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| Amy in Wonderland. |
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 when a delayed Amy becomes separated from the others, it doesn't take long for the Doctor and Rory to realize that she's caught in a separate time stream. Hours, days, even weeks are passing for her while only minutes go by for them. 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 - by putting the afflicted into "slowed down" time streams.
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 susceptible 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 for her. 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 this Doctor's character. 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 to wait for just 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. He can save his friend, the young Amy who worships him - but not if he saves the older Amy, the one he failed. Of course he's going to want to save the younger Amy, and of course he has the ruthlessness needed to ignore the cries of the older Amy. In these scenes, Matt Smith's impassiveness is downright chilling.
Amy: Karen Gillan is very good as the older Amy, transforming everything from her style of line delivery to her body language to show someone 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. She 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 devoted entirely to keeping herself alive! Her love for Rory shines through in both 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, whom she now despises; only for Rory.
Rory: In Rory's first trip in the TARDIS, 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 "careful" 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. He gets put through the wringer here, having to contend with the idea of losing his wife to a stupid accident, then of gaining her back as a hardened middle-aged warrior. In the end, the Doctor calls on him to make a choice that just isn't in his nature, and he 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.
The first 20 minutes are excellent. The dilemma is established quickly, and it's both interesting and involving. Amy's "first day" in the centre is sublime storytelling, as she moves 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 narrative 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 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.
Don't get me wrong, a touch of sentiment used in just the right place can be very effective - just witness the closing scenes of the previous season finale for a very good example of this. But self-sacrifice is an overused trope in Doctor Who to start with, 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 in a season already overloaded with such speeches, as older Amy sacrifices herself in a scene overdone to the point of unintentional comedy.
Sentiment is a part of drama, of course. But I think too many of this year's episodes have overegged the sentiment until the drama becomes melodrama. 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 show, mind you, one I wouldn't think of skipping. I just wish it had chosen a different path, or at least been more subdued about the path it chose, at the end.
Rating: 7/10.
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