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The Woman Who Lived is an episode I had high expectations for. They’d brought in their biggest guest star of the series in Maisie Williams, showing up in The Girl Who Died as… the girl who died, whilst living in a Viking village, and giving her just a very so-so storyline.
This time round, she’s become a highwayman (or woman) a la Dick Turpin, but calling herself The Knightmare, yet with no beady-eyed non-blinking stares and a signing off command of “D… I… S… M… I… S… S…” (yes, I'm referring to this ), but instead wearing a not-very-face-covering mask whilst accompanied by a creature that growls. But what’s with the deep voice she’s putting on? “Practice”, she says. But by doing that, this episode was dangerously entering Blackadder territory.
When things calm down, she tells The Doctor how she’s almost completely forgotten her past, and claims Ashildr is no longer her name and that she barely remembers it, along with the rest of her time in the village. She now calls herself “Me” and has lived for 800 years since they last met, her time inbetween including passing herself off as a man during The Battle of Agincourt. Well, those eyebrows need a trim…
Also in the intervening decades, since she has “an infinite life and a normal-size memory”, she can’t remember most of it, so she keeps journals, whilst dealing with everyone dying as she stays the same. A number of pages have been torn out, in order to block out the bad memories, so why keep the pages that remind her of her three children who died? (oddly, seemingly, exactly at the same time) It’s to remind her not to have any more.
The Woman Who Lived was such a dire episode – a classic case of 98% with nothing happening but talking and pontificating, leaving 2% left for “something to happen”.
Following a brief attempt at humour with The Doctor turning up during the opening robbery and saying, “I’m passing through like fish in the night… sorry, ships.”, adding to Ashildr, “At least I show my face. What’s wrong with yours?”, when she revealed herself to be the girl from last week’s episode, she replied, “What took you so long, old man?”
However, there were countless pieces of abominable dialogue. Ashildr gets across that she knows more about the Doctor than he does, and despite wanting to travel with him, she moans endlessly about how he runs away from those who accompany him, including her, especially since he made her immortal:
Example 1:
- Doctor: “I saved your life. I didn’t know your heart would rust.”
Ashildr: “You didn’t save my life. You trapped me inside it”.
Example 2:
- Doctor: “What happened to you?”
Ashildr: “You did, Doctor.”
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on this episode.
But what of her twinkly-eyed accomplice? He’s a creature called Leandro (Ariyon Bakare). He’s husband to a murdered wife. Father to a murdered child. And he will have his vengeance… yes, very ‘Gladiator’. Over the years, Ashildr had become as selfish as hell, and so they were well matched, Thanks to an artefact known as the Eyes of Hades which they were constantly searching for. And to make it work, someone has to die…
Unfortunately, someone saw fit to hire Rufus Hound for the episode’s ne’er-do-well Sam Swift, with him holding up the highwayman(woman) mid-way through, with the line “Knightmare, or should I say ‘Slightmare’?” The Doctor retorted: “Line in the sand – no puns!”, but it was as poor as anything Hound usually comes out with in the apparent name of comedy.
So, it was a blessing that he was the one chosen to die… but back to that 2% time spent for “something to happen”, it came when the artefact’s power was unleashed and instead of wanting to escape Earth and take Ashildr with her, he wanted to bring more baddies to them. Yes, she fell for the oldest trick in the book as if she’d never been lied to over the course of those eight centuries. Jeez, I’ve been lied to by bastards countless times over the years and I’m only 43!
As such, more crap writing kicks in as she gets a complete change of heart and instantly goes back to being a nice person again. Cue the callback to her second immortality charge and it was used to reverse Sam Swift’s death, causing the portal to close and vanquishing Lenny the Lion, as the Doctor called him.
(like all the images in this review, click on it for the full-size version)
As the episode came to a close, Ashildr told our lead that she knows of the Doctor’s legacy because of all the people he’s met along the way, and declares herself as the Patron Saint of the Doctor’s leftovers, saying she’ll look after all those he leaves behind – as if she’s got nothing else to do, causing him to reference ‘tidal waves’ again, as in last week’s episode.
At least policing hasn’t changed over the year. At one point, when they were at loggerheads, she had the Doctor locked up by the authorities, even though they proved to have about as much sway as a member of Greater Manchester Police, and let him go after he gives them slightly more cash than the £20 tiny amount that’s a bounty on his head.
Oh, and as for Clara? Who knows. It was a Clara-empty episode, except for her popping back into the TARDIS at the end, after it was all over. No-one missed her. Well, a bit.
She turned up just in time to see Capaldi strumming his electric guitar again, and telling him how he helped out a 7-year-old girl in her class, and in return, earned a selfie from her? Operation Yewtree, anyone? And in the background, there’s Ashildr photobombing, showing she’s keeping an eye on those he leaves behind… (cue spooky music. In your imagination, anyway)
Next week: Zygons! Osgood! UNIT! The end of the world!
The Woman Who Lived is available on the BBC iPlayer until November 23rd.
Doctor Who Series 9 Part 1 is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, and individual episodes can be bought in HD and SD here. And click on all the images in this review for the full-sized version.
The Doctor: “Please don’t. The press will have a field day.”
Score: 2/10
Director: Ed Bazalgette
Producer: Derek Ritchie
Screenplay: Catherine Tregenna
Music: Murray Gold
Cast:
The Doctor: Peter Capaldi
Clara Oswald: Jenna Coleman
Ashildr: Maisie Williams
Sam Swift: Rufus Hound
Leandro: Ariyon Bakare
Coachman: Gareth Berliner
Lucie Fanshawe: Elisabeth Hopper
Mr Fanshawe: John Voce
Clayton: Struan Rodger
Pikeman Lloyd Llewelyn: Gruffudd Glyn
Pikeman William Stout: Reuben Johnson
Crowd 1: Daniel Fearn
Crowd 2: Karen Seacombe
Hangman: John Hales
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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