If you read my review for last week’s standalone Doctor Who, then you might remember I thought it lacked any real depth. Sure, the episode was a nice return to classic Who after the crazy River mytharc, but as far as standalone episodes go, I much prefer this week’s emotional sci-fi-centric story.
“The Girl Who Waited” is the show at its very best: a fantastically written, visually dazzling, introspective look on the three people we share the Tardis with each week. Science fiction is best used as a way to explore current issues, and this week’s episode takes full advantage of that fact.
The Doctor: That’s the point of the time glass. It syncs up the two time streams for visits. You could be in here for a day and watch them live out their entire lives.
Rory: And watch them grow old in front of your eyes? That’s horrible.
The Doctor: No Rory, it’s kind. You’ve got a choice. Sit by their bedside for twenty-four hours and watch them die. Or sit in here for twenty-four hours and watch them live. Which would you choose?
The episode starts, as most of them do, with the Doctor taking his weary companions somewhere exotic. This time it’s a planet under quarantine from a disease that kills anyone with two hearts, including the Doctor, within a day. Yeah, I’d say things have changed a bit from when this place was the “number two planet in the top ten greatest destinations for the discerning intergalactic traveler.”
Instead, it’s now home to the Two Streams Facility, a “kindness facility” where the infected can stretch their one day into a lifetime, while their family and friends watch them live out their whole life in a day. Of course, it all goes wrong when Amy is trapped in the first of these two time streams and quickly put opposite the two men in her life, in more ways than one.
Rory: It’s like you’re not even her.
Future Amy: Thirty-six years, three months four days of solitary confinement. This facility was built to give people a chance to live. I walked in here and I died.
Time is a tricky thing. What appears to be minutes for Rory and the Doctor, as they try and find her, turns out to be 36 years for Amy. And after such a long time of confinement, thinking she’s been abandoned, and running for her life from handbots, Amy is not happy to see either of them. She’d long given up on ever getting out of there. She’s old, er older, bitter, and really angry with the “Blue Box Man.”
This episode was finally Karen Gillan’s chance to really shine. It wasn’t just the makeup, though it was really good, that gave us the contrast between the two Amy’s, but the way Gillan carried each of the two Amy’s. And when the Amy’s were face to face, well, the difference between the two was even more striking.
Still, the notable differences between the Amy’s wasn’t the only heartbreaking aspect of the episode. It was also the little nuances of Amy not having laughed in 36 years, the fact she made a Rory robot to keep her company (Wilson!), and how she’s more interested in going on living than saving her past self.
The Doctor: Look, we keep this Amy, we leave ours. There can only be one Amy in the TARDIS. Which one do you want?! {he puts Rory’s hand on the lock} Your choice.
Rory: This isn’t fair. You’re turning me into you!
But this was as much Rory’s story as it was about Amy. I’d even venture to say, he had just as bad a time this week as her. It’s one thing to fight for your life for 36 years and think you’ve been abandoned, but it’s another to find out you failed the person you love the most and make the painful decision of leaving one of the Amy’s behind.
Still, the answer is clear because once he saves the young Amy the other will cease to exist. That doesn’t make the decision any less difficult. (The sequence between Rory, Future Amy, and the window was heartbreaking.) All of the Doctor’s companions must know there’s a risk to traveling through space and time. And while the Doctor has already learned this fact and is willing to make the difficult decisions, how long before Rory gets tired of it all and decides to leave?
Notes:
Part of me wonders if they blew their entire SFX budget in this one episode. From the white sterile facility, to the picturesque garden, and the beautifully shot fight sequences with Future Amy, this episode was breathtaking.
Did you know the facility computer system voice is Imelda Staunton, Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter?
It definitely deserves a rewatch, if only to catch anything I may have missed.