User Reviews

It's amazing how much waiting Amy and Rory seem to do over those seasons. And how time always gets out of whack when they're around.

This episode starts out as very plot-heavy. Amy's ordeal is a lot like a futuristic action movie, while Rory and the Doctor have to solve yet another time puzzle and rescue her from a separate time stream... except that they're already 36 years late. While I appreciate the idea that this idyllic leisure center has become a complete hell, this episode seems quite unmemorable at first. Quite obviously, saving Amy only requires a time reboot --she's got a subscription to them anyway.

The twist comes when Older Amy refuses to be "saved", i.e. erased. And I love her for that. On any other show, the characters would kindly accept to be removed from existence on the grounds that they don't like their lives anyway. Not Amy Pond: her life so far has been hell, but boy, will she fight for it. I guess it's in her genes.("Not these times. Not one line", anyone?) I think that Older Amy is a great character; hardened and bitter as she is, her true nature still shines through -chiefly, her love for Rory, which always shows in the oddest ways. So the decision to save her is understandable --but quite wrong in a show that has repeatedly stressed the dangers of time paradoxes. Despite the lessons of Father's Day (S1), I bought it because the Doctor is always so protective of Amy, and because honestly he has not been quite himself recently. Still I totally expected Older Amy to suffer some tragic but very convenient accident which would get the scriptwriter out of a serious bind.

Then came the REAL shocker, the moment that makes this episode just brilliant. The moment when *The Doctor abandons Amy to die*. Wow. It clearly is the right thing to do, but what an inhuman decision to make --and to live with. That's the Doctor for you. Yet asking Rory to accept this decision is even worse because the poor bloke is no Timelord; he does not HAVE to do the right thing. Worse, he has just spent the whole episode reminding Amy of who she really was (and now that's Rory for you: it has always been his role). So that final scene with Older Amy just blew me away. It was beautiful, beautifully shot, and it seemed just right. You may find it overly dramatic. I find that I really need a tissue right now.

Oh, and one last thing that irks me every time: What kind of person, when presented with two buttons, bends over to press the RED one when there's a nice, safe green button at hand level??! (Answer: "someone bloody-minded, contradictory and completely unpredictable?")

"The Girl Who Waited" is not just a fantastic 45 minutes of television, it may be one of the best things I've seen on any screen for a very long time. It's visually impressive, intellectually stimulating, and emotionally devastating. It surprised me, it made me laugh out loud a couple of times, and by the end I had real tears flowing down my face. What makes this story unique is how it examines the whole "alter the timeline - change the future" concept that is so common in science fiction from a perspective that is usually ignored; that of those who will be erased, those who will never exist, if the timeline is changed. Usually we get only one side of the coin; this time, we get both. And, although her two male co-stars are very good, it's Karen Gillian who really owns this episode with an astonishing, award-worthy performance. Don't miss it. ***1/2 out of 4.

This is my favorite episode not just of the season but the entire show (for now anyway) if you can believe that. It's one of the most emotionally touching and heart wrenching episodes I've ever seen. What makes this episode all the more interesting is the fact that the Doctor is second string and it's really Amy and Rory's story.

The planet they visit is unsettling, it's obviously been inspired by the film "THX-1138" as most of the place is all white and you even have mannequin enforcer droids.

We see a dilemma where Amy is older than Rory, it sort of reminds me of the Deep Space Nine episode "The Visitor" as Benjamin Sisko was seeing his son Jake grow older but Ben remained the same age. It was sad to see what has became of Amy over the years, despite still looking good physically you can see from her eyes how the years have made her a shell of a woman.

But what I love was how Rory had an unwavering love for her all the same, despite what has happened he still loves her and will do anything to save her. And we see that the time he's spending with her she is starting to be herself once more.

One really great and touching moment was when both the old Amy and the young Amy were talking with each other and the young version tells a little story on the reason she fell in love with Rory, which I thought was beautiful because I feel that what love really is. This of course leads them to say something at the same time which to me showed how long Amy's love for Rory truly lived.

It then comes down to one of the most heartbreaking climaxes as Rory is stuck with a terrible dilemma where he has to chose to save one of the versions of Amy, both can't exist on the same time together. Despite what the Doctor says, Rory is about to open the door to the Tardis for the old version of Amy, but then stops as the old version tells him no. She then gives a monologue which I'll admit really put tears in my eyes as we see the old version make a sacrifice for the one she loves,so that both Rory and the young version can have the years she lost. The final minutes with the old version of Amy just made me break down and cry.

No matter the seasons, love is timeless.

Rating: 4 stars

I truly believe this is one of the most emotional Doctor Who episodes but that doesn't make up for certain things, such as Amy Complaining about waiting 36 years when Rory waited 2000 years without a complaint. Also I think they pushed a paradox too far this time. Luckily the acting, music and overall storyline was top notch.

