TV Review: DOCTOR WHO - 6.10 "The Girl Who Waited"

Doctor Who Series 6: Episode 10 Written By: Tom Macrae

rating: 5

Amelia Pond, The Girl Who Waited €“ My god you€™re wrinkly. The Girl Who Waited is a story, which us Whovians like to call a Doctor Lite episode. A Doctor Lite episode is otherwise known as double banking in production terms. An episode which focuses on the companions for a majority of the episode leaving The Doctor mostly off screen and free to go off and film another episode during production (Matt Smiths€™s scenes for this episode took only a matter of days to shoot) €“ See episodes Love & Monsters, Blink & Turn Left (or for a Companion Lite episode see Midnight & The Lodger). They have had a varying level of success over the years and always a point of debate between fans. The Girl Who Waited was a complete success in my eyes. Tom Macrae is back as writer for the show after his last story €“ Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel back in 2006. The five-year rest from the show has done Macrae wonders. The time it has taken for this story to reach our screens really shows in its quality. TGWW focuses on The Doctor taking Amy & Rory to the luxurious planet €“ Apalapucia, upon arrival they discover that the entire planet has been quarantined with a deadly disease that effects species with two hearts (Doctor! Back in the TARDIS for an episode! Go on GET!). During this time Amy finds herself trapped in a different time stream within the hospital, leaving her to simply wait for Rory and The Doctor who come and rescue her, but how long will she have to wait this time? TGWW is challenged with making sense of some very ambition time travel ideas and pulls them off quickly to the audience in a way that isn€™t extremely convoluted and caked in techno babble to make it seem smarter (as some of the previous drafts attempted). It trims away everything unnecessary to the story and shows the bare bones of what is needed to know at that moment in regards to time travel, time stream and paradoxes (must like the season one episode €œFathers Day€). For me the way this episodes approaches these elements (especially the concept of Paradoxes), is handled much better than in previous episodes such as A Christmas Carol. The episode emphasises to us and the characters, the sheer gravity of having the same person at different points in their time stream talking to each other and what would happen if you stopped a persons current time stream from every happening. The production values for this episode should also be mentioned, as from previous experience - a Doctor Lite episode has almost always been set in current day, cheep and accessible British house, or in a one room space shuttle. This episode has a shockingly small cast and a handful of locations, but it pulls it off gracefully. Matt, Arthur and Karen (both of them) all give great performances throughout this episode. The tension and performances improve more and more the closer you reach the episodes climax. Props should also be given to the make up department who pulled off an Amy Pond, 36 years older than how we know her now. Karen€™s performance should also be noted in this episode, for her approach to an older, more mature Amy through very small differences in her characteristics and voice. It may have been a silly moment but I also enjoyed the visual style chosen by Director Nick Hurran who pulled off a Doctor Who version of the slow-mo profile fight scene from 300: on a BBC budget no less. Even though TGWW doesn't intertwine with the seasons overlapping story of the Silence, Melody and River (or even mention them!), it once again shows the power of the one off, monster of the week episodes within Doctor Who and is a flawless episode in its own right. There is still a hell of a lot of potential left in the old girl especially during its Doctor Lite episodes. This is a fantastic story that is littered with high quality character moments that will stay branded in the audiences and the characters memories for a long time to come.