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THE GIRL WHO WAITED

1 episode. Approx. 45 minutes. Written by: Tom MacRae. Directed by:
Nick Hurran. Produced by: Marcus Wilson.


THE PLOT

The Doctor brings Amy and Rory to the planet Apalapucia, a pleasure
planet where he promises a fantastic holiday. But a delayed Amy
becomes separated from the Doctor and Rory. It becomes apparent that
she's caught in a separate time stream. Hours, days, even weeks are
passing for her while only minutes go by for her friends. That's when
they learn that the planet suffered a plague whose victims will die
within a day. Out of desperation, the people of Apalapucia used their
technology to stretch that day so that it would last for a lifetime.

The Doctor quickly puts together a lash-up to find Amy, and brings the
TARDIS into her time-stream. He can't go himself, as Time Lords are
susceptibe to this disease but humans are not. So he sends Rory to
find and recover her. But the Doctor, who has kept Amy waiting so many
times in the past, has gotten the times wrong again. Decades have
passed within this time-stream. Instead of his lovely bride, Rory
finds an aging, bitter Amy, filled with hatred at the Doctor for
ruining her life!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: The teaser provides a pretty good summation of the
Doctor's character, this Doctor even more than previous incarnations.
The TARDIS materializes in a featureless room with a single door. Amy
wants to take a moment to get something from the TARDIS. All the
Doctor has to do to avoid the crisis is wait for one or two minutes.
But there's a door in front of him. Of course he's going to go through
it, and of course he's not going to wait. The last part of the episode
sums up the other part of his character, the darker part. This is a
man who's become a warrior, even a killer. He can save his friend, the
young Amy, but not if he saves the older Amy, the one he failed. Of
course he's going to want to save the younger version, and of course
he has the ruthlessness needed to ignore the cries of the older
version. In these scenes, Matt Smith's impassiveness is downright
chilling.

Amy: The episode provides Karen Gillan an opportunity to show her
range. She is very good as the older Amy, transforming everything from
her style of line delivery to her body language to show someone who is
constantly on guard, for whom paranoia has simply become a way of
life. The older Amy's overriding self-interest is off-putting, but it
does fit with the episode. This is someone who has been entirely alone
save for killer robots for 36 years. Of course her self-preservation
instincts and her selfish qualities will be magnified - Her entire
world has been herself and keeping herself alive, nothing more! Her
love for Rory shines through in both her older and younger variants,
though, as she ultimately agrees to help recover the younger Amy. Not
for her younger self, who is just a memory to her; not for the Doctor,
who she now despises; only for Rory.

Rory: In Vampires in Venice, Rory's first episode as a companion, he
called the Doctor on the danger he posed to those he traveled with.
That is echoed here, when he again calls the Doctor on his
carelessness, demanding to know why he didn't plan his trip to this
planet better. When the Doctor blithely replies that isn't the way he
travels, Rory thunders back, "Then I don't want to travel with yoU!"
Really, this is as much Rory's episode as Amy's, maybe more. Rory gets
put through the wringer here, having to contend with the idea of
losing his wife to a stupid accident, then of gaining his wife back as
a hardened middle-aged warrior. In the end, the Doctor calls on him to
make a choice that just isn't in Rory's nature, and Rory can't quite
do it - at least, not without the older Amy's help. After the events
of this episode, I can't help but think that Rory's days on the TARDIS
are numbered. I don't see how the writers could sidestep his obvious
readiness to end these travels, which have become less a dream and
more a nightmare for him.


THOUGHTS

The Girl Who Waited is a good episode that might have been a great
one. The story concept is intriguing, and it manages to present a
"Doctor-lite" episode in such a way that you barely notice the
Doctor's minimized screen time. The regulars are all on top form, and
the production is one of the most visually arresting of a season
that's been generally outstanding in this regard.

The visual element deserves particular praise. The white-on-white
rooms and corridors, reminiscent of the void from The Mind Robber's
first episode, arrested my attention immediately. The garden set is
also quite lovely, and you can see how this centre could be a nice
place to spend a lot of time - if not for the threat of the well-
meaning but deadly robots, of course.

The first 20 minutes are excellent. The dilemma is established very
quickly, and it's both interesting and involving. Amy's "first day" in
the centre is a wonderful sequence, as she moves quickly from enjoying
the chance to walk around and explore the garden to running and hiding
in terror from the robots. The pace slows a bit once Rory encounters
the older Amy, but the story remains intriguing and Amy's
transformation to a bitter woman is startling, wonderfully acted by
Karen Gillan, and convincing in terms of the plot. All of this works,
even the younger Amy's plea for the older Amy's help "for Rory's
sake."

What doesn't quite work for me is the ending. This season has shown a
regrettable tendency to overdo the sentiment. The Rebel Flesh had its
suspense/horror aspects undermined by an overdose of sentiment near
the end. Any potential Night Terrors had was smothered by a saccharine
ending in which the Doctor made a very bad speech to inspire the
little boy's father to go to the rescue. And now this otherwise very
good episode stumbles at the end, in my opinion, by falling into the
same trap.

A little sentiment is good. But self-sacrifice is an overused trope in
Doctor Who anyway, and older Amy's defining trait is her heightened
sense of self-preservation. Imagine an ending in which older Amy
continued to bang on the TARDIS door, begging and pleading for her
life as first the TARDIS disappeared, then the robots closed in on
her. To me, that would have been vastly more effective than having yet
another sentimental speech made as older Amy sacrifices herself in a
scene that's overdone to the point of unintentional comedy.

Sentiment is a part of drama, of course, and has a reasonable place in
Doctor Who. But I think too many of this year's episodes have gotten
the balance wrong, have overegged the sentiment until the results
become melodrama. And this episode becomes the biggest offender,
simply because the rest of the show is so good, making the one
misplayed scene all the more frustrating.

Still a good episode, mind you, one I wouldn't think of skipping. I
just wish it had backed off the saccharine sentiment, just a little
bit, at the end.


Rating: 7/10.

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