At first i'll admit from all my hype for 'Night Terrors' because of the dolls, i thought 'The Girl Who Waited wasn't going to be very good. However I was completely wring, this was way better than 'Night Terrors' which had a unfortunately disappointing ending. Karen Gillan did it for me, her acting was spectacular. Her portrayal of older Amy was excellent, i loved the difference in the characters despite them being the same person. I'm glad Matt Smith wasn't centre stage because it gave Arthur Darvill a chance to shine, and god did he shine. He grabbed this opportunity to show his acting talents firmly and proved he was worth being in the show (which i'm happy about as for a while he seemed like a spare part). The story line was great and i even got all the 'timey wimey' business. The highlight though was the tear-jerking, extremely poignant ending. The scene where old Amy and Rory were pressed against either side of the TARDIS door was fantastically written and directed. I re-watch it over and over and i still shed tears. I will say what made this episode stand out even more is that it showed the Doctor's 'darker side' as i'll call it, as he left old Amy behind. It made me for the first time actually realise how cruel he could be and honestly made me briefly hate him. Overall brilliant. 10/10 for Tom MacRae

When The Doctor, Amy and Rory visit the second most popular destination in the universe it is no surprise that things go wrong; that than finding themselves on a beautiful planet they end up in a strange facility. Amy is soon separated from the other two and we learn that she is in a quarantine facility for people who have a plague that will kill them in one day; Rory and The Doctor are luckier as they have ended up in the visiting section where time travels at a different rate to where Amy is. It turns out that the plague only effects people with two hearts so Amy is safe… so long as she doesn't get any treatment, as it would be deadly to her! In an attempt to rescue Amy, The Doctor takes the Tardis into her time-stream but when Rory goes looking for her he finds that they have arrived a little late; Amy is nearly forty years older! Now they must figure out how to get back and rescue the younger Amy and if they can what will become of the older one?

I rather enjoyed this episode even though it didn't include any traditionally monstrous creatures; the faceless robots that did everything 'for kindness' were creepy enough without actually being scary. This may be the episode with the smallest cast as it only really includes Amy, Rory and The Doctor; Karen Gillan did a fine job playing Amy at two different ages; it was fun watching her take out robots with a katana! Arthur Darvill was also good, when he first appeared as Rory I was hoping he'd be a one-episode character but now I'm convinced that he makes an excellent addition to the team. The story itself was pretty good and the ending was quite a tearjerker.

As soon as the opening credits started I thought this was going to be the most enjoyable episode of the Matt Smith era . The Doctor , Amy and Rory find themselves stuck in a white room and Amy gets separated only to find herself in mortal peril . This opening mirror episode one of the 1975 classic Ark In Space , one of the most effective stories in the history of the classic series and which shows that you don't need a big budget to create a memorable piece of television drama Did I say Amy is in " mortal peril " ? Perhaps I should have said " immortal peril " because a week after seeing a traditional monsters are gonna get you type story we're back in the timey wimey tale that seems to crop up in every story produced by Steven Moffat that's not written by Mark Gattis

This isn't enough to condemn the episode but I'm afraid that Moffat deserves much condemnation for doing something last year and that is casting Karen Gillan as the female lead . Ms Gillan is certainly beautiful but so is a tree in a field and a tree is far less wooden . The script calls for Amy to emote the whole gamut of every conceivable feeling - joy , grief , despair , loss and hope . I'm afraid the only thing we saw from Karen in this episode was splinters . And having two Amys running around had the Doctor warn Rory at the climax " Rory we can't have two Amys in the Tardis . If they rub together they'll start a fire didn't you learn anything in the boy scouts ? " . This is a great pity because the script itself must have looked fantastic on the printed page

Not to be too negative Arthur Darvill gives perhaps his best performance as Rory simply down to the fact that a writer has utilized him in a character driven story rather than have him as a plot device as in " oh no they killed Rory again this week " . But even this illustrates how poor his co-stars can be sometimes . Did anyone else notice that Smith's dialogue seemed to be painfully reminiscent of the tenth Doctor ? That said at least the Doctor was sidelined for much of the episode and we didn't get River Song either which is a big plus

Sorry if I've seemed painfully negative but being a fan of the classic series I tend to use the 1972 adventure Day Of The Daleks as the yardstick for any DOCTOR WHO story featuring a time paradox . It's released on DVD this week and is worth every single penny for the extras alone . The only episode of NuWho that comes close to it is Father's Day for very different reasons. That story showed Eccleston and Piper at their very best and how lop-sided the dynamic between the current cast of characters are

The essence of a great Doctor Who episode is to handle those issues symbolically which we cannot bear to look at in the cold, hard light of reality. Those issues can be reduced to simple question, analyzable in a fashion that the messy, muddled world will not permit us to see clearly. When we read Tolkien's LORD OF THE RINGS, we get to make the choices of how to deal with palpable, malign evil. We don't have the luxury of looking away and mumbling about secondary issues. We look at Sauron -- or at least the Eye of Sauron -- and know he is evil. What do we do about it? We don't get caught up in issues of cause and effect, sidelining the discussion by arguing about what made him evil, or what it will do to us. Sauron is evil. We fight him with any weapon we can find and sort out the damage later.

