[2] Having been introduced in 2010, at the start of Series 5, Rory joins the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) as a companion a few episodes later.

In "A Good Man Goes to War", Rory and Amy discover their time traveller friend River Song (Alex Kingston) is actually their daughter, Melody Pond.

Rory is introduced in "The Eleventh Hour" (2010) as a nurse in a coma ward and the "sort of boyfriend" of new companion Amelia Pond (Karen Gillan).

[11] In the Series 5 finale episode, "The Big Bang", the duplicate Rory preserves Amy in stasis using a futuristic prison called the Pandorica, voluntarily watching over her for almost two millennia.

The Auton Rory assists the Doctor, Amy, and River Song (Alex Kingston) in saving the universe from the explosion that caused the cracks in time.

[13] Series 6 premiere "The Impossible Astronaut" (2011) begins with Amy and Rory living back on Earth when they are contacted by the Doctor, via a letter, to meet him in America.

[16] Amy gives birth to their daughter, Melody Pond, between "The Almost People" and "A Good Man Goes To War"; Madame Kovarian (Frances Barber) and the Silence plan to raise her as a weapon against the Doctor because she has been born with Time Lord-like abilities.

Dressed in his centurion armor, he faces down a space fleet of Cybermen to learn Amy's location, and assists the Doctor in assembling an army to rescue her.

On 21st century Earth, Mels hijacks the TARDIS and directs it to 1938, where she is shot by Hitler (Albert Welling) and regenerates into River Song.

[18] Rory features prominently in "The Girl Who Waited", where he is confronted with the horrible consequences time travel has had on a version of his wife.

The Doctor eventually realises the danger he is exposing his friends to and returns Amy and Rory to Earth, giving them a house and a car as exit presents.

Once reality is restored, however, they are visited by their daughter River, who tells them the secret that the Doctor is still alive, and that the version of him that died had been a robot duplicate.

[27] For his audition, Arthur Darvill received two scenes from the first episode and one from the sixth, but beyond the fact Rory was Amy's boyfriend he was not informed of details of the character.

[28] Lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat stated that what stood out about Darvill's audition was "just how funny" he was.

[36][37] Speaking of Rory's characterisation in the first series, actor Darvill felt that he was "on the outside looking into this world he was desperately trying to save Amy from.

Digital Spy reviewer Morgan Jeffery wrote, "One of the key elements in Doctor Who is obviously the sense of danger and the lingering presence of death, but Rory's repeated demises and resurrections are now becoming so frequent that comparisons to South Park's Kenny seem almost inevitable.

[41] On the other hand, SFX awarded Rory the third spot in the top 10 resurrections of science fiction TV, saying that "it's becoming a cliché.

Following the airing of "A Good Man Goes to War", io9's Charlie Jane Anders compared the character to Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof), whose arc in the American television programmes Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel similarly saw him transition from laughable comic relief to a genuine warrior.

[33] The Radio Times blog singled the character out for praise: "As a traveller in the Tardis, Rory probably speaks for the audience far more than past companions have.