Last week's Doctor Who was fun if only for the few lines about the Doctor's desire for a pirate hat. Most of my original write-up for it has turned into a rant about pirates, and the episode was too boring to recap. In fact, the only thing about this episode that I really enjoyed was the little kid and the way he reflected the Doctor and his companions' childishness. So that is what I will focus on here.
If the whole of last season was about mending the past so that it might finally be possible for Amy (and maybe the Doctor, thanks to River) to grow up, this season has forced everyone to wonder just what it means for everyone else to grow up. For Amy this means knowing that the Doctor might not be able to grow up since he is going to die. For the Doctor this comes to the question of Amy's yes/no pregnancy. In each case the characters are keeping something upsetting about the other's future from each other with a kind of blind hope that they will be able to change the future without ever having to worry the other one with "spoilers."
Of course, this leaves Rory out. Poor Rory. The Boy Who Waited.* His angst this season comes not from a sense that he might not be able to change the future or that the future is in flux, but that he has no control over anything. Because of this, he actually wants to grow up. He wants to know where he stands in the universe, but he wants to do that with Amy (and sort of with the Doctor). In the first two episodes of the season it was all about whether or not his love really loves him no matter how long he stands guard of her. He knows he has her hand, but can never be so sure that he has her heart. This episode it was his inability to do more than hide after Amy's pirate play leaves him cursed. He later can only rely on Amy to save him from drowning. This lack of control is what Rory wants to grow up away from, but can't so long as his best friends are busy pretending to be pirates.**
*Everyone is a boy or girl in Moffat's Who. This is why I constantly doubt that it is the Doctor whom River kills after all he is the "greatest man she has ever known."
**The Doctor's obsession with hats is just the tip of the ice berg in the Doctor's long history of dressing as a very specific part. Just going back so far as the last two Doctors, Nine dressed like a 2000s version of the knight from The Seventh Seal and Ten who dressed like some kind of young private school teacher. However, Eleven seems much more comfortable adopting much more flexible in taking on play roles that can be traded quickly, thus denying himself the need to be sincere and authentic in any absolute way. Amy has picked up on this it seems having found it necessary to put on a jacket and hat before saving the Doctor from the plank. It is also worth noting here that Moffat and his directors seem to be very aware of this considering the extremely long establishing shot of the coat as Amy finds.
This is why River's presence is so wonderful. She is a grownup going the other direction. She is becoming less of a grownup all the time. This both seems appealing to the Doctor and Amy while at the same time is a reminder that they are growing up whether they like it or not simply because they will soon start to become more experienced than River, making their relationship suddenly become reversed. When that day happens, that will be the day I expect Amy and the Doctor will be forced to do what Rory has wanted this whole time, and become a little more mature.
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