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The Doctor (Matt Smith) takes Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) to Apalapucia, a world of sunsets, but Rory comments there are only white doors everywhere. Amy needs her phone to take photos and the Doctor thinks it's for Twitter updates - so he's familiar with Twitter. Of course Amy gets separated this time. The Doctor suggests Rory pushes a button and he selects the green anchor. There's a giant magnifying glass in the room (well there were giant scissors last episode.) Rory also tells Amy to push a button but not which one. Why'd she go for the red waterfall? The Doctor finds Amy but only through the "looking glass," well magnifying glass. A robot with hands welcomes Rory and the Doctor. The Doctor comments "Time's gone wobbly." Doesn't it always, time's just like jelly.
Amy's been here a week already. The Doctor tells her it's the same room but different times, two time streams are running parallel and Amy's in a much faster time stream. The robot sees with it's fingers. Was the red to signify danger perchance? Rory pushes the red waterfall button but doesn't find Amy. But the Doctor just said she's in a different time stream so she wouldn't be there. Though he manages to get back to the Doctor.
The robot mentions Chen 7 disease and "the one day plague." Rory asks if "you get it for a day?"
Doctor : "No, you get it and then you die in a day." The Doctor covers his nose and so does Rory, and Amy will too. They must remain in sterile areas. The Doctor's safe if the area is sterile, it affects two-hearted races such as Time Lords. They can watch them live their whole lives in a day. Rory: "Watch them grow old in front of their eyes - that's horrible."
Doctor: "No Rory, it's kind." They have a choice to sit by their bedsides and watch them die, or they can watch them live for 24 hours. The Doctor reassures Amy he won't leave her. He pulls up the magnifying glass and takes it back to the TARDIS to get a lock on her and then he can use the TARDIS to get her out. She should leave a sign for him. He warns her the robots don't know she's immune so she must reject anything they try to give her. "Their kindness will kill you." Yes the robots were like kindness killing them.
He finds a glasses-cam for Rory, who exclaims the Doctor looks ridiculous. Doctor: "Glasses are cool." Hasn't he worn glasses before anyway. It's a 'Rory-cam' for Rory so the Doctor can monitor what's happening. He needs to smash through a timewall which isn't easy. A robot scans Amy and she's carrying bacteria and tries to inject her, uttering "This is kindness." Amy hides in some fumes where the robots don't detect her presence. The Doctor locks onto Amy's timestream. Rory gets out of the TARDIS into the gallery and stares into the bust of a statue. Doctor: "eyes front soldier." Amy speaks with the Interface (Imelda Staunton) who tells her she can go into the entertainment area. Amy chooses the garden. Amy: "You really could spend a lifetime in here." Ironically, she will. More robots approach and she locks their hands together to make them touch so they knock each other out. Some kind of a '60's retro feel to this show and the music too. Amy leaves a message/sign on the door; "Doctor I'm waiting" with an arrow.
The Doctor overlaps 40,00 timestreams. Rory wonders if they're happy. Rory would think of that. Doctor: "I think they're happy to be alive." He would considering death is nasty, death is sad and something that awaits him.
Rory meets older Amy who waited for him. Amy's theme from 5.1 plays throughout most of this episode, as it does usually also when Rory's around. The Doctor thinks the "timestream lock might be a bit wobbly." Here begins the 'soppy romanticism' but I liked it. It was very character orientated for a change. Amy uses her sonic probe which she made and she survived by making the robots believe she didn't exist, cos she won't really exist. They didn't save her. Rory explains this is them saving her now. She spent 36 years alone and it's difficult to have good thoughts about the Doctor. Rory looks at her. "Eyes front soldier." She hates the Doctor more than anyone in her life and calls him a "raggedy man." As in 5.13 when he was her "raggedy Doctor," but not anymore. She waited a lifetime for him, as she did when she was little, cos little Amelia grew up by the time he returned and now this Amy is older too.
'Ninja' older Amy fights more robots. Rory tells the Doctor he needs to take the TARDIS back to the right timestream and he replies this is all there is. Rory cares they didn't grow old together. She walked in here and she died. Rory doesn't notice the sign she left on the door, the first time he walks in. She converted a robot to a pet and called it 'Rory'. Amy still has her red lipstick but doesn't use it. She refers to the Doctor as "the voice of God." Her number one lesson was to survive since no one was coming for her. The Doctor taught her that. "Blue Box man flying through space on a whimsy." Her life is hell and she makes no bones about it. Amy is still Amy and can vent her anger. There's no question Amy would survive but it wasn't fair on her to have to do that.
She takes Rory to the garden and the Doctor asks the Interface where the regulator is located. Amy comments the glasses are ridiculous too. Rory: "Still anything to beat a Fez, hey." Amy laughs. It's the first time she's laughed. As the Doctor said, "Fez's are cool." In 5.13 and 6.1. Is the Doctor feeling remorseful? He tells her, "There's still time Amy, there's still time to fix everything." Can't help thinking he was referring to himself too, or trying to reassure himself there's time for Amy, so there'll be time for him to fix things too.
