The Girl Who Waited - Doctor Who blog
(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)
Tom MacRae is back for the first time since his Cyberman two parter back in the David Tennant era. That story was pretty decent overall. Much preferred Age Of Steel over Rise Of The Cybermen, but as a whole it’s pretty good as Cyberman stories go. Truth be told I wasn’t expecting much from The Girl Who Waited. I guessed it would be fairly decent, but nothing special.
MacRae, I didn’t know you had it in you. I LOVE this episode! It’s such a simple and inventive idea as well as a wonderfully constructed, character driven story. I’m in awe.
The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive on Apalapucia, the second best holiday destination in the universe according to the Doctor. Upon arrival they discover the entire planet is under quarantine due to a plague that kills the two hearted citizens of Apalapucia in one day. As a result, ‘kindness centres’ have been created where the infected citizens are placed in separate time streams, allowing them to live out their lives whilst in communication with their loved ones through giant magnifying glasses. Already I’m hooked. It’s a great setting. I love the minimalist set design and the whole time stream idea. The Handbots are really creepy too. They’re not evil alien invaders. They’re just robots that want to help, but don’t understand that Amy and Rory are aliens and could be harmed by their medicine. Their inability to reason and their insistence that what they’re doing is ‘a kindness’ makes them pretty disconcerting to watch. It’s also a great excuse to keep the Doctor out of the action since he’s vulnerable to the plague because he has two hearts.
So Amy gets trapped in a separate time stream because she presses the wrong button (bit of a contrivance I admit. Why didn’t Rory tell her which button to push when she asked?), and the Doctor and Rory are unable to follow her in because of the quarantine. So they use the TARDIS to break into her time stream, only to discover that they’ve arrived over 30 years too late and Amy is now a fifty something year old woman.
Tom MacRae essentially takes the ‘Girl Who Waited’ moniker that Moffat has slapped on Amy to its very extreme. Exploring what would happen if the Doctor made Amy wait for such a long time that no amount of fish fingers and custard can possibly justify it.
Now I’ve mentioned numerous times how much I dislike Amy, citing her severe lack of proper characterisation as well as her often obnoxious attitude. That’s not to say I don’t like Karen Gillan. Quite the opposite in fact. When you actually give her some good material to work with, Gillan is phenomenally good, and The Girl Who Waited proves that without a shadow of a doubt. Okay I admit she’s not 100% convincing as a middle aged woman, but it almost doesn’t matter because of the emotional weight and gravitas to her performance. Not only is this a great showcase for Gillan’s acting ability, it’s also the first time I’ve ever come close to actually empathising with Amy and began seeing her as an actual character as opposed to a Moffat plot device.
Years of isolation and fighting for survival has left Amy feeling bitter and cold. Not only does she resent the Doctor because of his tardiness, but also resents his willingness to play God with her life. He wants to save past Amy, but doing so would mean erasing older Amy from existence. On the surface that seems like a good idea, but older Amy makes a good point that it’s not fair to erase 30 years of her life and pretend it never happened, questioning whether it’s for her benefit or the Doctor’s.
As I said, Gillan is phenomenal in this episode, constructing a character that’s very uptight and full of bile, but is still recognisably Amy. I particularly loved the way she spat out the words ‘Raggedy Man’ at the Doctor with such venom. One of my favourite scenes is where she has a conversation with her past self and is convinced to let the Doctor help her for the sake of Rory. This episode really explores the relationship between Amy and Rory and how much they mean to each other. I especially liked the memory the two Amys use to bridge the two time streams together. If it was Moffat writing this, he’d probably go with the fish fingers and custard shit again, but MacRae chooses the Macarena, the song that was playing when Amy and Rory had their first kiss. It’s little details like this that help to really humanise Amy and gives her relationship with Rory more depth and credibility than it did before.
While Karen Gillan is the undisputed star of this episode, Arthur Darvill also deserves a ton of credit for his performance as Rory. He clearly cares for Amy, but not in that faux action hero way Moffat was trying to shove down our throats in A Good Man Goes To War, which just came across as hollow and unconvincing. Here it’s much more believable because Rory is talking like how an actual person would talk. He regrets losing the chance to grow old with Amy and expresses profound guilt at making Amy wait. He clearly loves Amy very much and it comes across in Darvill’s performance, particularly in his emotional rant about the Doctor’s irresponsibility at not checking Apalapucia’s history before arriving.
Eventually older Amy agrees to help the Doctor, on the condition that they take both past and older Amys with them. I think we all knew that was never going to happen and MacRae doesn’t try to suggest otherwise. The minute past Amy shows up, the flaws in older Amy’s plan immediately become apparent. Which Amy does Rory consider to be his Amy? And how are two Amys supposed to coexist? This is where elements of ageism start to creep in. Rory gravitates more toward younger Amy because he’s more familiar with her, and this doesn’t go unnoticed by older Amy. So yeah, I suspected that older Amy was due for the chop at some point toward the end. What I didn’t suspect was how they were going to remove older Amy from the picture. Young Amy gets knocked unconscious by a Handbot, Rory gallantly carries her into the TARDIS, older Amy rushes to join them... and the Doctor slams the door in her face.
I love episodes that cast the Doctor in an unsavoury light. While he is a good person who cares deeply for the lives of others, he’s not a saint or a superhero. That’s what makes him so interesting and why he’s endured as a character for so long. While he’ll always try to find a peaceful solution to problems, he’s not above getting his hands dirty. The Girl Who Waited shows the Doctor at his most insidious. Blatantly lying to Rory and older Amy and manipulating them to achieve his own goals. He’s vowed not only to save Amy, but also to fix everything. To put everything back the way it was by any means necessary. And that’s exactly what he does. He has good intentions, but his actions are shocking to the point where it borders on cruel, even going so far as to convince Rory and himself that older Amy isn’t real. On a second viewing, the extent of the Doctor’s manipulation becomes very apparent and it’s really a testament to Matt Smith’s performance that he’s able to trick the audience into believing his sincerity. He really tones down his trademark goofiness in favour of a more subtle, multi-layered performance that makes you realise just how cold and calculating the Doctor really is at his core. We’ve seen him manipulate his enemies many times, but the ease with which he’s able to manipulate his own friends without even so much as a guilty twinge is chilling to say the least.
I do however have one problem with how this is resolved, but I’m actually going to save that for the next episode because that’s when it really becomes apparent.
In my opinion, The Girl Who Waited is up there with The Doctor’s Wife as strong contender for best episode of Series 6. It’s an emotional character piece that provides some much needed nuance for Amy as well as providing a very frightening insight into just how far the Doctor is prepared to go for the so called greater good. A truly impressive effort from Tom MacRae.
