After the really enjoyable Night Terrors, I was wondering what this one would bring. It was called The Girl Who Waited which is a phrase that has been used several times since the Matt Smith era began. This story has been written by Tom McRae who’s previous story was the ‘Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel’ two-parter from 2006. It was clear that this was going to be Amy’s episode and the first five or six minutes was a fabulous opening scene where the Doctor and Rory press the green button to go into a room. Now it was obvious to a blind spielsnake what was going to happen next and to be honest its my only real niggle with this episode. So when Amy presses the button she presses the red button and in a quite clever plot idea when Rory leaves the Doctor and presses the red button to get Amy she isnt there. The plot of this story is essentially that the Doctor and Rory try and rescue Amy. That’s it. As simple plots go its quite basic but so is The Aztecs and I love that story. A simple story just means that you can enjoy the acting.
I liked the idea that 36 years has past and the Amy that Rory finds is very different to the one he knew in more ways than one. She is emotionally damaged and hates the Doctor because she thought he was going to get her. This means that when the older Amy has to sacrifice herself for her earlier Amy she refuses. This extends the story a bit longer. I think that the sets were very striking including the garden that Amy walks into at the beginning. The hedges were a bit mad but generally it looked very beautiful. I also thought that the pure plain white walls were a good idea but must have been a nightmare to keep clean because when the TARDIS appears in the white room it really shows the blueness of the TARDIS and makes it look beautiful which isnt something that is sad very often.
Karen Gillan is brilliant in this episode. It’s almost hard to imagine that it’s the same actress playing both versions of Amy. She has been very good since she debuted last year and there are several brilliant moments with Gillan. One is where old Amy and young Amy have a conversation and it’s a very well performed. Another is when old Amy is trying to force her way onto the TARDIS and Rory is about to let her in but old Amy doesn’t want him to let her in which I thought was just a very grim moment and it’s helped by Arthur Darvill with a great big tear drop on the end of his nose.
Matt Smith almost takes a back seat in this episode as he exiles himself to the TARDIS because he slips a line in about not been able to regenerate. I think that due to the emotional stuff going on between Gillan and Darvill that Smith isnt really required to do very much apart from do all the science stuff. I thought that he was good in what he had to do but this wasn’t the episode where he drove the narrative.
There was one funny moment when the Mona Lisa was smashed over a droids head and I wondered if it has “THIS IS A FAKE” written on it. The Girl Who Waited is a perfectly fine story which balances the fine line between brilliant and over complicated. At times it’s a very grim story that makes one of the characters we are interested in make a decision about someone they love. It feels like they pack a lot of story in 45 minutes and its considering it’s just the regular characters that are physically there and they do a fantastic job of holding together. This second half of the series is by far the better half and with just three episodes left it’s my second favourite episode so far.
I liked the idea that 36 years has past and the Amy that Rory finds is very different to the one he knew in more ways than one. She is emotionally damaged and hates the Doctor because she thought he was going to get her. This means that when the older Amy has to sacrifice herself for her earlier Amy she refuses. This extends the story a bit longer. I think that the sets were very striking including the garden that Amy walks into at the beginning. The hedges were a bit mad but generally it looked very beautiful. I also thought that the pure plain white walls were a good idea but must have been a nightmare to keep clean because when the TARDIS appears in the white room it really shows the blueness of the TARDIS and makes it look beautiful which isnt something that is sad very often.
Karen Gillan is brilliant in this episode. It’s almost hard to imagine that it’s the same actress playing both versions of Amy. She has been very good since she debuted last year and there are several brilliant moments with Gillan. One is where old Amy and young Amy have a conversation and it’s a very well performed. Another is when old Amy is trying to force her way onto the TARDIS and Rory is about to let her in but old Amy doesn’t want him to let her in which I thought was just a very grim moment and it’s helped by Arthur Darvill with a great big tear drop on the end of his nose.
Matt Smith almost takes a back seat in this episode as he exiles himself to the TARDIS because he slips a line in about not been able to regenerate. I think that due to the emotional stuff going on between Gillan and Darvill that Smith isnt really required to do very much apart from do all the science stuff. I thought that he was good in what he had to do but this wasn’t the episode where he drove the narrative.
There was one funny moment when the Mona Lisa was smashed over a droids head and I wondered if it has “THIS IS A FAKE” written on it. The Girl Who Waited is a perfectly fine story which balances the fine line between brilliant and over complicated. At times it’s a very grim story that makes one of the characters we are interested in make a decision about someone they love. It feels like they pack a lot of story in 45 minutes and its considering it’s just the regular characters that are physically there and they do a fantastic job of holding together. This second half of the series is by far the better half and with just three episodes left it’s my second favourite episode so far.
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