For me, there was one thing that made Series 6 of Doctor Who amazing. It wasn’t Matt Smith’s acting, impeccable and constantly improving though it is. It wasn’t River Song kicking several different kinds of ass. It wasn’t Amy being a bitter bitch, though that was pretty awesome. No, for me, the true star of Series 6 was Rory Williams.
Rory has come such a long way from The Eleventh Hour, when he was introduced as a sort of Mickey Smith character, the doggedly faithful boyfriend following his beautiful partner around and still loving her even though she’s clearly smitten with this dashing alien that’s dropped from the sky. Amy doesn’t even refer to him as her boyfriend in this episode; he’s her “friend.” Poor Rory is forced to correct her.
We see him cuckolded again as the Doctor whisks Amy away the night before her wedding, which she agrees to with barely a thought for her fiancé. She goes on flirt constantly with the Doctor and even throws herself at him, looking for a one night stand before she has to get married. The Doctor’s decision to bring her and Rory on a holiday to Venice causes her to react in a similar way to Rose when the Doctor brought Mickey to the good ship Madame de Pompadour.
It seems though, that dying was the best thing to ever happen to Rory Williams. Amy only realises how much she loves him after the Eknodine kill him. She willingly kills herself and the Doctor in the hope that she’ll see him again, and it is from here that we start to see the real Rory. Well, briefly. He dies at the end of the following episodes, a Silurian two-parter that I still bitterly wish had never seen the light of day. He dies very bravely though - taking a bullet meant for the Doctor. He gets erased from space and time for his troubles, but the action is pure Rory: selfless, brave, wanting to help no matter what the cost. It is worth bearing in mind though that Mickey, when given the choice, decides to stay in a parallel universe to keep an old lady happy. So pretty much, up until this point, the pair are quite similar characters, with the exception that Amy, unlike Rose, as begun to realise just how important her other half is.
Of course, The Pandorica Opens/ The Big Bang is when Rory completely separates from the whole “another Mickey” thing and comes into his own. Reborn as an Auton Roman, Rory is able to remind Amy of who he is and nearly resists the Nestene Consciousness when it tries to turn him against the Doctor and Amy. He does, unfortunately, end up shooting his fiancée, but my God does Rory Williams make up for it. After she’s placed in the Pandorica, Rory stays with her to guard her, for almost two millenia. Bear in mind, this is a woman who has walked all over him, treated him like shit, tried to cheat on him, run away from him and has until recently given off an air of only barely tolerating him. Rory’s love for Amy allows him to forgive her for that, and his guarding of the Pandorica becomes a legend across the ages, making him known as the Last Centurion. The scene where Amy realises all he’s done for her is almost painfully touching. Having her remember him back to normal and marry him is probably all Rory wanted from Amy in return, and was the very least he deserved.
Of course, this leaves Rory mentally almost two thousand years old, something that only rarely gets touched on. The Doctor brings it up in The Impossible Astronaut, but Rory gives the impression that he really doesn’t want to talk about it, and that’s pretty much all that’s said of it. The only other time it’s mentioned is in The Doctor’s Wife, when a horribly aged Rory screams at Amy that she’s “done it again” - made him wait for her.
From here on in though, Rory just starts becoming impossibly cool. Through the opening double parter of Series 6, Rory repeatedly stands up to the Doctor and calls him on treating humans like shit. He is the one character who does this, from S1 to S6. Donna does it occasionally, while weeping, but Rory is the only one who does it with a bit of weight behind him: Mentally, he’s twice as old as the Doctor, and the Doctor knows it.
It’s even just the little things that Rory does that are brilliant. He still finds Amy more attractive than the Siren in The Curse of the Black Spot. He’s kind to the Flesh in the Flesh two-parter, knowing how they feel about not being quite human. He re-dons the Roman outfit for A Good Man Goes To War, giving it its single cool moment: him taking on the Cybermen, and DEMANDING to know where his wife is. This is the defining moment where Rory Williams, nurse and all around good guy, becomes basically Rory Motherfucking Williams, successor of Chuck Norris, origin of an Internet meme and the best companion of New Who. Framed against an exploding Cyber-legion, he shows exactly how dangerous a man who loves can be; separated from his wife and child, he steps up to the plate and becomes the eponymous character of the episode, whether the writers meant him to or not.
And that has been a huge part of the new series: River is in prison for the murder of “a good man; the best she ever knew.” We know now that that was the Doctor; it is a credit to Rory (and of course, to Arthur Darvill for his wonderful portrayal) that for most of the series, we don’t know exactly who River means.
It is Rory who gets the good lines and actions in Let’s Kill Hitler: he who punches Adolf and locks him in the cupboard. Rory always rises to a challenge and though he may not always know what to do, he always does what is best for everyone.
He is precisely what the series needs: Someone who doesn’t follow the Doctor around slavishly, who questions him and has no problem with calling him on some of the asshole decisions he makes. And long may he continue.
No comments:
Post a Comment