Thoughts about Doctor Who!
Wow, that was some uneven writing - Night Terrors had choppy pacing and a really terrible ending. The Girl Who Waited began rather stupidly; I totally buy that Amy would pick the red button because she's Amy Pond, and it's - it's a red button. Everyone knows you shouldn't pick the red button. So of course she does, because you should never listen to what everyone says. Except they were totally right about red buttons. But I saw quite clearly on the wall two buttons, a red and a green, so that she could just poke the button and go back out into the waiting room and there it would be. Also how did she know how much time had passed? No clock, nothing but white light all the time. And why didn't she try poking the buttons earlier? I would've poked all the bloody buttons in the world before an hour had passed. Catch ME waiting a week. So yeah, that was sort of terrible.
Nevertheless, the overall concept for Night Terrors was pretty good, and the set design was AMAZING and hit all of those 'omg dollhouse dolls dollhouse dolls gonna go shake in fear now' buttons. Dolls are creepy anyway. Those dolls were really creepy. That touching one turned you into one reminds me of... something else, but damned if I can remember now. Not zombies, although I believe the effect is much of a muchness.
As for The Girl Who Waited... well, Moffat's regime really does rock the set design. Never fear, they will give you a set that will be beautiful and terrifying and plausible and amazing. The Interface really creeped me out, actually. Robot faces that pull back to reveal rows of needles? OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD. If a bit much like the whatsits in Let's Kill Hitler. Except that those were flying squidbots instead of handbots. But they were still very polite and being 'kind'. Which is also like the Ood, a bit, except the Ood are only evil when possessed by Satan. Anyway.
Who wants to slap creepy!Doctor upside the face? Dude, you're nine hundred years old, you're going to have to take the damn fall for your human friends. They haven't got the time to indulge in as much self-recrimination as guilt like that deserves. Don't pass it off on Rory - and I wondered, seeing the end, if old!Amy had heard the Doctor and Rory talking and ended up giving up so that Rory wouldn't have to deal with that guilt - she could absolve him of it. That would be rather like her. So in a way, the Doctor passed it off to Rory so Amy could absolve it because Amy can forgive Rory but not him, her hero in a blue box. I cried. Dammit. I never cry over books or movies or television shows, but old!Amy was badass and beautiful and had a SWORD and a pet robot and an awesome cave and a jerry-rigged sonic-screwdriver and hacked the facility. And I really liked that she didn't want to die - that she didn't feel that never having suffered as she had suffered was a good reason to just disappear all that she'd become. She hated what she'd gone through, but who it had made her? She was proud of it, and deservedly so.
Rory's conflict was well done - he was able to see his wife in old!Amy but for him young!Amy WAS his wife, and he couldn't hide it but he kept trying to see old!Amy as his wife too. Which, you know, is not actually true - after 36 years, I imagine she's a rather different person than the one he knows. (which reminds me - what sort of lipstick stays good for 36 years?) I like how they've made him kind; Amy will kick hell in the face, the Doctor will scheme it to death, and Rory will understand it and empathize. I really can't think of another Companion who's been so completely kind in new!Who - Rose certainly wasn't, and Donna wasn't either. I suppose Martha was to a degree, but she still didn't have Rory's ability to empathize and to protect. It wasn't her first function. I love Rory to bits, and this is why.
Other annoying thing about the Doctor in this episode - he left it to Rory to explain. To his wife, that they'd had to leave her other self behind, that that amazing woman Amy met isn't going to exist anymore - that, in effect, they decided to pick the young unchanged one over the experienced one. Which has got to be unnerving, knowing that if they go to the wrong time stream, they'll do ridiculous cruel things to get the one they want back. How to articulate this? Basically, if she hadn't had all the time stream wibbly-wobbly. If she'd just been trapped in another place, sort of like she was trapped for Melody, and they couldn't get her. And she waited decades for them. And then they came in and were all 'you're not our Amy, we need our Amy' and then they left again. Like she isn't good enough, like she isn't their Amy. And she's not, I mentioned earlier, the experience changed her, but experience does that! If the Doctor had been all 'whoops!' when he was late to pick up Amelia, and jumped back in time and got her instead of Amy? It would be like that.
And next week's episode looks like it's going to be amazingly scary. Here's to hoping the writing's better than in Night Terrors. Or... maybe not. It might be less scary that way!