Review: Doctor Who 6.10: The Girl Who Waited

The Doctor links two different time-streams.

I'm impressed. After a series of episodes which have all felt off-tone, The Girl Who waited captured the spirit of Doctor Who in a way that didn't leave me groaning or trying to figure out what the hell was going on. A typical Time-Travel conundrum, the episode uses this to advance the characters rather than create a confusing narrative, and thus is one of the most engaging episodes of this series so far. At the same time, the episode grappled this series' themes and did so exceedingly well.
     Writer Tom MacRae's last Doctor Who writing credit was 2006's Rise of the Cybermen two-parter, a story that fell below many people's expectations. He more than makes up for it here, however, and the writing takes the fluency with sci-fi concepts used in that story (about Cybermen in a parallel Universe} and instead focuses on Moffat's famed temporal twists. Here our protagonist for the long-haul is the eponymous Amy, now using said title twice in her existence, and thus the episode is notable Doctor Lite, with Matt Smith mostly contributing via scenes in the Tardis and through audio.
     The Doctor brings his companions to the planet Apalapucia, famed for its natural beauty. Instead they find themselves in a plague facility that holds the people of the planet in different, compressed time-streams so that visitors can watch their ill relatives live out their lives in peace. Unfortunately Amy ends up in a different stream to her boys, and thus she is sent further into the facility by The Doctor over a time-based spyglass linking the streams. They attempt to travel to her stream. Meanwhile, the facility proves a dangerous place for Amy, whose relative alienness means that the robots that control the facility are constantly trying to pump her full of alien drugs which will no doubt kill her.

"It is a kindess." Unless you have one heart...

     Unable to go in, seeing as the plague only affects two-hearted-beings, The Doctor sends in Rory. There he finds an Amy that's spent the last four decades in the facility, avoiding the robots and developing a deep-seated hatred against The Doctor. While it isn't convincing at first, the Old!Amy character really shows Gillan's range and after only a few minutes she is convincing as the bitter, survivalist Amy.  Old!Amy refuses to help The Doctor help herself, because she knows that the last 36 years of her life would cease to exist. After Rory (wearing glasses that give The Doctor an audio and one-way visual link}persuades her otherwise by showing her, with the spyglass, her younger self. They both laugh and discuss Rory, in what is the episode's most poignant and well-made scene.
     Old!Amy agrees to help The Doctor, on the condition that she's allowed to co-exist with her younger self. Based on this, The Doctor helps Rory to turn off the engines keeping the streams seperate. This, however, notifies the robots, and they fight their way back to the Tardis. Before Old!Amy can get in, The Doctor shuts the door, explaining that her existance is now a paradox. Rory, concerned for the welfare of both wives, is told by The Doctor to choose; Young or Old. Old!amy gives herself up, telling Rory to grow old with her. They then fly away and she ceases to exist.
     One thing I love about the story is the setting; the design of the plague facility was creepily clinical and mundane, and there are some of Moffat's signature, "Just trying to help" villains. This came coupled with a holodeck impersonating a garden and a creepy corner by the Time Engines where Old Amy had spent her time in isolation. This mundanity seemed to act as a base-layer for the main point of the episode, which was the relationship between Amy and Rory. Series Five spent a lot of time developing it, but the beginning of Series Six diluted it slightly with Rory's over-the-top, far too common deaths. In a way this honest appreciation of one another after a long period apart told us a lot more about the strength of their relationship than any one-sided sobbing ever could.

Old!Amy takes one last look at Home.

     The only thing I can really say negatively about this story is some of the direction. There's copious use of Slow-mo, which after its disastrous use at the end of The Impossible Astronaught really jarred and disrupted the episode's emotional punch. Often it felt like padding, which really disappointed me in this otherwise superb piece of television.
     The Girl Who Waited raised the bar after several average episodes and delivered the character work and emotional poignancy that this series needs, while also covering a series of incredibly interesting and well used sci-fi ideas. More importantly, it gave humanity to characters fast becoming charicatures of themselves. It's really given me some optimisim for the rest of the series and for the future of these characters. Good Work.

Thanks.