ANDREW'S
DOCTOR WHO REVIEWS 
This story has some parallels with The Girl in the
Fireplace, in that time moves at different speeds in different locations and
like that story it focusses strongly on the emotional impact of such a thing.
I’m not the greatest fan of Amy as a character, but in this story Karen Gillan
really shines and shows how much she’s grown as an actress. The differences
between old and young Amy are subtle but poignant and it is by far her best
outing.
The Doctor tries to take Amy and Rory on holiday, but
naturally enough it all goes wrong. They find the planet they are headed to is
under quarantine and the hand robots who run the place keep trying to treat
them for a disease they don’t have with drugs that will kill them.
Amy gets separated from Rory and the Doctor and can only
communicate with them via a magnifying glass like device. The Doctor warns Amy
in her different time stream to avoid the hand robots at all costs and that he
will come and find her.
The Doctor cannot leave the TARDIS due to the disease
affecting beings with two hearts, so it is up to Rory to communicate with and
find Amy. However, when they find her she has aged by 36 years due to the
different time streams. The Doctor tries to persuade this older Amy that she
must allow Rory and the Doctor to travel back in time to rescue younger Amy,
even though this will mean older Amy ceases to exist. Older Amy has turned into
a warrior having spent 36 years fighting off hand robots.
The younger Amy persuades the older Amy to help but the
Doctor tricks older Amy and locks her out of the TARDIS after younger Amy is
taken onboard, telling older Amy it is impossible for two Amy’s to survive in
the same timeline. Rory bids farewell to older Amy who will now cease to be.
There’s some really great bits in this story, the landscape
that Amy gets trapped in is really other-worldly like some sort of warped Alice
in Wonderland garden, the hand robots are really effective and as older Amy
fights them off work well. It would have been very easy for this fighting older
version of Amy to have come across really poorly, but thanks largely to Karen
Gillan’s surprisingly subtle performance she is a wounded warrior rather than a
vigilante.
Matt Smith takes something of a back seat in this story
which allows both Gillan and Arthur Darvill to give amongst their best
performances in their time on the show.
Yes, the story is not perfect, but it’s enjoyable, clever
and emotionally adult and is one of the better stories from this year’s Who.
NEXT UP: THE GOD COMPLEX
© Text copyright - Raving Loony
Productions and
Andrew J. Müller,
Roy Barton
and Shaun Runham
© Photos and Artwork - Andrew J. Müller
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2022
