July 27: "Heaven Sent"

Stuart Manning's poster for "Heaven Sent"
(from Incredible set of retro Doctor Who
series 9 posters)

The clues are there fairly early on.  "When I was a very little boy, there was an old lady who died," the Doctor says.  "They covered her in veils, but it was a hot, sunny day, and the flies came.  It gave me nightmares for years.  So, who's been stealing my nightmares?"

Of course, if you've seen the episode then you know the answer (and if you haven't, you should go do that now), but "Heaven Sent" gives us a Doctor trapped in his own personal hell.  (Incidentally, am I the only person who thinks it would have been better if they'd swapped the titles of this episode and the next one?  What exactly does "Heaven Sent" mean in the context of this particular episode anyway, other than as a cute parallel with "Hell Bent"?)  He can't really rest, he has no one to interact with (and therefore no one to persuade or impress), and there doesn't seem to be a way out -- just a series of odd puzzles instead.

And so we're treated to something unique in (televised) Doctor Who.  We've had episodes without the Doctor (such as the various ones in the '60s where Hartnell or Troughton were away that week -- or "Mission to the Unknown", if you want one without any of the TARDIS crew), but this is the first time we've gotten an episode that only has the Doctor.  (Well, all right, there's that quick cameo from Clara, but as that's in his head anyway that's still technically the Doctor.)  Just the Doctor and the Veil, a silent, slow-moving, implacable force, trying to get the Doctor to confess something or die.  And what this means is we get an astonishing and incredible performance from Peter Capaldi.

I mean, to be fair, it's not necessarily that Capaldi is doing anything that different from other episodes, but he definitely has to do a lot more than normal.  "Heaven Sent" is focused solely on the Doctor; there are no cutaway scenes to other locations, no sinister figures outside monitoring his progress.  Every scene involves the Doctor; there are no moments (save the opening ones, which bear witness to the aftermath of the last go-round) that don't include him.  That's a hell of a burden to place on an actor, but Capaldi is magnificent.  He makes a 45-minute monologue as compelling as anything else, and it's a tribute to his skill that the audience is never bored by this.  And the range of emotion on display (such as anger, puzzlement, and fear) give us a fascinating insight into the mind of the Doctor.  We see him use the TARDIS as his own mental palace²⁶⁷, where he shows off in front of an imaginary Clara as a way of figuring out how he's going to get out of his current predicament.  We see him confess things to the Veil ("I didn't leave Gallifrey because I was bored!  That was a lie!  It's always been a lie!  ...  I was scared!  I ran because I was scared!"), but only as a way to make the puzzle-box castle move.  We see him try to figure out the prison he's inside, with copious notes in his notebook.  And that's how he slowly works out what winning actually means, and what he's endured: going through this whole process for 7000 years, just to punch at a wall 400 times harder than diamond a few times, and then doing the whole thing again.

The Veil kills the Doctor once more. ("Heaven Sent") ©BBC

That of course leads to the completion of the circuit as the Doctor burns himself up to provide the energy to bring himself back, his pattern still in the "hard drive".  And that leads to the montage as the Doctor gets further and further through the azbantium wall, in a process that takes over two billion years.  It's an impressive, affecting montage, seeing how long it takes.  It also makes you wonder what the first few (thousand?) times were like, before he left himself clues like "BIRD" in the dust, or "I AM IN 12" in the grave -- indeed, how long did it take him to discover that the way out was in room 12 in the first place?  When did he paint the picture of Clara?  What was it like, those first moments of the first second of eternity?

And that, I think, is the true brilliance of "Heaven Sent".  It's not just Peter Capaldi's performance, or Rachel Talalay's direction, or even Steven Moffat's script.  It's the fact that, despite the fact that Moffat has provided us with another puzzle box storyline, where all the pieces have been aligned to fit just so in order to make everything make sense (such as "The Girl in the Fireplace", "Blink", or "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang"), he's provided us with so much canvas to fill in the details around this particular cycle for the Doctor that you can't help but be impressed by the sense of scale and scope.  And so taking a script like that and then putting Peter Capaldi in the middle of it, with Rachel Talalay supervising the look?  That's brilliant.

