The Girl Who Waited Review

Identity has been a major theme of the sixth season of Doctor Who. From the TARDIS taking the form of a beautiful yet quirky young woman to The Ganger Doctor to the major revelation that River Song is Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory’s (Arthur Darvill) part-Time Lord daughter, every character on the series has somehow navigated through the difficult reality of who they really are and of who they are destined to be. That navigation is what pretty much fuels the fantastic and emotional “The Girl Who Waited”.

Obviously, the “Girl” in the title of the episode is Amy Pond herself. She, Rory and The Doctor (Matt Smith) end up on a planet called Apalapucia –- thanks to the whims of the Time Lord –- which seemingly consists of white rooms that resemble the one from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Amy is immediately separated from her boys, with her staying in what we can consider present-day while the men end up 36 years into the future. They don’t realize their time jump until Rory meets up with an older version of Amy (or “Old Amy” as we’ll refer to her), who is battle-weary after having to fend off “helpful” robots who want to stick needles full of “medicine” in her (which is poisonous to humans), and extremely and insanely bitter at having been abandoned by the men and living alone for all that time.

Abandonment is also another major theme in the Steven Moffat-helmed era of Doctor Who, of course. We know this isn’t the first time Amelia Pond has had to wait a very long time for The Doctor. She’s spent most of her childhood and teen years waiting for him to return; to help her reveal to her family and friends that she wasn’t crazy-obsessed with an imaginary alien friend. The second time around, though, she’s downright pissed off at him, dismissing him alarmingly as a “blue box man”. But she’s most especially angry at him for separating her from her Rory. In the time since being abandoned on Apalapucia, she’s disarmed one of those “helpful” robots, drew hair and a face on its head, and started calling it by her husband’s name. (It is actually creepier than Wilson the Volleyball in that it looks like a messed up Mii-version of our Rory.)

Old Amy is also pissed off at Rory, the same man who waited for her for 2,000 years -– as a centurion made of plastic, nonetheless. He had promised to always have her back but he was nowhere to be found for 36 years. Even though her anger towards Rory isn’t as great (or at least more abstract) than the anger she has towards The Doctor, she outright refuses to help him rescue Young Amy (once The Doctor discovers their time jump). Why should Young Amy experience the joy of living a full life with the man she loves when Old Amy couldn’t do that? Why should she NOT experience the bitterness that has made Old Amy who she is?

But who is Old Amy, really? We’re all defined by the people who we surround ourselves with. If you surround yourself with charitable people, then you’ll be a charitable person as well. If you surround yourself with thieves, you’ll eventually become a thief yourself. Old Amy has had no contact with a sentient being for 36 years. She’s foaming-at-the-mouth angry, like a rabid animal. She might as well have been living in a cabin in the woods, Unabomber-style, sending packages off to unsuspecting victims. Is this the Amy The Doctor and Rory should be saving?

It is a hard choice but it is one that Rory doesn’t want to make. Instead, he tries to convince The Doctor to save BOTH Amys since Old Amy won’t budge unless she’s tags along as well. The Doctor knows that having two Amys from different timelines would create a major paradox (he is the Time Lord, after all) but goes along with the plan until he and Rory are able to rescue Young Amy, bring her into the TARDIS and locks Old Amy out. It is vicious double cross but a necessary one even though it has him and Rory abandoning Old Amy again — in a heartbreaker of a scene which, for my money, is the best of the season so far.

But is it truly abandonment if that particular experience never really happened? Young Amy is safe in the blue box. She’ll never have to go through 36 lonely years on a freaky white planet. She’ll never turn into the Old Amy we saw in “The Girl Who Waited”. Or maybe she will turn into that Old Amy but in a slightly modified version. Maybe, in the not-so-near future, Rory passes away (again!), leaving her to grow into a bitter old woman alone. Or their marriage doesn’t work out and they’ll go through a horrible and prolonged divorce process and she then will shun out the world. Who knows? That timeline hasn’t been established yet since it has yet to be written.

These fundamental questions and the emotions that come with them are played wonderfully by Darvill (who, as always, is at top of his game) and Gillan, who has never been better than she is in this episode. (Smith, smartly enough, takes a backseat to his two companions.) Her work in this episode is worthy of massive praise, and dare I say it, an Emmy nomination. (Sci-Fi rarely gets love from award shows.) Old Amy is a complex character, layered upon what she already does as Young Amy, with an extra dash of thick Scottish accent. The way she stands, hunched over in armor and with a sword in hand like an angry member of the House of Stark (Game of Thrones reference, nerds!), is all we need to know about her journey. Her sad and lonely journey which no longer exists.

Anyway, we’re two episodes away from the season finale. Have any theories as to what is going to happen next? Will Rory and Amy finally give up being The Doctor’s traveling companions? How will River pop back into the action? And how will The Doctor finally deal with the knowledge of his death? Please share your comments down below.