July 21: "The Girl Who Died"

Stuart Manning's poster for "The Girl Who
Died" (from Incredible set of retro Doctor
Who series 9 posters)

Oh look, Vikings (with anachronistic helmets again), here to capture the Doctor and Clara for some reason!

After two outstanding outings last series, Jamie Mathieson here returns with a tale of Vikings being raided by aliens and challenging those aliens to a war they can't win.  I do note that this is credited as being co-written by Steven Moffat, which means he contributed a reasonable amount to the script.

I wonder if that's why this episode frequently feels so uneven.

It's not that this is a drama with some jokes thrown in, or a comedy with occasionally heavier moments; instead it seems to shift between the two styles from scene to scene, with (for instance) a quiet dramatic scene of the Doctor telling Clara what the baby is saying followed up by a silly training scene with silly names and jokes about blood.  None of this, by the way, is to meant to accuse "The Girl Who Died" of being unenjoyable -- because that's definitely not the case -- but rather that the constant swinging back and forth between drama and comedy is rather noticeable, and it does ultimately give things a rather lightweight feel.

The thing that manages to anchor this story, to stop it from falling between two stools, is the performances.  Peter Capaldi does an outstanding job, balancing the sillier aspects ("He hasn't even got a yo-yo!") with the more somber ones ("Do babies dies with honour?") in a way that makes it all feel like the same characterization.  Jenna Coleman continues to do well, reminding the Doctor that some things should be fought for, and while Maisie Williams as Ashildr doesn't have too much to do (she's essentially just here to be the wide-eyed young girl with more of a gift for storytelling than anything more practical), she does a good job with the material she's given.  And even smaller performances, like Tom Stourton's Lofty, are well judged -- no one's veering too far into sending it all up.  This is reinforced by some of the conversations between people, such as the Doctor and Ashildr in her home ("Because if you make up the right story, then you think it will keep them safe and they'll all come home"), or, in particular, between the Doctor and Clara:

CLARA: I keep waiting to hear what your real plan is.
DOCTOR: Teaching them to fight, that's the only plan I've got.
CLARA: Turning them into fighters?  That's not like you.
DOCTOR: Yeah.  I used to believe that too.
CLARA: What happened?
DOCTOR: You.  Oh, Clara Oswald, what have I made of you?

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Girl Who Died)

It's a nice little look into the idea of Clara becoming more accustomed to danger, more willing to behave like the Doctor, and whether or not that's a good thing.  And these are the sorts of scenes that maintain interest through some of the more uneven moments.

"Odin" and the Mire teleport down. ("The Girl Who Died") ©BBC

It also helps that the Mire are a neat design, looking like giant walking tank things, all scuffed up and scored metal and things.  I dunno, they just look so ungainly that seeing them move is a pleasant surprise, with not nearly as much clunkiness as one might have guessed.  And the idea that they're leeching off of warrior races, convincing them they're gods, isn't too bad either.  David Schofield is a fun villain in Odin, chewing up the scenery (although he's probably the closest this story gets to tipping into camp).  And the way the Mire are defeated is fairly clever, and the bit with the recording is rather wonderful.

I do question everything after the natural resolution of the storyline, with the Doctor realizing why he looks like Caecilius from "The Fires of Pompeii" (it's so he won't forget to help people) -- again, I'm not convinced anyone besides Steven Moffat was actually worried about this in the first place (after all, did people demand an explanation for why the sixth Doctor looked like Maxil from Arc of Infinity?  And none of this explains why both Caecilius and the twelfth Doctor look like John Frobisher from Torchwood: Children of Earth...), and this seems like a rather perfunctory explanation anyway.  Especially since it smacks rather of the whole "Time Lord Victorious" speech from "The Waters of Mars" (and the Doctor's already seen how well that worked out).  In short, this is just a clumsy way to get the Doctor to make Ashildr immortal, so that she can show up in later episodes without having to go back to the 9th century every time.  Oh, and another mention of something being a "hybrid", this apparently being the keyword for series 9's arc (well, sort of, but we'll discuss this plot thread's nonresolution when we get to "Hell Bent").  And is it just me, or does Ashildr look rather cruel in that final shot (when the spinning thing finally ends)?  Deliberate foreshadowing, perhaps?

So I dunno.  There're a lot of good things happening in "The Girl Who Died", but that underlying unevenness does mean that this ends up feeling lightweight -- it's not funny enough to be a comedy episode, but it's not tense or thrilling enough to be a proper drama.  It's not bad by any means, but this inability to settle on a style does mean that this ends up being one of the less memorable episodes of series 9.  Another entry for the "pleasant but forgettably average" list of Doctor Who episodes.