(And this doesn't even address the final moments, as the Doctor steps out on Gallifrey and announces that "The Hybrid is me."  Or possibly, "The Hybrid is Me [aka Ashildr]."  That's another hell of a cliffhanger.)







²⁶⁷ A technique that also shows up in Moffat's other big series, Sherlock, which was written not terribly long before this series of Doctor Who.

July 26: "Face the Raven"

Stuart Manning's poster for "Face the Raven"
(from Incredible set of retro Doctor Who
series 9 posters)

Our second female writer for the series -- this time it's newcomer Sarah Dollard, who's provided a really well-scripted story about hidden streets and refugee camps, in what sort of appears to be the first part of a three-part finale.  ("Sort of" because this installment is written and directed by people different from the last two parts, but the story really does seem to carry on directly into the next part (which is itself very distinct from the final part, and those two are generally accepted as being the same story), and with repercussions that will be addressed in the final part.  And even Steven Moffat notes that this feels like part 1 of 3 in the Doctor Who Extra accompanying "Face the Raven".)  And while we're here, can we just take a moment to acknowledge how gorgeous that dark red jacket the Doctor is wearing is?  That color fits him to a T, with a slight Pertwee vibe to it.  It may be my favorite look so far for the twelfth Doctor.

We also get to say hello again to Rigsy from last series' "Flatline" -- and now we see he has a wife and a baby that the Doctor seems completely enamoured with.  But it's not a social visit; no, Rigsy needs help with a mysterious tattoo on the back of his neck that's slowly counting down.

I have to say, the idea that a trap street is real is quite clever, and the efforts to find such a street in London are nicely entertaining.  And we get some more evidence that Clara's starting to be a bit too cavalier about what she and the Doctor do, as she enjoys herself despite nearly falling out of the TARDIS as it hovers above London.  "She enjoyed that way too much," Rigsy remarks.  "Tell me about it," the Doctor replies; "it's an ongoing problem."

But once the trap street is located the emphasis shifts to the alien refugee camp inside, hiding from the humans and being governed/ruled over by their mayor, Ashildr/Me.  (She keeps calling herself Me, the Doctor keeps going with Ashildr -- and this time around the credits agree with the Doctor.)  What's notable here is that, 365 years after the last time we got to chat with her, Ashildr seems less bitter but still just as cold.  Now, part of this might be an effort to seem like a proper mayor, above it all and such, but she still comes across as uncaring and still blaming the Doctor for several of the world's woes.  So while she's not exactly the Doctor's enemy, she's hardly his friend either.

What's clever about this part of the episode isn't just the way the tension mounts as time begins to run out, as the three of them begin to unravel the mystery of what Mayor Me is really up to.  It's the way Clara's actions, the way she believes she's acting just like the Doctor would when she takes Rigsy's chronolock tattoo, ultimately lead to her downfall.  But we don't know that until it's too late; here it's just another matter-of-fact move, a way for Clara to laugh in the face of danger.  Only this time it backfires.

The Doctor realizes Clara is going to die while Me and Rigsy
look on. ("Face the Raven") ©BBC

It's a hell of an affecting eight minutes at the end, as the Doctor realizes that Clara has signed her own death warrant ("Clara, you didn't!") and there's absolutely nothing anyone can do about it.  Ashildr was trying to hand the Doctor over to some unseen party (ostensibly in order to protect the trap street), but Clara's actions mean that the mayor can't remove the chronolock, like she would have done with Rigsy.  "You cut me out of the deal," Me tells her; Clara is going to have to deal with the Quantum Shade, to face the raven.  ('Cos the Shade takes the form of a raven, remember.)  "This is my fault," the Doctor says.  "...I let you get reckless."  "Why?  Why shouldn't I be so reckless?" Clara demands.  "You're reckless all the bloody time.  Why can't I be like you?"  "Clara, there's nothing special about me," the Doctor replies.  "I am nothing, but I'm less breakable than you."  (And more knowledgeable too, although he doesn't say that.)  And so the Doctor can do nothing but watch as Clara decides to face her death with bravery ("Well, if Danny Pink can do it, so can I") and tells the Doctor not to be a warrior.  And so she dies, facing the raven.