In this episode, we think about love, sacrifice and suicide. Amy Pond gets separated from the Doctor and Rory, stuck in a timestream in which time proceeds at a vastly greater rate. By the time the Doctor and Rory can rescue her, three and a a half decades have passed. With her help they can go back and save her from those years of loneliness and terror, but she will have to give up those years, that life. Her life. Should she commit suicide for someone who is now a stranger?

I'd like to draw attention to a part of television story-telling that is usually ignored: the lighting technicians. It's a subset of camera-work that most people don't notice, but I've been thinking about it for some time in the context of DOCTOR WHO, wondering if the lighting inside the TARDIS reflects the way the Doctor's eyes work. In this episode, they've reduced a lot of the lighting to a flat, white background and green plants that are so dark they are almost black, with the characters providing colorful splashes. That almost monochromatic background emphasizes the simplicity of the choice: yes or no, the younger Amy or the older one. The colors of the players shows their complexity. In the real world, choices are never that simple.

Karen Gilian gives a technically brilliant performance. She stands and moves very differently as the elder Amy, she pitches her voice differently, she plays a different character. It's a fine piece of acting, but it draws attention to itself and self-destructs on that account. Arthur Darvill, as Rory, though, does his usual fine job as the man who has to make a decision that no man should have to.... and almost refuses to make it. And Matt Smith is.... well, you believe he's an alien who can make these godlike decisions when he has to.... and he doesn't want to make them either.

Because I think DOCTOR WHO is at its best when it takes the symbolic component of science fiction seriously -- in between the goofy jokes, of course -- we have been having a great season. There have been a couple of duds, of course, but this episode, like the last one, is sf near its best.

When I first watched this episode I hated it. Absolutely hated it. But after rewatching it a couple times I began to see its strengths.

First off, the acting is impeccable. Amy is the main showcase for this episode, as she is trapped in an alternate timeline that of course moves faster than Rory and the Doctor's. Her acting chops are well shown here and the prosthetics to show her age are decently believable.

But here is where from my complaints stem. Amy is furious at both the Doctor and Rory (but mostly the Doctor) for leaving her behind even though they clearly did all they could to get to her as soon as possible. Unfortunately, due to timey wimey nonsense it takes 36 years. And the reason they can't try again in my opinion is dumb.

That aside, Amy's cynicism seems rather undeserved, especially when it's possible to completely undo it. Not to mention Rory waited 2000 YEARS for her. Technically he was plastic and didn't age but 2000 YEARS. And she's gonna quibble over 36! Just saying. Also, the whole "I die" explanation doesn't ring true to me either. She's given a do-over, to have never experienced that isolation. I fail to see the downside.

Even so, it is cool to see her wield a katana and her own sonic screwdriver, though how she is all of a sudden a genius is not explained and is just there for convenience sake. And Karen Gillan does a good job selling both the action and the emotion of both versions of Amy. And it's nice to see her NOT a damsel in distress.

However, it is Arthur Darvill's portrayal of Rory who steals the show (again). His love for Amy, his persistence, and his genuinely deserved heartbreak and anger at the Doctor eventually giving way to quiet strength as "his Amy" wakes up at the end of the episode. This is what gives the episode its strength. Without his tremendous performance and his character being so well written to provide the performance the episode really would have been just Amy as a cranky old woman. 8/10

This series is bad. However this episode is one I will never forget. Amy and Rory are two character I don't care about and if I think about their entire journey with the doctor I think it's a mess. They lose a child but it seems they don't really care, and it never even seemed they wanted a child in the first place. Ugh. But getting back to this episode. As a standalone it works tremendously. I actually cared about Amy and Rory (who I always preferred out of the two), more than I ever have before. Actually maybe it's the only time. I'd say as companions go "future Amy" is far more interesting than normal Amy. This episode is awesome.

Now this is one very good episode. Classic Doctor Who with moral questions, paradoxes and the like. This was the best episode out of the past previous slightly below average episodes. Very refreshing indeed.

Amy ages 36 years and looks like she's in her 30's. No 56? Year old looks that good. Bad makup. Also, Amy built a Sonic screwdriver? What?