Amy saves Rory from another robot and it's 'kindness'. Doctor needs to work out how to fold two points of Amy's timeline with the temporal engine. Amy refuses to be saved. Rory notices the 'sign' she left for the Doctor now and shows it to him through the magnifying glass. Amy waited but if she's rescued she'll cease to exist, at least the older Amy will and she'll die. The Doctor could take this Amy out, but he says "our" Amy will have to wait 36 years to be saved. So that means she'll grow old again waiting for them to rescue her. Rory: "So I have to choose." Rory blames the Doctor, "this is your fault." He doesn't want to travel with him and throws down the glasses. The Doctor hears 'their' Amy crying. Rory sees her through the magnifying glass and older Amy won't help her. He shows her Amy through the glass, they left her here. Younger Amy is adamant Rory would never do that - but she stopped him, "the older me." Younger Amy says three words will change that, "what about Rory." She didn't call the robot after the Doctor or their cat Biggles, but Rory. They recall Rory saying he was in a rockband and getting a weird haircut.
His personality is written all over his face. "Rory's the most beautiful man I've ever met." Amy tells older Amy "to do it for him." "You're Amy, he's Rory." It's like Amy and Rory's love story being played out here. The Doctor believes, "Sometimes knowing your own future is what enables you to change it, especially if you're bloody minded, contradictory and completely unpredictable. If anyone can change pre-destiny it's your wife." Thus he'll be able to save himself - unless Amy's the one who's going to save him going on his statement, cos he's describing himself too. Mind you, the pre-destiny and wife line could mean something altogether different. Like River Song (Alex Kingston) being the one to save him. Well we know how cagey these episode titles can be sometimes, having a hidden underlying meaning, like The Doctor's Wife or Let's Kill Hitler; or the final episode to this season.
Rory always has her back and older Amy wants to leave in the TARDIS too. Rory asks if two Amy's together can work. The Doctor replies it's his marriage and then says maybe "the TARDIS could sustain the paradox." He needs a signal from the two Amy's, share a thought powerful enough to get through time, so that both Amy's will be in one place. They say, 'Macarena'. Rory: "Our first kiss." The Doctor tells Rory to swap the valves over and to throw several levers. Rory gets temporal feedback and he's on his own now. Amy 1 should speak first. Then they quibble over who Amy 1 is. The Doctor asks the TARDIS what 'nasty Amy's' done to her. Knew one of them would get left behind, viz, older Amy since she's the one who's meant to die and cease to exist (Like the Doctor in 5.13).
Rory wants older Amy to stop flirting with him. She's known him her whole life. They fight the robots and Amy is touched by one and is put to sleep. Rory carries her into the TARDIS. The Doctor locks the door. She can't come with them. Oh that was mean after everything she did to save them and get them here. Doctor: "I lied to her." The paradox in the TARDIS won't sustain her. There can only be one Amy so which one does he want. The older Amy will never have existed as if he's willing him to choose their younger Amy. Rory: "This isn't fair, you're turning me into you." For all the times, all the choices the Doctor's had to make and he gets angry when he can't make the choice for himself, like he did with Amy in 5.2.
Amy speaks to Rory from outside and the way he looked at Amy when he carried her, was the way he used to look at her. She'd forgotten how much he loved her. She tells Rory not to let her in cos she'll fight. They forgot Rule number 1: The Doctor lies. But he genuinely felt sorry for what happened, since she was still Amy. She's giving Amy the days to be with Rory. Older Amy asks the Interface to show her earth and the robots get her. The Doctor promised he'd save her and he did cunningly not answering Rory's question about not knowing if the two Amy's together would work - saving them both. Does the Doctor regret what he had to do. Also can't help wondering what he was thinking in the final shot of the episode.
An improvement on last week's episode. Pure emotion in this one with life changing decisions to be made and Rory had to make them this time round. A moving episode and the ending, as said, was inevitable, it was seen coming. Karen's performance was passionate and compassionate and utterly believable, especially as the embittered older Amy, who waited 36 years. A lifetime, for the Doctor, for Rory, to be rescued. She never had to wait this long before for the Doctor. It's also possible to imagine that without Rory, Amy would still have become that embittered older version of herself, or was it circumstances that drove her to it, and loneliness.
Who knew Rory could play such a hero - twice over. Once as the centurion who never let the Pandorica out of his sight when Amy was in it and now. A great performance from Arthur too having to makes choices and his outburst of becoming like the Doctor, who always has such choices to make. But as said they're his choices and no one else's and Rory being in that unenviable position of not being able to choose. He wanted to save both Amy's and it was left to Amy herself to convince him not to do this. That she was making the ultimate sacrifice by letting her younger self grow old with him. Again Rory didn't have to choose, it was Amy's choice!
The opening was likened to the episode The Mind Robber from 1968, with Patrick Troughton, with Matt Smith having to remain in the TARDIS and giving a similar performance to him. Even though he was confined there, he still managed to give a poignant portrayal with just that look Matt Smith has the knack of giving. Portraying an emotion with a look, it's eerily sad and emotional. Karen can now see how she'll look when she's older. Amy has already been in contact face to face, with her younger self in season 5 episodes, Time and The Big Bang; though not simultaneously in the TARDIS. Rory as we know has been deleted from existence, most recently in season 5.9 Cold Blood. In the past, the TARDIS has sustained two Doctors, in the episodes The Three Doctors; Time Crash. Also there were two Amy's, two Rory's and two eleventh Doctors in the TARDIS in the episode Time. River told Amy that the Doctor lies twice in season 5 in 5.13 and was said in 5.12 too. The Doctor said it himself in 6.8 Let's Kill Hitler.
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