I mentioned yesterday about how thrilling I found it to be surprised by the plot of a Doctor Who episode. Equally thrilling, in my opinion, is the ability to be surprised by the quality of a Doctor Who episode. When I sat down to watch The Girl Who Waited, for instance, way back on a Sunday morning in 2011, I wasn't expecting too much. It was being billed as just another episode, nothing particularly special. After all, it was being written by Tom MacRae, who had previously delivered the underwhelming Cyberman two part story in Tennant's first series, and it was being directed by Nick Hurran, a newcomer to the worlds of Doctor Who so expectations were not particularly high. What we ended up getting, however, was something very special indeed.
At its heart, The Girl Who Waited has a basic concept. The Doctor makes a small collection of errors in the first half of the story, and tries to rewrite them whilst attempting to overlook the consequences. The error in question is that Amy has been left to age for 36 years on an alien planet where she has nobody else for company and she is being forced to fight for her life every single day of her existence. This ends up leaving her deeply cynical, with a strong hatred for the Doctor as he has managed to completely ruin her life. And the story structures itself around the four main characters, with the older Amy being angry at what has happened and steadfast in how she wants to leave as she is, content with the fact that her past is still intact whilst Rory tries to mediate her reaction to events and search for the solution where everybody can be content. In order to pull the older Amy on side, he shows her a window into the younger Amy's life, still bright and full of hope, with the two Amy Ponds bonding over their mutual love of Rory. It's this desire to see that the younger Amy should be allowed to grow old with Rory that drives the three of them to the decision to opt for the solution where the younger Amy is allowed to be with Rory, whilst the older Amy goes off travelling on her own.
And then it all comes crashing down with the fourth element, hidden away in the background of the story. The Doctor has known all along that the hope of having two Amy's would be impossible and so he lies to the older Amy, before beginning the process of abandoning her once the younger Amy is aboard the TARDIS. It's a dark moment for the Doctor, one of the clearest examples of him sacrificing one life so that someone else might live. There's also hints of his decision being made up because he refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the older Amy, seeing her as just a mistake that he needs to rewrite and not as a human being in her own right. It's perhaps the darkest that this Doctor has ever gone, made only darker by his next moment.
"This isn't fair. You're turning me into you".
Rory Williams is a character that has always been defined as someone who isn't the Doctor. As far back as The Eleventh Hour, he was the man who was questioning the Doctor's actions whilst everyone blindly went along with his plan. As a companion he's been presented as a man who seeks for a happy and peaceful ending. Whilst Amy goes off and fights her way out of trouble, he'll talk and search for the best possible solution. In The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People, he was the one with whom the Ganger Jennifer found an ally in, someone who would advocate for her life and freedom. Rory is, in short, the lightest character aboard the TARDIS. And the Doctor makes him choose between the older Amy and the younger Amy. As Rory says, "You're turning me into you". So Rory does what the Doctor didn't do. He sits down and has a conversation with the older Amy. He shares the weight of the decision between the two of them, so that she has a say in what happens. And they decide to leave the older Amy behind, writing her out of history altogether. A heartbreaking end. An inevitable end, but heartbreaking nonetheless.
And that's what makes me think of this story as something perfect. It's a complex and tragic character drama as we're forced to come face to face with, not so much the dangers of travelling with the Doctor, as the darker and more malevolent side of the Doctor. It's looking at the characters of Amy and Rory as fundamentally good people who are sometimes placed in impossible situations. And there's an argument to be made that this episode lays the foundation for the entirety of the Capaldi era. But that, as they say, is another story.
Oh, and whilst I finish this entry, I should make a quick mention that I'm taking tomorrow off. An old friend requested that I relinquish this blog so that he could cover one of his favourite stories, and I'm more than happy to oblige. So, just for one brief moment, I'm allowed to relax as I eagerly await something wonderful tomorrow with The God Complex.
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