The Girl Who Waited

Chapter The 161st, where time drags during quarantine.

Plot:

Planning a holiday (which clearly he should never ever do), the Doctor takes Amy and Rory to Apalapucia, one of the most popular tourist attraction planets. Unfortunately, he lands in a period when a world-wide quarantine is in place because of a disease deadly to two-hearted beings like the Doctor. It kills within a single day. Luckily, the Doctor has only strayed into sterile areas, and disappears back into the TARDIS to stay safe. Amy is separated from Rory, even though they appeared to enter the same room. It turns out that, because of the cryptic symbols used to label things on this planet, Rory is in the visitors area, but Amy is in the patients' area, and time is running at different rates in each. The final day of someone who has caught the disease can be made to last a lifetime, and the visitors can watch this play out in safety. This is a kindness, apparently; though, that word may mean something different on Apalapucia as it seems to be universally used in a sinister fashion, not least by the hand-bots, faceless medical robots who hunt Amy to give her treatments that will kill anyone with a single-hearted human physiology. The Doctor and Rory tell Amy to stay put and stay safe, then use the TARDIS to break Rory into her time stream.

When Rory arrives, though, Amy has been waiting 36 years, in which time she's built her own sonic screwdriver (although she pointedly calls it a sonic probe as she can't be doing with whimsy). She's also disarmed (literally) a hand-bot, which she keeps as a pet, Wilson the volleyball stylee. She calls it Rory. Old Amy is very angry with the Doctor, while Rory (the human one, not the hand-bot one) is sad that they weren't able to grow old together. The Doctor has a plan to fold back time to allow the younger Amy to be rescued before the wait, but the older Amy refuses, as she will then cease to exist. Rory has to choose which Amy to save, the older or the younger. Older Amy wants both Amys to be saved, and the Doctor says it is possible. He links the two time-zones, and both Amys and Rory race to the TARDIS fighting hand-bots on the way. The Doctor was lying, though, and once the younger Amy and Rory are in the TARDIS, he slams the door on the older one. Rory pleads with the Doctor to save her too, but the Doctor tells him only one Amy can survive; so, the choice falls to Rory again. The older Amy, talking to Rory through the TARDIS door, makes the choice for him, sacrificing herself so that the younger Amy can have all the days with Rory that were denied to her. 

Context:

I watched this one on my own as the family have all been moaning about watching too much Doctor Who lately (probably as watching the last six episode story The Seeds of Death stripped over a week made it feel like it lasted forever). I watched it one afternoon, after working from home for the day had concluded, from the Blu-ray series 6 boxset.

First time round:

I watched this story on the day of its initial BBC1 broadcast in September 2011, probably timeshifted and probably accompanied by The Better Half and a sense of general disappointment at what I was watching (as was standard at the time). Probably because of that malaise, I can never remember anything about first watching the Doctor Who stories of this particular vintage. So, here's a completely unconnected memory: it's the 14th December 1989, a Thursday. The final Doctor Who story of the original 20th century run, Survival, had finished broadcasting a week earlier. I travel by lengthy Inter-City train from way down South up to Durham for an interview for my place at St. Aidan's College to study Computer Science; the interview will take place the following day. Amongst a small group of other candidates, I get shown around by some poor second year who had stuck around during the holidays for such a responsibility, and who I mainly remember moaning about the food (to be fair, the food was awful). In the evening, he took all of us shiny-faced youngsters for a light ale at the New Inn (which a quick google tells me is no longer called the New Inn, and this makes me sad). After a couple of drinks, I remember feeling a little squiffy - I was 17 and didn't go to pubs or drink alcohol often - and emphatically told all who would listen that the end of days must be soon as Jive Bunny were number one for the third time.

Before that, as we were leaving college to go for this drink, we walked through the JCR; Top of the Pops was on and Electronic were performing Getting Away With It, a song I loved to bits - still do - and already owned on 12" vinyl by this point. I was reminded of this recently as BBC4 have just broadcast that edition of the programme, the latest in their long-running sequence of weekly repeats of the pop show. It stuck in my memory at the time too, and when I subsequently was accepted into the college, I got a tiny bit superstitious about the song. For quite a few years afterwards, I would play it before every exam and interview, and - by and large - I have continued to get away with things since. Whether I get away with presenting this anecdote that has nothing to do with Doctor Who or The Girl Who Waited, I can only guess...

