Doctor Who Series 9 Episode 6 - The Woman Who Lived - Review

Starring: Peter Capaldi, Maisie Williams, Rufus Hound & Ariyon Bakare

Written By: Catherine Treganna

Directed By: Ed Bazalgette

 

The Woman Who Lived looked set to get off to a good start. While technically counted as its own standalone story, much of the setup for this episode was provided last week in the fun and enjoyable The Girl Who Died. Also in the writer's chair this week, we have Catherine Treganna, who wrote Out Of Time and Captain Jack Harkness – possibly the best two instalments from the first series of Torchwood. It really did look like The Woman Who Lived had a lot working in its favour, so ... why do I feel so very indifferent towards this episode?

 

The Doctor arrives in England, 1651, on the hunt for an alien artefact known as the Eye of Hades. He soon ends up interrupting a highway robbery by a highwayman known as 'the Knightmare'. When the Doctor speaks to 'the Knightmare', he learns that it is in fact Ashildr, the Viking girl made immortal. Having lived through over eight-hundred years of history, Ashildr, now calling herself 'Me' out of her loneliness, begs the Doctor to take her with him. The Doctor refuses, but his refusal may have consequences when 'Me' forms a partnership with the stranded and deadly alien, Leandro...

 

Even though The Woman Who Lived does let the side down and brings Series 9's surprisingly strong opening run to a close, I have to admit that on paper at least, it has some pretty good ideas going for it. The concept of an immortal woman living through different points in history, fighting at the Battle of Agincourt, or being subjected to a witchcraft trial, has fascinating potential and is exactly the kind of concept you want to spend an episode exploring. It's not exactly original for Doctor Who, and it's been touched upon before with characters like Captain Jack, but it's something that could've been explored in even greater detail here. Sadly, one of several reasons this concept never comes to fruition is its rather awkward positioning in the series. The fact that we go straight from The Girl Who Died to The Woman Who Lived in the space of a week doesn't allow much time to pass between each of our encounters with Ashildr. While Ashildr's had hundreds of years of adventures, scarcely a week has passed for us. Seeing as this isn't a two-parter with The Girl Who Died, surely it would've have made better sense to have this episode come after the Zygon two-parter that starts next week?

 

The more important reason why The Woman Who Lived disappoints lies with its story. Throughout my first viewing of this episode, I kept saying to myself that this is a story being pulled in two different directions and trying to be two completely opposed things at once. One is effective and can work really well, the other simply can't. On the one hand, there's the quite serious story of Ashildr living through the ages, finally encountering the Doctor again and having a chance to leave in the TARDIS. On the other, there's the quite silly story of Leandro and the Eye of Hades, which by comparison is far weaker and less interesting. Yet the episode is constantly conflicted and shifting between the two. We go from moments where Ashildr cries over the loss of her children to the Black Death, to the Doctor arguing with a big fire-breathing lion man. Even when the Doctor and Ashildr burgle a house to find the Eye of Hades, the Doctor still argues with Ashildr about why he shouldn't take her, as opposed to being focused on the task. The sequences where we see Ashildr's adventures are by far the strongest moments of this episode, and really should've been the overall focus. You could easily extend these moments out to cover the whole episode, and you'd get something vastly improved over anything involving Leandro or the Eye of Hades could offer.

 

What's surprising is that even with the unnecessary extra comedy and the lighter, more child-friendly elements, The Woman Who Lived is still capable of being really boring. From what I can gather, Catherine Treganna is more of a playwright than a screenwriter, so understandably she seems more suited to creating character pieces. Now this is hardly a problem (after all, she has created some of the best standalone episodes of Torchwood), but when there's so many parts to this story that feel so half-arsed and undercooked, it just feels like we're slogging along and getting stuck on autopilot. You can tell that, like most of us I imagine, Catherine Treganna is far more invested in exploring the storytelling possibilities someone like Ashildr provides and has been lumbered with having to include a B-movie sci-fi plot along with it.

 

One saving grace is the fact that although much of the dialogue can frequently let her down, I can at least tell that Maisie Williams is doing her best with the material. Her character benefits from having a lot more focus put on her compared to last week, and especially when we get to see an angrier or more vulnerable side to her, she even has a couple of moments that are pure gold. The one that constantly springs to my mind is the flashback where we see her crying next to the empty cots having lost her children. Against such a sea of mediocrity, that scene can honestly take me off guard by how vividly it stands out. But like I've said, both Maisie Williams and the character she's playing are frequently let down by what they're given. While it's understandable that she'd forget her original name, Ashildr calling herself 'Me' is one of those unneeded and gimmicky things that the show likes to think sounds smart, but is in fact incredibly idiotic and annoying. Also, her change of heart towards the end of the episode and her sudden realization that she does care about other people is written so poorly and unconvincingly, that you could get the best actor in the world to recite those lines, and it still wouldn't sound any good.

 

As for the performances of everyone else, well... there's generally not a lot to say. The rest of the supporting cast comes across as quite weak, or are again let down by the script. Peter Capaldi gets almost nothing to do as the Doctor, and probably for the first time since he started out, his role in the episode feels ultimately forgettable. Leandro, the fire-breathing alien lion is such a lazy, embarrassing villain, one with so little care given to his motives or backstory, that I honestly have nothing positive to say about him. Seriously, what is with the misuse of so many villains so far this series? With the exception of Davros in the opener, the Daleks, the Fisher King, the Mire and now Leandro have all been let down in some way or another. Last of all, we have Rufus Hound as Sam Swift. While I like Rufus Hound as an actor and a comedy talent, and he was clearly happy to have a role in one of his favourite shows, I just couldn't connect with his character. There was clearly effort in the performance, but the thought of an immortal Sam Swift possibly showing up in future really isn't an appealing one.

 

One of the reasons I'd make such a bad reactor on something like YouTube, is that generally I get invested enough into what I'm watching that I don't speak much or have much in the way of entertaining reactions. But I'm rarely stony-faced watching anything either. Or at least that's what I thought until I watched The Woman Who Lived... where I don't think my facial expression changed from anything beyond 'meh' for the full forty-five minutes. The Woman Who Lived has good intentions, and the odd brilliant moment, but not much else in its execution, and it really should've extended and built upon the flashbacks of Ashildr that we saw in the first act. Instead, it's entirely middle of the road, and is already fast becoming a bit of a grey blur in my mind.

The Woman Who Lived

 

5/10