And it's a very strong ending moment from the Doctor right after.  "What Clara said about not taking revenge," he says to Ashildr, visibly furious.  "Do you know why she said that?"  "She was saving you," Ashildr says.  "I was lost a long time ago," the Doctor replies.  "She was saving you.  I'll do my best, but I strongly advise you to keep out of my way.  You'll find that it's a very small universe when I'm angry with you."

"Face the Raven" is an impressive début for a writer who clearly understands Doctor Who and can easily write for these characters.  It's smart and sad and affecting and brilliant; thank goodness Sarah Dollard is writing for series 10, because if it's anything like this it'll be a knockout.  This definitely makes you want more -- not just from Dollard, but from the next episode as well.

(And the final tag scene after the credits is sweet.)

July 25: "Sleep No More"

Stuart Manning's poster for "Sleep No More"
(from Incredible set of retro Doctor Who
series 9 posters)

I have a suspicion that this is one of those polarizing stories Doctor Who occasionally puts out, the ones that people either love or hate, with few falling in the middle.  (The stories sometimes referred to as "Marmite" stories.)  I have to confess, I'm not really on the "love" side for this one; I find "Sleep No More" to be pretty frustrating.

I think the problem for me is the basic concept.  Not with the "found footage" aspect of it (although I have some reservations about that, as I'll discuss below), or even the idea of a machine that eliminates sleep -- that's a neat idea.  No, my problem is that we're asked to be afraid of monsters made of sleep dust.  Sleep dust.  The crud that builds up in the corner of your eye.  How on Earth are we meant to take this seriously?  That sounds like something someone would come up with if they were trying to parody Steven Moffat.  "Let's see, we've done ticking clocks, statues, shadows, gaps in your memory, WiFi...what other common everyday things can we make people scared of?  I know!  How about sleepies?"  I mean, yes, the Sandmen are sufficiently creepy and menacing and such, but they're killer eye boogers for heaven's sake.

Rassmussen addresses the camera. ("Sleep No More") ©BBC

Now, if the rest of the episode were more light-hearted, maybe this wouldn't matter.  But other than an odd Hitchhiker's Guide-meets-Portal moment where Deep-Ando has to sing "Mr. Sandman" to the computer to get it to open the door (even though we never see anyone else have to go through this to enter a room), this is an episode that is definitely taking itself seriously.  Part of this is because of the "found footage" approach, which seems to naturally lend itself to scarier narratives, with unfocused or half-in-shot monsters and the "startled" effect of having monsters suddenly appear out of seemingly nowhere.  And I do applaud the use of this technique; it's nice to see them trying something new.  What I don't like is how the script decides to undermine this by making it a plot point that there aren't any cameras to be found and that in fact it's the sleep dust floating in the air and such that's monitoring people; a nice idea from a creepy surveillance point of view, but a terrible one for what they're actually trying to accomplish.  If any dust mote can potentially be a camera, then that means we can suddenly have a camera anywhere -- but then what's the point of doing "found footage", if you can place the camera in the same places you'd put it if you were shooting this as a typical episode?  To his credit, director Justin Molotnikov doesn't take advantage of this until the Doctor mentions it, and even after that he doesn't use it much, but it still takes away from the documentary feel they're going for.

In fact, if this episode succeeds at all it's because of what's happening on camera.  Molotnikov does an excellent job with this style of directing, and all the actors are doing fine (with the possible exception of Reece Shearsmith, who sometimes seems like he's playing things up a bit -- but as that's rather the entire point of his character, it's easy enough to forgive), acting appropriately scared and all that.  And as I said before, the underlying idea of a machine that removes the need for sleep by rewriting your brain chemistry is a neat idea, one that hasn't been done on the show before.  Although I can't decide if the idea that Rassmussen has been arranging everything as a story, with appropriate bursts of excitement here and there, is clever or not.

But still.  Sleep in your eye that wants to consume you.

So if you can get past the sheer ridiculousness of the monsters, I suspect there's quite a bit here for you to enjoy.  But for me, they're so silly that they ruin the episode; worse, this means that I find large stretches of this story fairly boring, as I don't really believe in the monsters or the threat they entail.  "Sleep No More" just isn't my cup of tea.

Although despite that it's kind of a clever ending, I must admit.  If you'll excuse me, I think I've got some sleep in my eye...

