Wow.  Just wow.   The Girl Who Waited is this year's Amy's Choice, the sneaky little, and very personal, mind-bender which brought the series regulars into sharp relief.  Those who have had reason to be annoyed with Amy and Karen Gillan surely have nothing to talk about after a bravura performance this week.  This was definitely an episode which was all about the journey, not the destination, but this particular journey was impeccably shot and directed by Nick Hurran.

There were echoes of other stories rampant throughout The Girl Who Waited, we we're perhaps a week early with our comparisons to The Mind Robber, but we also had thoughts of New Earth and even The Lodger.  Matt Smith was forced by the plot to be almost entirely reactive (would this be the Doctor-lite episode perhaps?) but this was an story for Darvill and Gillan to shine, and they gleamed as brightly as those hospital rooms the story took place in.

The Tour executroids rated The Girl Who Waited as the second best of the season to date (we kept A Good Man Goes to War in place at the top for it's centrality to the two-season continuing arc), but it could still move up depending on how the last 3 episodes play out.

Lots of caps this time around. The images however are unusually limited to the usual suspects seen elsewhere on the web.

A curious thought arrived here at THT Worldwide whilst watching Let's Kill Hitler.  The story itself was bumping along quite nicely, what we as longtime fans of the show and of Moffat's stories in particular have come to recognize and expect.  What we were struck by now just how ambitious this style of storytelling is and has become. 

Moffat himself has said as much in the days leading up to the premiere of the back half of this disjointed (as the calendar goes) season.  But he's also clever enough to know that you can't keep stringing along the audience for this type of show, so, in the main he gave out answers in Let's Kill Hitler and resolved questions which go all the way back to Forest of the Dead.

Let's Kill Hitler was basically River's story, despite some of the wackier, shall we say, smaller elements that carried the story along.  But the larger story of the past season and a half was fully in play here, even if the sometimes serendipitous events, and people, that kept this timey-wimey distilled romance moving both forward and backward, couldn't have possibly been predicted when Moffat took the reins back in 2009.  We hope the general audience is staying on board since we fully trust that the fans are.  And isn't it nice to say that because that means that new Doctor Who is in the air.  As fans we should cherish it because we fear we're about due for another drought.

Images and caps for Let's Kill Hitler are now online.

Expectations, for good or bad, are the bane of a fans existence.  Sometimes stories surprise because of low expectations, Gridlock is a story which springs to mind for this reason perhaps.  But when a "game changing" twist for whatever reason doesn't surprise because of over-inflated expectations, then this fan might have only himself to blame.  The Almost People is perfectly serviceable conclusion to The Rebel Flesh, although it should be said that the main plot developed more holes as the Flesh seemed to stretch further and further as the story moved along.

The Moffat-izer said earlier this season that good storytelling depends on the surprises you didn't see coming.  That the Doctor(s) switched shoes and Amy fell for it was a genuine surprise, along with the unintended confidences she let slip, was a neat twist…. and as for next week and the mid-season break.  Who knows.

Sadly for those who feast on images, there have been precious few floating about for The Almost People, and all of them it seems have been available for a while.  But there's always the requisite set of caps.