Reaction:

I seem to remember an interview with the writer of this story Tom MacRae around when this story was broadcast about how he had deliberately gone out to write the most timey-wimey script imaginable, the best to appeal to showrunner Steven Moffat. The premise is certainly convoluted, as was the style of this particular era of Doctor Who, but interestingly this doesn't get in the way of the real story being told. For it's not about time travel, that's just a device to illuminate the real theme - the relationship between Amy and Rory.  In fact, this theme could have had more running time if the set-up had been streamlined: where's a freak time-storm when you need one, eh? A freak time-storm could have done something to the TARDIS which created two versions of Amy ageing at different rates - bingo. Saves 10-15 minutes of preamble at the beginning to better use later. As it is, it feels like Rory, and the audience, have only just been introduced to the older Amy before pretty quickly saying goodbye. Even as things are, though, it achieves some affecting moments. Rory actor Arthur Darvill's line "I don't care that you got old, I care that we didn't grow old together" is lovely, and delivered well. There's also older Amy hesitating, looking down at the lipstick she's saved for nearly 40 years to wear when she was rescued, plus the moment where she and Rory laugh together - the first time she's laughed in all those years. There's even a few good jokes, like the Doctor's reaction to Rory's question about how it will work for the two Amys to coexist: "I dunno - it's your marriage".

The story has an actual intractable moral conundrum at the centre of the narrative; it's rare for such shades of grey to be explored in Who. The final decision is fudged, with the protagonist (Rory) being saved from making his crisis-point decision by the Doctor and older Amy deciding for him. This is probably a wise choice by the writer; their relationship would probably be fatally undermined forever after if Rory were more decisive here (he'd have to take young Amy, anyway, or blow the make-up budget for the rest of the series). Perhaps extending the earlier preamble scenes was a benefit in one way, as it reduced the amount of time Karen Gillan needed to be in that old age make-up. This kind of story passes or fails based on the believability of the older Amy's realisation. I think it was a good decision therefore not to recast the older version of the character. Even the best casting in the world couldn't clear the hurdle of the audience mentally comparing and contrasting, with the clear knowledge in their collective heads that it ain't Karen Gillan on their screen, and therefore ain't Amy. The make-up route that was taken, of course, means that the audience is mentally appraising a piece of technical craft, looking for joins, but that's the lesser of two evils to my mind. It's a great job of work in the main, and Gillan gives a convincingly different interpretation, with flashes of her younger self coming through as needed.

The make-up is just one part of a production that is exquisitely designed. It all looks gorgeous, and the late great Michael Pickwoad as production designer makes the most out of what's in the script, with the stark white facility interiors being particularly remarkable. There are lots of other nice visuals elsewhere too, like the weird gardens that Gillan explores, looking for all the world like Amy in (Tim Burton's) Wonderland. There are also memorable details like the giant magnifying glass, the green anchor and  red waterfall buttons. The hand-bots also, from their blank faces to the almost comical hands, are perfect. Visual effects are subtle but effective. This is even more remarkable if one assumes, correctly I think, that this story, with limited cast and locations, probably had less of a budget entitlement than others around it. 

This story gets the relationship of Rory and Amy bang on in a way that Moffat's scripts don't do so well, in my opinion. Aside from a couple of their final stories written by Chris Chibnall, I don't think the Ponds have ever been served so well by a script. Moffat had a lot of input into this, as exec producer and probably final rewriter, of course, so I'm trying not to take too much away from him, but - to pick a random example - Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale are a much more believable screen romantic couple from Moffat's pen than are Amy and Rory in any of the stories with Moffat's name on as writer. I wish that somehow this year's scripts could have been rejigged, and this were where Amy's baby plot arc was created. In my rewrite, the time-storm that split the two Amys would have left one pregnant and one not, and older Amy could impart before the end of The Girl Who Waited that at some point during the 36 years she was waiting the baby was kidnapped, leading to a finale that merges parts of the Moon landing two parter, A Good Man Goes to War, Let's Kill Hitler, and The Wedding of River Song. It needs work, but it would sort out the unintended callousness that the couple display towards their lost child (as it would have been created in an alternate timeline) and avoided them having to give up looking for her, and just carry on with adventures (as all this plot would be shifted towards the end of the series).

