Doctor Who: The Woman who Lived

Refreshingly dark.

This episode is an adventure comedy rolled up in a dark parody…and it’s awesome.

The Doctor stumbled across a thief who turns out to be Maisie William’s Ashildr (though she doesn’t even remember that name) from the previous episode; now immortal. This is where it really comes into its own; in the Davies days, she would be an amazing saint like figure, courtesy of the Doctor and if the Moff was penning the script she’d be some sort of impossible mystery courtesy of some time travel stuff. But with one of the big men long gone and writing about fruit and vegetables for Channel 4 and the other on proof reading duty, Catherine Tregenna gets to explore the darker side of immortality.

Ashildr (now renamed as “Lady Me”) is now so old that she requires several journals in order to remember her life; though it’s hinted that, much like the 11^th Doctor, she simply can’t bear to remember all the nasty events that have befallen her. It’s especially brave of Tregenna to explore the fact that Ashildr has now outlived her own children. This whole concept was kind of explored before with Captain Jack Harkness (who gets a shout out), but this was in the days of the Tenth Doctor, where saying he’s done anything bad or irresponsible was strictly forbidden in the writing room.

Capaldi and Williams have good chemistry and do a pretty good job of building a mentor to learner relationship.

The episode is not without fault; we’re supposed to like Rufus Hound’s Sam Swift, for some reason and his gallows humour stand up show seems a bit contrived. The main villain is so irrelevant that I can’t remember his name and the fact that someone as assertive and clever as Ashildr/Lady Me would be taken in by his lies doesn’t fly for me.

The selfie at the end (with what must be a competition winner?) also feels shoehorned, but I suppose there are only a few ways that you get across that Lady Me is still about.

On that point, I doubt it’s the last of character; she doesn’t say who told her all about the Doctor, but she uses more than one of Missy’s nicknames for him, so I expect they’ll both be in the finale.