Doctor Who/Recap/S32/E10 The Girl Who Waited: Difference between revisions

[[File:The_Girl_Who_Waited_7700.jpg|frame]]

 

 

The Doctor lands the TARDIS, claiming to Amy and Rory that they have arrived at Apalapucia, a futurist holiday resort. But on opening the door, they find themselves in a clinically white room, a single door in front of them. Amy returns to the TARDIS to retrieve her phone, while the Doctor and Rory step ahead and examine the door, which has a panel with two buttons. Rory hits the green top one, revealing yet another clinically white waiting room behind it. They enter it, the door closing behind them. Amy, by now, has left the TARDIS, and, figuring them to have gone through the door, hits the [[Oh Crap|second]] [[Red Pill, Blue Pill|red button]] and enters the room.

 

 

 

The Doctor quickly tells Amy, through the lens, to stay away from the Handbots, because their disinfectant might seriously harm her human biology. He sonics the lens off the stand. He also tells her to wait for them, as they will be there soon. The Doctor and Rory race back to the TARDIS, and the Doctor fiddles with the lens mechanism to use it to lock onto Amy's time stream out of thousands occurring simultaneously in the facility.

After a brief tussle with the TARDIS controls, the Doctor provides Rory with his sonic screwdriver, the lens, and a pair of glasses. The glasses are a camera, wired to relay what Rory sees and hears back to the TARDIS, since the Doctor (having two hearts) cannot venture inside without becoming infected himself. Rory tries to follow Amy's footsteps, but he's soon surrounded by Handbots, ready to sedate him...

 

 

 

Rory uses the lens to discover younger Amy, in the same room but 36 years prior, sobbing to herself. Rory tries to convince the older Amy to say something to her younger self, but the older Amy can only remain pessimistic, remembering herself on the other end of this conversation and being told there would be no hope. Older Amy just doesn't want to die. And when the time comes for younger Amy to be on the other end of this talk, 36 years from now, she'll say the same thing. But [[Arc Words|time can be rewritten]]. Younger Amy finally convinces her older self to help, not for herself, but for Rory's sake. The revelation sparks a change in the older Amy and she agrees, but only on one condition: the Doctor must rescue ''both'' Amys. Older Amy can live her own life. She can visit the Ponds on Christmas, she can be distant, she can be independent, she'll think of a way to make it work. The Doctor frets, worried about that being too much stress on the TARDIS, but ultimately agrees.

== Tropes ==

* [[Acting for Two]]: Older and younger Amys.

* [[Action Survivor]]: Older Amy; it's kind of a necessity when you're trapped in an empty facility and hunted non-stop by robots that will unintentionally kill you.

* [[Apocalypse How]]: Apalapucia is under planet-wide quarantine thanks to the plague.

* [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking]]: The Doctor's answer to whether or not {{spoiler|[[Tenchi Solution|both Amys can join Rory in the TARDIS]]}}:

* [[Ascetic Aesthetic]] / [[White Void Room]]: The hospital.

* [[Auto Doc]]: The Handbots. Too bad they're designed for patients with two hearts, and would unintentionally kill any single-hearted patient.

* [[Bizarre Alien Biology]]: The robots can kill you with kindness if you have the wrong biology. The reason the Doctor is stuck on the TARDIS is because Chen 7 only affects two-hearted races.

* [[The Blank]]: The Handbots.

* [[Break the Cutie]]: Rory really gets put through the wringer in this one. Amy too in those thirty six years, although we only see the end result.

* [[Call Back]]: Older Amy and Rory's conversation as they lean on each side of the TARDIS's door seems to be a parallel to the wall scene in "Doomsday," especially given Rory's earlier line, ''"This isn't fair. You're turning me into you!"''. Older Amy's line ''"Amy Pond in the TARDIS with Rory Williams."'' also echoes Mickey's ''"That's the Doctor, in the TARDIS, with Rose Tyler."'' line from "The Age of Steel" (a line itself later reprised in a deleted scene from "Journey's End").

* [[Companion Cube]]: Rory the Handbot, the eternally faithful pet. Even young!Amy is surprised that the other Amy didn't call it the Doctor or their favorite cat, Biggles.

* [[Continuity Nod]]:

* [[Cranial Processing Unit]]: Stab a robot in the head, it dies. Or hit it with a painting. Y'know, whatever's on hand.

* [[Cruel Mercy]]: Unfortunate and unintended; the Apalapuchian mercy traps Amy in a time-shifted paradise. Not to mention that anyone who is immune to Chen 7 will be killed by the Vaccine.

* [[Genre Savvy]]: Older Amy, as soon as she sees the Doctor, ''knows'' he intends to abandon her.

* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: Tom MacRae had a ''lot'' of fun with this one.

'''The Doctor:''' I don't know... It's your marriage. }}

** Amy and Rory played "Doctors and Nurses" growing up. How? Use your imagination.

* [[Goggles Do Something Unusual]]: The [[Nerd Glasses]] are a camera/two-way radio.

* [[Good Is Not Nice]]: {{spoiler|The Doctor shows himself to be [[Manipulative Bastard|unrepentantly manipulative]], getting both Amys and Rory to believe that he could save all three of them, knowing full well that he was never going to bring the Older Amy with them. Worse still, to the Doctor there isn't a choice; he intended from the start to leave the Older Amy behind. He forces Rory to make the choice when he protests and for added cruelty, he takes his hand and makes him lock the door himself.}}

* [[Harmful Healing]]: Of the "averts [[No Biochemical Barriers]]" type. All the medicine is meant for lifeforms with two hearts, and Amy can't make the robots understand that it's lethal to her.

