Doctor Who 6x10: The Girl Who Waited

[kerravonsen]

Before 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 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?

Comments

[vilakins]

If this season is an AU/reboot, then does that change River's future death in the Library? My brain hurts.

I can't say I liked this ep though the acting was wonderful. The time-stream thing sort of made sense: the loved ones would watch a plague victim live their whole life in a day (thought surely they'd be very hungry and thirsty by then) and I assume they wouldn't be alone like Amy was. if they were, then maybe the aliens found that OK, but I'm amazed middle-aged Amy was even half-way sane. And she did remember refusing to help her younger self which was logical. But still, the whole thing was sad and bleak. If I'd been older Amy, I'd have been glad to have 36 years of lonely misery wiped out, and If I'd been Rory, I'd be very, very angry and want off the TARDIS at the next visit to Earth.

Also as someone else said, why did the TARDIS land them there? She usually goes where the Doctor needs to be but that wasn't the case here.

[kerravonsen]

If this season is an AU/reboot, then does that change River's future death in the Library? My brain hurts.

I'm not sure. I'm not going to try to figure it out; there's too much we still don't know.

I assume they wouldn't be alone like Amy was. if they were, then maybe the aliens found that OK

Agreed. I mean, even if they were alone, they probably got regular calls from their loved ones. Which Amy couldn't have, because she was in hiding from the robots.

If I'd been older Amy, I'd have been glad to have 36 years of lonely misery wiped out

But as you yourself say: I'm amazed middle-aged Amy was even half-way sane

She had a lot of anger and bitterness informing her decisions at the start; IMHO part of her reason for refusing to help was bitter spite, spite against everyone, even herself. It was hell, but it was her hell, and she wasn't giving it up for people she now hated.
Irrational, but who would be rational in a situation like that?

Also as someone else said, why did the TARDIS land them there? She usually goes where the Doctor needs to be but that wasn't the case here.

With all the messing with time-flow that the Twin Streams facility was doing, perhaps it was a sort of temporal whirlpool?

[kalypso]

My feelings were a bit mixed. I liked the fact that it was a science-fictiony idea in which they worked through the consequences*; but I felt I would have enjoyed it a little more if the sentiment had been turned down just a notch. Not that it shouldn't have been there, but I felt it could have been slightly more understated.

Though I must be softening to Murray Gold in my old age, because I quite liked the use of his Rory/Amy love theme.

* Though I was very conscious of the fact that we'd had a discussion recently of "Why do 99% of SF stories with a double kill them off by the end in order to restore the status quo?"

[watervole]

Long live Mark Vorkosigan!

[kalypso]

Or was it an illusion of Rory in "The Doctor's Wife"?

Forgot to say - I believe all three of Amy's encounters with Rory between their initial separation and the reunion with real Rory, just after she thinks she's seen him dead, are illusions. Because the dead Rory and old Rory are definitely illusions (when young Rory reappears there is no suggestion that he's had any such experience), so I think the very first one, in which he looks the same but complains about the time that's passed (I've forgotten whether it was hours or days), is just House softening Amy up for the more devastating versions. House is playing with her mind, and specifically playing on her guilt about Rory waiting or dying in her past memories, rather than with time.

[kalypso]

There are a few - Blake's second clone, for instance, though we never see him again, and Tom Riker, who gets a second brief outing in Deep Space Nine. One of the longer runs is with the two John Crichtons in Farscape, though one eventually dies; in the meantime they minimise the interaction by putting them on different ships, but it's good that there's never any sense of either one being the "real" Crichton (or rather, neither one being the "copy"). But usually even the live doubles are whisked out of sight to enable the pressing of the reset button.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

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.

I'm with you on that. I thought that the episode was brilliant. future!Amy demonstrated her character's resourcefulness and sheer bloody-minded determination to live in managing to survive for 36 years in that environment, and it was a fine performance by Karen Gillan. I also thought that the set designer did a brilliant job.

This series has been amazingly dark at times. I think it's been far more adult - in the proper sense of the word - than the supposed adult spin-off Torchwood.

[kerravonsen]

I think it's been far more adult - in the proper sense of the word - than the supposed adult spin-off Torchwood.

Oh, yes indeed. I was just thinking of another show that was meant to be dark - Buffy the Vampire Slayer - but that didn't have the depth of characterisation we're getting here.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

I think the writers have a little misunderstanding of alternate time streams. rescuing Amy doesn't make future Amy no longer exist, she lived in a time stream where she was never rescued. That would continue even if present Amy was rescued.

Though being finally captured by the robots wasn't a good ending for her.

That was the worst plot hole in the whole thing.

[kerravonsen]

I think the writers have a little misunderstanding of alternate time streams.

Er, no? This wasn't a parallel universe which continued on without them, this was the current universe which was being rewritten.
I fear the misunderstanding is on your part.

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

The last episode did nothing for me. I was bored by it.

This one was fabulous. And I have to say I was impressed as hell by a) Karen Gillan's acting, and b) the make-up effects on "older Amy". It was subtle and utterly convincing. Just enough added fullness to her face and some age lines to make her look convincingly older.

And I liked it that everyone got to make a big decision. Young Amy, Older Amy, Rory, the Doctor--they all had a moment where it was entirely up to HIM/HER what happened next.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

I'll have to rewatch again then, my hearing is playing up.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

Though, I really do wish they'd stop thinking of time as a linear thing, it's not.

[kerravonsen]

I'm puzzled by two things in that statement:
1) Are they thinking of time as a linear thing? I got the impression that things are happening in non-linear fashion a lot in the current season.
2) Why are you so certain it's not linear?

[brendanpodger.livejournal.com]

After going back to check it looked like there was a wipe out(Effect: Fade to white from left to right then Fizzle noise) of future!Amy's timeline as the Tardis takes off so I am pretty sure that future!Amy no longer ever existed.

[brendanpodger.livejournal.com]

I really got the feeling in this episode that everything we "know" about River killing the Doctor is a red herring. While watching LKH I had a flash of intuition(Male-and therefore probably wrong ;-) ) that it would be Amy that kills the Doc(Does River take the fall to protect her Mum?) and now he seems to be doing his level best to alienate Rory.

If he keeps going as he is I think the question will be in the end, who doesn't want him dead?

[brendanpodger.livejournal.com]

The look of future!Amy was great. The other things I noticed was the thinning of the lips and the deeper voice. Karen Gillian(and the make-up crew) really out-did herself in this episode.