An Hour of Who a Day: June 8: "The Girl Who Waited"

June 8: "The Girl Who Waited"

It's a fairly simple idea at the heart of "The Girl Who Waited", that of two different time streams running at the same time, with one person trapped in one stream, away from the others, and yet from this Tom MacRae has created something beautiful and astonishing.

I have to confess, I'm not familiar with Tom MacRae's work beyond the Cybermen two-parter he wrote for David Tennant back in series 2, and that's not exactly a story to sing the praises of. Based on that I wouldn't have thought he had something like "The Girl Who Waited" in him, but this is unabashedly one of the best episodes of this series. As I said, it's a simple idea, but the way it plays out on screen is gorgeous -- touching and tragic and the sort of thing that feels both right at home on Doctor Who and boldly going to places the show only occasionally flirts with.

It certainly helps that everyone's contributing to the finished product. MacRae reportedly specified lots of all-white rooms to save on production costs, but it's still a striking image, nicely antiseptic and perfectly suited for a TV screen -- but the other locations on Apalapucia (the gardens, the "engine room") are also lovely to look at. Meanwhile, director Nick Hurran makes a superb Doctor Who debut, keeping the camera moving but also providing some marvelous superimposed shots as well. The two Amys looking at each other through the time glass is impressive enough, but the scenes of the older Amy and Rory, separated by the TARDIS door but blended together in the same shot, are really something else.

But the best thing about this are the actors. This is essentially a three-hander, as there are no other major guest appearances and the Doctor is restricted to the TARDIS (this being the "Doctor-lite" episode) -- and two of those hands are Karen Gillan. The makeup department has done a fantastic job aging Amy, but what's also impressive is Gillan. She's a marvel in the role, brittle yet strong and full of bitterness for being abandoned. "Why are we still here?" the younger Amy asks the older one through the time glass. "Because they leave you," the older one replies. "Because they get in their TARDIS and they fly away." That's what the older Amy feels: abandoned and angry. And because she doesn't want these past thirty-six years to be meaningless, she doesn't want to help Rory rescue her younger self -- initially at all, and then not without taking her too. Not to travel with the Doctor, as she now says she hates him, but just so that she can continue to live her life without being trapped. "Two Amys together. Can that work?" Rory wonders. "Maybe," the Doctor lies, spewing some technobabble to cover himself.

And that's really the biggest tearjerker moment of the episode. The Doctor deliberately lies to get Amy to help her younger self, knowing that there's no way to sustain the paradox of Amy leaving in the TARDIS and being trapped in Twostreams at the same time. The older Amy helps bring her younger self into this time stream and then helps fight their way to the TARDIS, only for the Doctor to shut the door in her face. "She's not real," the Doctor insists. "Look, we take this Amy, we leave ours. Only one Amy in the TARDIS. Which one do you want? It's your choice." "This isn't fair," Rory says bitterly. "You're turning me into you." "Your choice, Rory," the Doctor repeats. But it's not his choice. Amy and Rory are separated by the TARDIS door, having a wretched conversation that is clearly wrecking both of them, but it's Amy who makes the decision. "If you love me, don't let me in," she tells him. "Open that door, I will, I'll come in. I don't want to die. ... Tell Amy, your Amy, I'm giving her the days. The days with you. The days to come. ... The days I can't have. Take them, please. I'm giving you my days." And so Amy is saved, and thus never spent those 36 years alone, but that seems to be small comfort to Rory. And the Doctor is hardly unaffected, either: the last shot, after "our" Amy wakes up and asks, "Where is she?", is a guilty, uncomfortable look from the Doctor.

"The Girl Who Waited" is a gorgeous tale about love and loss and betrayal, and while it unabashedly goes for the gut it does so with considerable style. I don't know that I'd want many more episodes like this -- I'm not sure I could handle it -- but this is a beautiful tragedy with a melancholy ending that ultimately tells us that the most important thing in the universe can be just two people.