Episode review and some thoughts about Amy

[cosmic_celery]

Let me start of by saying that I really enjoyed this episode. It felt more tense than Time of the Angels and definitely held my attention more effectively. I'm enjoying River a lot more as well and I like the hints that we're given about her and the Doctor's future (or past depending on perspective) we've been getting. She knows at least one other person who can fly a TARDIS, she keeps running back into the Doctor for some reason, she known Old Gallifreyan, she killed the best man she's ever known, and she knows about whatever the Pandorica is. The killing thing is hinting at her killing the Doctor himself, but I'm not sure about that. Maybe she's referring to whoever this other time lord she knows is. I doubt The Master could be the best man anyone's ever known, so it can't be him unless he's redeemed himself...which would be wrong on many levels. Pandorica sounds like it gets it's inspiration from Pandora's Box - Pandora opens the box and all the evil things, hunger and death and despair, escape out and all that's left in the box is hope. It's definitely going to be a bad thing.

As for the very end of the episode, I completely understand why Amy hits on the Doctor and it's bothering me how many people are saying things like "lol what a slut". The Doctor first showed up in Amy's life when she was just a kid and she created a gigantic mythos around him. She didn't move anywhere. She played dress up and drew comics and tried to convince herself that he was real. She bit psychiatrists who told her he wasn't real. She took on a job that allowed her to escape into various fantasy worlds. He is the central figure in her life and because of that everything else in her life is an attempt to measure up to that mystical event that happened when she was a kid.

Rory, who seems to absolutely love her, doesn't measure up. Not because he's not wonderful and not because she doesn't love him, but simply because he's not the Doctor. Rory looks a tiny bit like the Doctor, he went into the medical profession but he didn't become a doctor. His life has been shaped around her hopes and his inabilities to give her what she really wants: adventure and a time machine and a madman.

So it makes perfect sense that when this central figure from her life drops back into her life, she's going to doubt the life she's made for herself in his absence. If everything in her life was built around that one night when he dropped in and ran out again and she's getting married in the morning, she has just one chance to prove to herself that he really is more important than everything else.

To go Freudian on you, he's the father figure she never had.

She is, as the Doctor said, "the girl who waited". I'll be interested to see how she evolves now that she still is traveling with him and she has the chance to integrate Rory into that fantasy world.

As a side note: the doctor being clueless about her intentions was good. It reminded me a lot of that scene in Unnatural History with dark!Sam. He gave a lot of the same excuses.

Oh, and somebody better do an Amy vid to this:

Comments

[faience.livejournal.com]

I quite completely agree with you. I really can't make Amy/Eleven shipping work in my head... but I totally see her wanting it. She's spent her whole life lost in a fantasy world -- as you point out, shaped very much by the Doctor's brief presence in her life. In her own personal fairy tale, the Doctor's her knight in shining armor, her Prince Charming, her romantic hero to come and take her away from the tedium of everyday life. And even the Doctor, as marvelous as he can be, can't live up to the perfect fairy tale hero. In reality, he's anything but a romantic... but Amy is stuck with the idea of him as the romantic hero and she won't be easily swayed from it.

And at the same time... yeah, I think she really does love Rory. But who could stand up to what the Doctor can offer? All of time and space is hard to beat. Rory simply seems ordinary, even dull, by comparison.

Amy's going to need some time to really figure out what she wants here -- she's been chasing her fairy tale so long that I doubt she really knows anymore.

[notusachan.livejournal.com]

... Just throwing this out there, but if I was getting married to someone tomorrow, and the Doctor showed up, I'd be all over that. Amy has damn fine taste.

[faience.livejournal.com]

Well, unless you were marrying Paul McGann. But then if Eight showed up... well, everyone would be pretty confused, probably.

[notusachan.livejournal.com]

I was about to say that at this point, with how much I play Eight, Paul being his normal self is sexier than Eight, but then I remembered TIME MACHINE. So uh. About that.

I -- I'm sure Paul would understand.

[faience.livejournal.com]

... so if you run away with the Doctor can I have Paul? On loan, maybe? XD

[notusachan.livejournal.com]

I think this is an acceptable arrangement.

[notusachan.livejournal.com]

YES. DEAR GOD, THAT WAS STRAIGHT OUT OF UNNATURAL HISTORY. I was legit expecting him to be all "I've killed people, Sam! ... I mean Amy!" He was soooo much like Eight in that scene, especially with the "You know what I mean, wink wink nudge nudge." "Yes, of course. ... aaaactually no, uh, care to clarify?" stuff.


And, god, I'm terrified to check anywhere else on lj right now because I just know people are gonna be calling her a slut. Ugh.



This whole season is just reminding me a lot of random Eightcanon things though. Like in general. Especially the bit where the ... clerics? whatever they were. The church soldier dudes were being erased from history, and only Amy remembered them. It made me think of when the number of Gallifreys kept disappearing in Ancestor Cell, and Fitz was the only one who noticed. SPOILERS: the big season finale is gonna be Eleven vs Grandfather Paradox, and the cracks are where the bottle universe (which they are all in) is breaking. lolwhat.

[okelay.livejournal.com]

I thought it was odd that people seemed so angry and surprised, it's been pretty clear she fancies the Doctor for a while.
and she wanted to take the chance, cause there's a life waiting for her, and she can't live her life without first well, dealing with the Doctor, with the fantasy she's had her entire life. I think eleven and amy are still defining their relationship and just cause she's tried to jump his bones doesn't mean they have to go the unrequited love road now.

[eclecticmuse.livejournal.com]

This is one of the more sensible things I've read about that whole scene. I haven't actually seen too many OMG WHAT A WHORE comments, but most of the fans I roll with are Eleven/Amy shippers so they're all YEAH GET IT GURL. Me, I'm a Rory/Amy shipper so I'm quietly going "dammit" in my little corner. But I'm not too upset but I know how things will work out. :)

[cosmic-celery.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I just can't bring myself to ship Amy and the Doctor, mostly because of the aforementioned Freudian thing. I'm excited for the Vampires episode. From the look of it, it seems that Rory is playing the voice of reason and has some words to say about the Doctor's influence on Amy's life.