doctor suddenly flails as if stung and whips his pad of psychic paper from his coat pocket. "'Please save me from the monsters,'" he reads. He springs into action. Time for a house call! While you're at it, please save us from the crappy BBC America intro.
The TARDIS materializes somewhere outside the apartment building. Rory and Amy are not thrilled with their latest destination so the Doctor explains they're answering a call from the scariest place in the universe. A Real Housewives reunion? No, a child's bedroom.
George is in said bedroom, practically hyperventilating over every shadow and toy. He hears the old lady passing by his window, struggling with her cart and gasping for breath. This also terrifies him. Is it wrong I kind of want the old lady to stop at his window and shout "BOO!"? Probably. In the living room, George's dad is watching TV and looking through a handful of family photos. He looks wistful and helpless.
Meanwhile, the Doctor and friends have split up to go knocking on different apartment doors, looking for their child in need. Amy meets a pair of twin girls that freak her out even though they seem perfectly normal even to a kiddiephobe like me. The Doctor chats with the old lady, Mrs. Rossiter, who's cranky about having to go up and down the stairs. Rory meets the grubby landlord and his surly bulldog. They each try to ask about any weird goings-on in the building and are each answered by the slam of a door.