* [[Heel Realization]]: Rory forces Older Amy to face her weeping younger self.

* [[Henpecked Husband]]: Rory, again.

** It becomes even more apparent with the Rory-bot. He's considered a pet by Amy, completely "disarmed" (since he's blind and has no hands, he's basically neutered) and follows Amy's every command instantly. [[Freud Was Right|Symbolism doesn't get more obvious than that.]]

** And when Older Amy says "Rory, sit down." Both of them immediately do.

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|Older Amy.}}

* [[Hey, It's That Voice!]]: The interface is voiced by Imelda Staunton, best known as Professor Umbridge in ''[[Harry Potter]]''.

* [[Hipster]]: The Doctor is the ultimate hipster, taking Rory and Amy to the ''second'' most popular tourist destination because the first is over-run by coffee shops.

* [[Improvised Weapon]]: The Mona Lisa.

* [[Inherently Funny Words]]: Apalapucia.

* [[Insistent Terminology]]: Older Amy insists on calling everything what it is. "Sonic screwdriver" is too whimsical. It's a ''probe''.

** Also, useful as it is, she doesn't want to be reminded of the Doctor.

* [[Jade Coloured Glasses]]: {{spoiler|Older Amy. Thirty-six years of absolute solitude, constant danger, and waiting for a rescue that never comes will have that effect.}}

* [[Just for Pun]]: To make him harmless, {{spoiler|Older Amy}} disarmed Rory the Handbot. ''Literally.''

** 'armless, rather?

** Justified in that it's improvised weaponry, and thus probably something she pulled off a display wall in the museum.

** Or given that she's in an adventure park, she could have grabbed one because they were intended to be used for entertainment purposes.

* [[Kick the Dog]]: When Old!Amy and Rory first meet, she bluntly tells him that he didn't save her. He looks understandably crushed.

* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: The creepy robots see with their creepy hands. The Doctor wonders, "Why not just give them eyes?" {{spoiler|The reason for that is because [[Body Horror|the head is where the syringe guns are kept]].}}

* [[Literal Metaphor]]: Don't worry, Amy disarmed the robot.

* [[Loss of Identity]]: Older!Amy argues that she would rather be saved now as opposed to the past, since time would be rewritten and she would more-or-less die.

* [[Madness Mantra]]: While Older!Amy is telling him he shouldn't let her in, Rory can only repeat "I'm so so sorry" over and over again.

* [[Manly Tears]]: From the moment where he meets the older, jaded version of his wife, Rory's eyes remain suspiciously red. He fully breaks when he has to make the [[Sadistic Choice]].

* [[Medical Horror]]

* [[Minimalist Cast]]: The Doctor, Amy, Rory and Older Amy are the '''only''' physical characters here. The only exceptions are the Handbots, the holographic Check-In Girl and the Interface voice.

* [[Running Gag]]:

** "Glasses are cool".

* [[Sadistic Choice]]: Rory can only choose to save one of his wives; the young, cheerful Amy he set out to protect, or the older, bitter Amy who is desperate to not be abandoned again. {{spoiler|In the end, he chooses the younger one, at Older Amy's behest.}} See [[What the Hell, Hero?]] below for the quote that sums it up.

* [[Scenery Porn]]: Brief, but it's there.

* [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]]: Amy's a remarkable woman indeed if she's managed to remain so stable after her predicament. Even the first week would affect most people a LOT more than what we've seen.

*** Oh, an initially deadly robot is now the protagonist's companion. [[Terminator|Sounds familiar?]]

** "[[Highlander|There can be only one]] Amy!"

** When older Amy charges through the Handbots, the sequence is shot like the battles in ''[[300]]''.

* [[Skewed Priorities]]: The Doctor has just brought his companions to the second-best planet in the universe... and Amy's primary concern is her phone. The Doctor complains that she's trying to update [[Twitter]], but Amy explains that she wants to take pictures.

* [[Temporal Paradox]]: The [[Timey-Wimey Ball]] is avoided here. They straight up break causality to save the day, and much [[Lampshade Hanging]] about it is done.

* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]]: Rory gives the Doctor an epic put-down in this episode;

'''Rory''': THEN I DO '''NOT''' WANT TO TRAVEL WITH YOU! }}

* [[This Ain't Rocket Surgery]]: The Doctor complaining about Rory being slow at rerouting the regulator valves for the temporal engines.

* [[Vader Breath]]: {{spoiler|Older Amy's first appearance.}}

* {{spoiler|[[Vasquez Always Dies]]}}

** And also, if the inhabitants of a major tourist planet had thought to incorporate more judgment and biological scanning equipment than God gave a mosquito into their beyond-state-of-the-art quarantine facility and its robots, they might actually check to see if a given alien is even capable of carrying the plague, never mind what medications work on it.

* [[We Named the Monkey "Jack"]]: Rory the Handbot.

** Until younger!Amy can sway her opinion, older!Amy spends the whole episode viciously grilling the Doctor.

** "This isn't fair. You're turning me into ''you!"''

* [[Yank the Dog's Chain]]: {{spoiler|Sorry, Older Amy, but there can't be two Amy Ponds in the universe.}}

** Justified: Since the planet is a plague facility, the plague sufferers who would be dead in a day get to live a full lifetime. The visitors need to stay in a normal timestream, hence the other side of the planet.

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[[Category:Recap]]