Day 780: The Girl Who Waited

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.

Day 716: The Age of Steel

The Age of Steel is, in my opinion, one of the few good Cybermen stories. To clarify what I mean by this, I'll just give a quick run-down of what I think of the previous Cybermen stories, in reverse order.

Silver Nemesis is very fun to watch, but the story lacks a certain depth to it. The same can be said of Attack of the Cybermen, although it is somewhat lacking in fun, but it has just a bit more depth. Earthshock is very well produced, and whilst I may not necessarily like it, I'm more than willing to give it a second chance sometime in the future. Revenge of the Cybermen is forgettable, but not bad. The Invasion is excellent, and what I would say is, up until The Age of Steel, the most recent good Cyberman story. The Wheel in Space isn't very engaging, which I can claim by virtue of the fact that I can barely remember what happens in it, a year and a half after first watching it. The Tomb of the Cybermen is a bit overrated in my opinion, but it means well, and The Moonbase is enjoyable, but not much else.

And the one story missing from that list is The Tenth Planet, the first Cyberman story. This is where we get introduced to the inner horror that is the Cybermen, that they are essentially human beings who have been converted into machines, and that their modus operandi is to go around the Universe and convert other people into Cybermen. "You will become like us" is their mantra, a frightening phrase on a certain level, provoking fear that one might lose their humanity, but still live. Naturally, this entire line of thought is barely touched upon in later stories featuring the Cybermen, and it take The Age of Steel to realise that there is potential in the original concept.

So The Age of Steel is good because it does something interesting with the Cybermen. It doesn't just make them into faceless monsters, instead it makes them into faceless monsters that used to have faces. There's heartbreaking scenes as we see ordinary people get converted into Cybermen, including the incredibly haunting scene of the bride who has become a Cyberman, and gets her emotions turned back on again, reminding us of the human trapped within that skin of metal. Indeed, the entire climax to the story is based around giving the Cybermen back their emotions, such that they realise what they have become and breakdown out of fear. In fact, to quote The Tomb of the Cybermen, you might say that they've had a complete metal breakdown.

And this all is a hallmark of what Russell T Davies is doing with the programme. He's reminding people that Doctor Who can be at its best when it is about people. It's not looking at Cybermen as scary because they're going to kill you, it's making Cybermen scary because they can be you. By taking this approach, he makes the Cybermen into a far more dangerous force, and not just second tier villains compared to the Daleks. What this all means is that through Davies and Tom MacRae's writing, and Graeme Harper's excellent direction, we have what is a Cyberman story that is actually and legitimately good.

Day 715: Rise of the Cybermen

It might be easiest to start talking about this episode by talking about something else entirely. One day I was particularly bored, with the new series of Doctor Who not airing in Australia for a couple of months, so I went on the internet and had a wander. Across my travels, I encountered a website that had a section that had a couple of links to what I thought were episode synopses of Tennant's first series. I clicked on one, and my mouth dropped open. These weren't synopses, these were the actual episodes themselves.

To put this into context, waiting for Doctor Who in Australia was a test of patience. Unlike today where simulcasts of Doctor Who episodes occur every Sunday morning, back in 2006 we had to wait around three months for the episodes to arrive here. In that three months, I'd spoil myself mightily by reading synopses, watching clips, and playing online games based on the episode. So to come across new episodes of Doctor Who, available online for my viewing pleasure, was perhaps the most shocking discovery I ever made. In the spur of the moment, I watched New Earth first, which I enjoyed. I also watched School Reunion, and Rise of the Cybermen, before guilt got the better of me and I stopped watching online, preferring to wait for the broadcast (incidentally, guilt did not prevent me from looking up spoilers, and it would take around four more years for me to watch an episode without being spoiled beforehand. But that's a story for another day.)

So when I think of Rise of the Cybermen, my thoughts don't necessarily drift towards thinking about parallel worlds, or the fact that the cliffhanger reveal of the Cybermen is rendered weak by the fact that Cybermen had been a fairly large part of the marketing for that year. Instead, I think about sitting down in a chair in front of a computer and gleefully watching a new episode of Doctor Who. Nothing can take that thrill away from me, and I'm glad that I can still have it every time I sit down for something new.