Connectivity: 

Both stories feature limited Doctor action in sections of the narrative - Matt Smith is mostly confined to the TARDIS so his scenes could be captured quickly while he was mainly working on some other story; Patrick Troughton is knocked out for the while of episode 4 of The Seeds of Death, so the actor could have a week's holiday.

Deeper Thoughts:

The Killing of Time. At the start of the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK (in the Deeper Thoughts section of the Hide blog post to be exact) I mused on a possible 'virus playlist', a set of Doctor Who stories one could binge watch for the period thematically aligned to what was going on in the world from which we were temporarily cut off. I completely forgot about The Girl Who Waited. It's a forgivable mistake; the plague subplot is easy to forget as it's not the main reason for proceedings, just a handy excuse why anyone would build a hospice in such a weird and convoluted way; but, the story fits perfectly. Amy is stuck inside self-isolating for a lengthy period and can't see another soul. She has to keep occupied, but there's not much to do that isn't a mere virtual experience. In 2020 in England, we don't have well-meaning robots trying to kill us, we just have the UK government (and they're probably not well-meaning, little bit of politics there, ladies and gentlemen). I'm glad this one came up at this time, though I suppose it's a bit late, as the lockdown is effectively over (at least for the time being) for me. I'm hesitant about this turn of events, and wondering if it's the right thing to do to emerge slowly into the wider world. Is it right to be erring on the side of safety? Or am I being overcautious? And is that because, if I'm honest, I rather like staying home more than going out. It will be a new preoccupation of mine from now on to muse on this.

Whether one self-imposes more stringent precautions than those that are mandated or not,  I still think all but the committed or foolhardy are going to have to find themselves further preoccupations to cope with the new new normal. Of course, some people will be going to the pub every night, or returning to whatever other patterns they had before Covid-19 as if nothing had happened and people weren't still getting sick. Most of us, though, will still be spending a significant amount of time indoors because of the sheer weight of the complexities in doing other things. I'd happily be in the BFI Southbank again when they reopen in September, to watch a film or Doctor Who event, wearing my mask and whatnot (assuming I could get a ticket with every other seat having to be unoccupied); but, will I feel comfortable getting on a train up to London for the best part of two hours each way as well in order to do so?  We'll see. If I try to see something in a cinema closer to home, will the extra hassle feel worth it, if I know that I can stream some great films on the BFI player or other services from the comfort on my own sofa? Time will tell. When Amy's quarantine was finally over and she was finally able to meet other people and step outside, it didn't exactly go well for her.

Anyway, if you are still cautious like me and looking for a new preoccupation, I can recommend the very addictive and infuriating Doctor Who game, Thirteen, if you haven't already discovered it. Full detail can be found in this Radio Times online puff piece. It's just a re-badged version of the game 2048, but - if my maths is correct - several orders of magnitude more difficult. In 2048, you start with tiles appearing with the number 2, which you can combine to make 4, and two 4s combined make 8, and so on, until you win by getting to 2048. That's 2 to the power 1 through to 2 to the power 11, so ten steps in all. For the Doctor Who version, two Hartnells make a Troughton, etc. But one would only win by getting to Jodie Whittaker, and John Hurt is in the mix too. So, that makes 14 steps, four more than the original version of the game, with each getting exponentially harder.  There was an unofficial Doctor Who version of the game produced a few years back, which I managed to finish only once after investing far too many precious hours into playing it; but Matt Smith was the Doctor and therefore finishing line then, so it was nowhere near as hard. Given the random factors involved in game play (you never know what position a new tile appears in on the four by four grid) I'm not sure it's even possible.

The game's been around a while now, and most people have probably moved on from talking about it online, so I haven't seen  anyone claiming to have won so far. I however am still hopelessly addicted. My best attempt was to build up to one David Tennant and one Christopher Eccleston (pictured), but I haven't been able to get further than that. I will have to stay inside just as much at this rate; I won't have time to do anything else. Anyway, whatever your current preoccupations, be they outside the house or inside, stay safe.

In Summary:

Not so much timey-wimey as relationshipy-welationshipy.