Doctor Who: Night Terrors and The Girl Who Waited
I've been busy with assignments which is why I didn't get around to posting my thoughts on Night Terrors last week. And seeing as I just finished watching The Girl Who Waited, I'll go ahead and do a double post.
Night Terrors
The best Doctor Who episodes are the scariest ones (Blink and Midnight being my two absolute favourites), which means I loved Night Terrors. Those creepy dolls, the monster cupboard ... I spent half of the ep hiding behind a pillow but I loved every minute of it. I also got a kick out of Daniel "Jim Keats the Devil" Mays being an adorkable dad. I find it hilarious that George is scared of all sorts of things, yet his dad is the Devil who once punched Gene Hunt in the face.
On another note, which I didn't mention in my last post; I do find it a bit jarring that Amy and Rory don't seem the least bit concern that their daughter has been kidnapped and being brainwashed into killing the Doctor. Just because they know where she will be and what she will become doesn't change the fact that SHE'S BEEN KIDNAPPED RIGHT NOW!
The Girl Who Waited
I quite liked this one too. I didn't expect to, because I normally don't like future/alien-planet based episodes (I love me some historical/period-piece Who). But I think because it deals with more psychological and timey-wimey themes, as well as being a bit of a deconstruction of the "what-if" scenario (ie. what happens when two "what-if" scenarios collide?) in such a brutal way, I became quite drawn into it.
Thinking about it, what happens to Older Amy is essentially what happened to Donna. Both developed into a person they were proud to be, but both had that personality taken away, being forced to revert back to square one. Arguably, Older Amy became bitter and her younger self was intimidated by her, but Older Amy also had some pride in her eventual personality, which made her reluctant to set into motion a plan that would essentially prevent her becoming her badass bitter self. Older Amy saw such a plan as being the death of her, in the same way such an action was the death of the DoctorDonna.
The very hard part was trying to explain this to my mum, who has never seen Doctor Who, teases me about watching Doctor Who and who has never read/watched a science-fiction book or film in her life. So of all the episodes she decides to watch, it had to be the one that features time-travel, time paradoxes, an understanding of the Pratchett "Trousers of Time" theory, a deconstruction of said theory, and a rather thoughtful analysis of what makes a person who they are. And I had to explain this in Vietnamese.
At one point, my mum said "Why doesn't Older Amy just divorce Rory, if she wants to stay who she is so much?" ... so, yeah. I don't even know how to explain how she came to that solution ... I just don't know.
Moving on ... the ending was very sad. Especially Older Amy giving Younger Amy the opportunity to grow old with Rory, which was something she herself was hoping to do and which she had been waiting 36 years for. And now I just made myself sad again. All in all, a pleasantly surprising episode.
Night Terrors
The best Doctor Who episodes are the scariest ones (Blink and Midnight being my two absolute favourites), which means I loved Night Terrors. Those creepy dolls, the monster cupboard ... I spent half of the ep hiding behind a pillow but I loved every minute of it. I also got a kick out of Daniel "Jim Keats the Devil" Mays being an adorkable dad. I find it hilarious that George is scared of all sorts of things, yet his dad is the Devil who once punched Gene Hunt in the face.
On another note, which I didn't mention in my last post; I do find it a bit jarring that Amy and Rory don't seem the least bit concern that their daughter has been kidnapped and being brainwashed into killing the Doctor. Just because they know where she will be and what she will become doesn't change the fact that SHE'S BEEN KIDNAPPED RIGHT NOW!
The Girl Who Waited
I quite liked this one too. I didn't expect to, because I normally don't like future/alien-planet based episodes (I love me some historical/period-piece Who). But I think because it deals with more psychological and timey-wimey themes, as well as being a bit of a deconstruction of the "what-if" scenario (ie. what happens when two "what-if" scenarios collide?) in such a brutal way, I became quite drawn into it.
Thinking about it, what happens to Older Amy is essentially what happened to Donna. Both developed into a person they were proud to be, but both had that personality taken away, being forced to revert back to square one. Arguably, Older Amy became bitter and her younger self was intimidated by her, but Older Amy also had some pride in her eventual personality, which made her reluctant to set into motion a plan that would essentially prevent her becoming her badass bitter self. Older Amy saw such a plan as being the death of her, in the same way such an action was the death of the DoctorDonna.
The very hard part was trying to explain this to my mum, who has never seen Doctor Who, teases me about watching Doctor Who and who has never read/watched a science-fiction book or film in her life. So of all the episodes she decides to watch, it had to be the one that features time-travel, time paradoxes, an understanding of the Pratchett "Trousers of Time" theory, a deconstruction of said theory, and a rather thoughtful analysis of what makes a person who they are. And I had to explain this in Vietnamese.
At one point, my mum said "Why doesn't Older Amy just divorce Rory, if she wants to stay who she is so much?" ... so, yeah. I don't even know how to explain how she came to that solution ... I just don't know.
Moving on ... the ending was very sad. Especially Older Amy giving Younger Amy the opportunity to grow old with Rory, which was something she herself was hoping to do and which she had been waiting 36 years for. And now I just made myself sad again. All in all, a pleasantly surprising episode.