Doctor Who 6x10: The Girl Who Waited
Sep. 11th, 2011 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenBefore I watched this episode, I caught up on some verrry interesting meta, as recced by sahiya:
DW S6.2 Day of the Moon. Meta heavy review.
Review/meta on Let's Kill Hitler.
Go and read them, because they make a lot of things make a lot more sense, and make you feel that Season 5/6 is greater than the sum of its parts, rather than a crazy patchwork badly stitched together.
So... now we have the episode itself. I gather that some people hated it and some people loved it. Sure, it had plot-holes, but I think the characterisation was worth it.
Old, bitter swashbuckling Amy... I can understand whylizbee wants to do some cosplay, and why she mentioned Storm Troopers...
I didn't have a problem with the premise, even though it was full of holes.
1) It would seem to be more plausible if it had been an actual separate faster timestream, where one had to eat and sleep etc;
2) However, that would not have suited the purpose of the facility, since if time was passing properly faster, then the sick people would have died in 24 hours, they would have simply died faster.
3) On the other hand, it doesn't make sense that they age, but they still don't have to eat.
4) It would have made more sense if the whole thing was a virtual reality setup, where the real body was plugged in and dying, but the mind was experiencing time at a faster rate.
5) However, that would have rendered the emotional core of the story irrelevant, since there would be no paradox, no future!Amy and present!Amy to choose between, no expedient lies, no self-sacrifice, no tearful farewells. There would have been only one Amy, waking from a dream of growing old.
So, since the plot holes in this case were for the sake of character development, I am inclined to forgive them.
Some interesting parallels here.
A. Two lovers, separated by walls (a door), pressing their hands together but never touching - future!Amy/Rory here, and Rose/Doctor in "Doomsday".
B. Amy and Rory being separated and one being left behind to grow old and bitter and angry and full of hate - it was Amy in this episode... and Rory in "The Doctor's Wife". Or was it an illusion of Rory in "The Doctor's Wife"? I'm not sure.
Rule 1: The Doctor lies.
Time can be rewritten, people can't. A theme that keeps on coming up. Also the idea of parallel timestreams is very interesting, given the meta discussion I referenced at the start of this post.
Future!Amy was still Amy, even though she was full of bitter experience. I loved the bit where both Amys were talking at once, saying the same things.
At first, I couldn't quite buy the characterisation of future!Amy, but it grew on me. Yes, she was selfish, but who wouldn't be selfish after 36 years of solitude, fighting for one's life? It tends to alter one's focus.
When Rory calls the Doctor on his carelessness, saying it is the Doctor's fault for landing them in the middle of a plague, and the Doctor saying that it's just the way he does things, and Rory saying that he doesn't want to travel with him anymore if that's the case...
Go Rory, for calling the Doctor's bluff. Because if the game is no longer fun, one doesn't have to play. Even if it is the only game in town.
Maybe Rory and Tegan should have a heart-to-heart.
The Doctor made another mistake. Amy would have been safer if she hadn't gone into the facility at all, just stayed in the waiting area. Or perhaps she wouldn't, now that I think of it, because the robots were in the waiting area too. And there was nowhere to hide in the waiting area.
One of the interesting things... Rory has learned to be wary of answering seemingly simple questions from robots:
"Do you plan to stay long?"
"Which answer will not get us killed?"
A few more telling points...
Doctor: She's not real!
But she wanted to be, Doctor, she wanted to be.
Doctor: It's your choice.
Rory: It's not fair! You're turning me into you!
But in the end it wasn't Rory's choice after all, it was Amy's choice.
future!Amy: Don't let me in. Give her all the days I can't have.
It's always Rory for Amy, and Amy for Rory.
So much sacrifice. Is the Doctor still worth the monsters, Amy and Rory?
DW S6.2 Day of the Moon. Meta heavy review.
Review/meta on Let's Kill Hitler.
Go and read them, because they make a lot of things make a lot more sense, and make you feel that Season 5/6 is greater than the sum of its parts, rather than a crazy patchwork badly stitched together.
So... now we have the episode itself. I gather that some people hated it and some people loved it. Sure, it had plot-holes, but I think the characterisation was worth it.
Old, bitter swashbuckling Amy... I can understand why
lizbee wants to do some cosplay, and why she mentioned Storm Troopers...I didn't have a problem with the premise, even though it was full of holes.
1) It would seem to be more plausible if it had been an actual separate faster timestream, where one had to eat and sleep etc;
2) However, that would not have suited the purpose of the facility, since if time was passing properly faster, then the sick people would have died in 24 hours, they would have simply died faster.
3) On the other hand, it doesn't make sense that they age, but they still don't have to eat.
4) It would have made more sense if the whole thing was a virtual reality setup, where the real body was plugged in and dying, but the mind was experiencing time at a faster rate.
5) However, that would have rendered the emotional core of the story irrelevant, since there would be no paradox, no future!Amy and present!Amy to choose between, no expedient lies, no self-sacrifice, no tearful farewells. There would have been only one Amy, waking from a dream of growing old.
So, since the plot holes in this case were for the sake of character development, I am inclined to forgive them.
Some interesting parallels here.
A. Two lovers, separated by walls (a door), pressing their hands together but never touching - future!Amy/Rory here, and Rose/Doctor in "Doomsday".
B. Amy and Rory being separated and one being left behind to grow old and bitter and angry and full of hate - it was Amy in this episode... and Rory in "The Doctor's Wife". Or was it an illusion of Rory in "The Doctor's Wife"? I'm not sure.
Rule 1: The Doctor lies.
Time can be rewritten, people can't. A theme that keeps on coming up. Also the idea of parallel timestreams is very interesting, given the meta discussion I referenced at the start of this post.
Future!Amy was still Amy, even though she was full of bitter experience. I loved the bit where both Amys were talking at once, saying the same things.
At first, I couldn't quite buy the characterisation of future!Amy, but it grew on me. Yes, she was selfish, but who wouldn't be selfish after 36 years of solitude, fighting for one's life? It tends to alter one's focus.
When Rory calls the Doctor on his carelessness, saying it is the Doctor's fault for landing them in the middle of a plague, and the Doctor saying that it's just the way he does things, and Rory saying that he doesn't want to travel with him anymore if that's the case...
Go Rory, for calling the Doctor's bluff. Because if the game is no longer fun, one doesn't have to play. Even if it is the only game in town.
Maybe Rory and Tegan should have a heart-to-heart.
The Doctor made another mistake. Amy would have been safer if she hadn't gone into the facility at all, just stayed in the waiting area. Or perhaps she wouldn't, now that I think of it, because the robots were in the waiting area too. And there was nowhere to hide in the waiting area.
One of the interesting things... Rory has learned to be wary of answering seemingly simple questions from robots:
"Do you plan to stay long?"
"Which answer will not get us killed?"
A few more telling points...
Doctor: She's not real!
But she wanted to be, Doctor, she wanted to be.
Doctor: It's your choice.
Rory: It's not fair! You're turning me into you!
But in the end it wasn't Rory's choice after all, it was Amy's choice.
future!Amy: Don't let me in. Give her all the days I can't have.
It's always Rory for Amy, and Amy for Rory.
So much sacrifice. Is the Doctor still worth the monsters, Amy and Rory?
