@amelia
I missed the Friday lol all I got was late afternoon but I reckon you could be onto something or it could be River Song’s wedding which could be late afternoon but its probably to do with the Doctors death.

To be honest, while everyone’s performances were top notch, the script was a bit of a let down (I say a bit because I wasn’t really expecting something fantastic from Tom MacRae after Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel). For me, the only enjoyable part was the last ten minutes or so because of the character development but the rest was a bit “meh”.

I’ll rewatch it tomorrow and see if it’s any better, but I’d give it a 3/5 for now.

Wow loved this episode I felt passion from Karen and Arthur I feel this episode should be up for awards as well as Karen and Arthur. I give it 10/10

Karen Gillan’s “finest hour” in Who. She portrays “regular” Amy as we know and love her. but also a fine performance as the older, more embittered Amy who is seemingly let down… yet again… by her Raggedy Doctor.

Arthur Darvill also provides a pitch perfect as Rory – especially in the scene where he talks to older Amy through the TARDIS door.

This is what good Doctor Who’s about – great script, great acting and an ability to tug at your heartstrings.

Billie Piper, Catherine Tate and Alex Kingston all had their very special episodes : Father’s Day, Turn Left and Let’s Kill Hitler. In my opinion, Freema Agyeman doesn’t have one, her character was so underused and poorly written at times that I don’t think a special episode would have been necessary anyway.
The Girl Who Waited definitely belongs to Karen Gillan. She has slowly grown on me since her arrival in The Eleventh Hour, I used to like her and to find her good, but nothing more. Until now. I don’t remember who said she had given the performance of her life with this episode, or who said she would break our hearts, but they were so right. She was so true, so beautiful, so believable !

Say whatever you want about Steven Moffat but he knows where to find talented actors : Matt Smith and Alex Kingston were immediately brilliant. Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill slowly revealed themselves over the course of the last two series. If Gillan was stellar in this episode, Darvill was astounding : how Rory has changed since The Eleventh Hour !
The story of the episode was simple but good, I particularly liked Rory’s dilemma, Old Amy’s not so selfish attitude, the way the unexpectedly cold Doctor prevented her from coming in the TARDIS and when she asked to see Earth one last time (although I would’ve liked her to ask to see her daughter !). Even if it was a pure standalone story, I think it fits really well with the rest of the series so far : the Doctor has inadvertently turned Amy and Rory’s life into such a mess that there has to be consequences before the series ends, hasn’t it ?

The only thing I disliked is the beginning : I think it was a bit rushed (it reminded me of New Earth, which also took place in a hospital, but there was a nice introducing scene with the Doctor and Rose on the grass, I could have used such a scene here) and a bit dumb : seriously, Rory obviously saw there was TWO buttons at the door, would it have killed him to tell Amy to push the GREEN one ? (Granted, there wouldn’t have been a story, but my point is they could have found a better way to separate Amy from the Doctor and Rory).

And one last thing, we’ve already got a Pond and a River, and now Two Streams ? Does it ring any bells ?

Heavens. For what’s meant to be a sci-fi show, Doctor Who sure knows how to throw emotional punches.

I think this was the single most tragic episode we’ve seen since The Family of Blood. Possibly moreso. My hat goes off to both Karen and Arthur for heartbreaking performances. The idea itself is a little bit genius – I couldn’t help but agree that the kindness facility was, well, a pretty kind idea (even the trying to kill Amy thing was more mistake than malice). Making Rory choose between his ‘wives’ was so sad, and then watching old Amy go quietly to her ‘death’ – well, I was in tears. Then adding the final blow at the end – knowing that Rory would have to live with the burden of what he saw – was completely cruel. And heartbreaking. And beautifully acted.

It also makes me wonder – as Moffat’s being saying, maybe the Doctor has been interfering in their lives for too long. He certainly wasn’t being very heroic this week. I’d be very interested to see the effects this week has on Team Tardis come the finale…

@Steve
karen shows no acting ability? you weren’t watching summat else were you or had your
mind poisioned? karen put in the performance of her life and what you say about no fun, no excitement etc dr who doesn’t mean that at all- you can have an episode which is emotional like episode 10 was and still be a great episode, its not all about aliens invading earth, what you said shows you have a lack of emotions- i advise you to watch a 2nd time.

In my book this is up there with some of the best episodes of New Who. No, there weren’t huge action scenes or slimy aliens, but Doctor Who is the kind of sci-fi show that doesn’t need all that to be fantastic.
I always felt a bit apathetic towards Amy; I liked her well enough but didn’t feel the emotional attachment that I’ve felt with other companions (Ok that sounds really cheesy but you all know what I mean!)
Amy has been developing more and more over series 6 and this was a triumph! I never thought Karen was a bad actress, and this proves that she is in fact a very good actress.

Kudos to Karen and Arthur, and to Matt, who when he said Old Amy couldn’t come, made me slightly dislike the Doctor for the first time in a very long while. And that’s a good thing; a bit of moral ambiguity never hurt anyone! :)

@Emerald
I very much agree. I do love the trio, but Rory and Amy have every reason to be a bit fed up with the Doctor. Great episode.

This was a new nadir. I cannot believe what has happened to Dr Who.

i have been let down with the last 2 episodes.they were not that good in comparison of the show.this weeks was a little better then last weeks so I hope the next is even better.

Liked the way it was shot and the atmosphere,anyone notice that it was the same lobby as the hospital in ‘New Earth’ ie the Millenium centre? Thought the Robots were really weird but in a good way,story was great,love the ‘killing with kindness’, acting was great ,but too much Amy and not enough Doctor for me.

@Steve
‘KG shows no acting ability.’ You weren’t watching something else were you or had your mind poisioned? Karen put in the performance of her life especially as Old Amy. And about you saying, ‘Where is the drama, fun, adventure, excitement? It was awful.’ Doctor Who isn’t just about fun, excitement etc it can also be very emotional like yesterdays episode when Rory had to make that impossible choice-you don’t need an alien invasion to have a great episode. Vincent and the Doctor is a great example of this. Yes there was an alien but wasn’t trying to invade and it didn’t mean to kill them people, it was just scared. I think what you say about it being dull just shows that you have a lack of emotions. I respect your opinion but I just disagree with it is all.

Series 6 has really disappointed me, however TGWW was probably my favourite episode of the series. For once, I actually liked Amy and I thought Karen’s performance was actually really good! Especially as older Amy who I actually prefered! Some things didnt quite add up, like why is Amy’s hair the same length and colour, etc but its easy to just forget those. I did like it when Rory and Old!Amy were pressed against the TARDIS and reminded me a little of Doomsday, although I didnt feel nearly as emotional for them as I did for Ten/Rose, it could have been the performances, music I’m not sure but I thought that would have been more emotional. Overall I liked this episode a lot even though there were somethings I didnt like about it.

Sorry I’m late (like anyone cares, lol).

This episode confuses me in the sense that I don’t know if I liked it or not. I didn’t hate it or dislike it, in some ways I liked it, but there was something about The Girl Who Waited that felt quite………vacuous. Although it was an interesting episode, I wasn’t quite sure of the point at the end.

Perhaps the legacy of Steven Moffat’s way of writing is that I expect every episode to have a wider significance than just one episode, which is strange really, since that was something I didn’t like before.

I’d agree with Katie too about the older Amy and Rory speaking through the Tardis doors being similar to the 10th Doctor and Rose, but it wasn’t as powerful. Rose and the 10th Doctor were separated in parallel universes, the accompanying music was much more emotive and everything was “said” without words.

It’s also the case that Rory didn’t really lose anything, since his Amy was rescued and the older Amy didn’t suffer anything, since the act of rescuing young Amy meant that she never existed.

I liked that the Tardis couldn’t hold the paradox of young Amy and older Amy. It seems to contradict the fact that the Tardis held the truly massive paradox of the “Toclafane” coming through and killing their own ancestors, but it only did that after the Master modified it and the paradox wasn’t happening in the Tardis itself.

So yeah, I still don’t know, even after thinking about it this long, whether I liked the episode or not. There’s something strangely likeable about it, at the same time as it seems, in a way, kind of a pointless episode.

@Patrick Thanks for your comments. I don’t think KG can act at all and out of all the companions since it’s return in 2005, she is the weakest. If you watch careful, you would see that for most the episode, her face hardly moved at all. There is nothing to make you want to care for her. For example in “Planet Of The Ood” the Doctor sharing the song of the Ood with Donna is heart breaking. CT face breaks with emotion. Rose and Martha capture the viewers interest by being able to relay emotion through strong acting abilities. All through Amy’s time, there has been nothing at all to bring me to believe KG is a credible actress for this part.
As for your point about my comments, well, Doctor Who is a world and class apart from most other SciFi series on screen. What made it different is it’s ability to take the viewer away from every day mundane lives and live a little in escapism. This season has tried to standardise a format that runs across numerous tv shows that are failing all the time. It, also, needs to be moved away from the Eastenders Soap Opera attitude it has developed over the last 2 seasons. With regards to last night’s story. It could have been so much better. The Robot’s could have been better used. The direction could have been so much more and really it needed something to bring the “hiding behind the sofa” factor back.

This was definitely Karen Gillan’s chance to shine, and boy did she. Great performance.

It’s taken a while but I’ve actually grown quite fond of Any and Rory now.

Quite emotional episode too. Tugging the old heart strings with “a life lost” dramarama. I’m sure it had a few of us thinking about ageing, dying and other such trivial matters!

PS. I disagree with the person above regarding Martha Jones. The character shone in Human Nature/The Family of Blood and Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords.

The latest Fourth Dimension message: “Late Friday afternoon”.

I really enjoyed this episode. You could tell it was the “cheap” episode as it mainly had one set and used minimal extra actors. I personally think Tom Macrae is underrated based on the episodes he has written (and I am not just saying that because I used to go out with him lol). The Cybermen stories were really good and this one proved a more emotional punch. I thought the idea was really original (could you kill your future self in order to save the current version). Karen was brilliant and seemed to handle both versions of her character well. I disagree that she a bad actress, she is brilliant where it counts. I sometimes think she suffers the same issue as Freema did with Martha, being underwritten and not having much to work with, but this was a good story to her.

One thing that no one has really touched on is how brilliant Arthur was in this story. For the first time since he started I felt like Rory cemented his place as a real character. His final discussion with old Amy was magical and tragic. I thought how he spoke to the Doctor telling him “Then I don’t want to travel with you”, “Am I turnin into you” was well overdue and, for first time since the series returned, we finally got a companion’s partner’s reaction to the doctors life.

I can sort of see Rory leaving at the end of the series. As much as I loved this episode and Karen, I think once this series ends we need a new companion to spice up the show. The show is running dangerously stale (series 6 has not been the best) and needs something new adding to it.

Didn’t think much of the droids.Very good episode though

@TE
I’m thinking the Doctors death on a late Friday afternoon. Either that or the day for River’s wedding but its probably the Doctor’s death.

@Patrick
It would be quite weird if they were actually both on the same day…