July 24: "The Zygon Inversion"

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

The thriller vibe continues with this second half, although now we're done globe-hopping, in favor of zeroing in on the London area, dealing with the next phase of Bonnie's plan.  And what's immediately clear is just how much we hate Bonnie and loathe her, with her superior, cruel smile and her smug sense of self-righteousness, even as she destroys innocent lives in her plan for conquest.

In other words, holy hell is Jenna Coleman good in this.

The most impressive part is the confrontation between Bonnie and Clara, who's trapped in a dream state inside her Zygon pod but still subconsciously connected to Bonnie.  At no point (even ignoring the different setting each character finds themselves in) is it ever unclear which character is which.  Clara is so much warmer and kinder, even as she fearlessly faces down her doppelgänger, that there's no question that she's not the same person as Bonnie.  Bonnie may control Clara's bodyprint, but she can't control her soul.  It's a fabulous performance, one that Coleman justly deserves heaps of praise for.

Of course, since the real Clara is out of the way, that leaves Osgood to take the place of the companion surrogate this episode, which she seems to be a natural at -- helping the Doctor work through the clues (such as the fact that Clara is still alive) while providing him with the sounding board he needs to work through things, to figure out what Bonnie's plan is.  There are some lovely moments here, from the early scenes ("Why do you have a Union Jack parachute?" Osgood asks the Doctor, after they land on the beach, walking from the wreckage of the plane Bonnie blew up.  "Camouflage," the Doctor replies.  "Camouflage?" Osgood responds, no less confused.  "Yes, we're in Britain," the Doctor explains) to their exchange about names ("What's your first name?" Osgood counters, after the Doctor asks her the same name.  "Basil," he replies, after a hesitation) all the way to the final scene ("Oh, and you should know, I'm a very big fan," the Doctor tells Osgood before he leaves).  Peter Capaldi and Ingrid Oliver have such good chemistry that it's a bit of a shame she doesn't take him up on his offer of TARDIS travels at the end.

Now the focus of "The Zygon Inversion" is narrower than the first half, but we still get pointed comments about Bonnie's group.  "Don't think of them as rational," the Doctor tells Osgood.  "They're different.  They don't care about human beings, they don't care about their own people.  They think the rest of Zygonkind are traitors."  This is an obvious comment on radicalized groups in our world, but the more telling exchange comes later, between the Doctor, Osgood, and the half-converted Etoine: "I'm not part of your fight," Etoine tells the two of them.  "I never wanted to fight anyone, I just wanted to live here.  Why can't I just live?"  "We're on your side," the Doctor assures him.  "I'm not on anyone's side!" Etoine replies in anguish.  "This is my home."  In other words, the Truth or Consequences group don't care about how anyone else might actually feel about their positions or what they're saying; they know they're right, and that's all that matters.

The Doctor tries to convince Bonnie to stand down. ("The Zygon
Inversion") ©BBC

This of course all leads up to the climactic scene, of Kate Stewart and Bonnie, each at an Osgood Box that could either give them everything they wanted or destroy it -- in Kate's case, one button releases Sullivan's gas, which turns every Zygon inside out,²⁶⁶ while the other sets off a nuclear bomb under the Black Archive; for Bonnie, one button changes every Zygon and starts a war, while the other prevents them from ever changing back.  The confrontation between the two sides, with the Doctor in the middle trying to convince Bonnie (and, to a lesser extent, Kate) that it's better not to press either button than to take a chance, that it's better to talk your way through your problems, is really good.  Peter Capaldi is rarely better than in this scene, as he alternately goads and pleads with them not to press a button.  It's frankly so good that you just want to quote the whole thing, as the Doctor asks Bonnie what the world will be like after her group wins, or explains that the boxes are a scale model of war, ultimately there to show just how futile it is, how much easier it is to talk instead.  It's a tour de force performance, but perhaps the best thing about it is how the direction and the music get out of the way to let these actors perform -- there's almost no incidental music through this entire scene, which is an excellent (and somewhat unexpected) choice.  This is one of the all-time classic scenes of Doctor Who.  Is the underlying argument perhaps a bit simplistic?  Sure.  Does it really matter?  Not at all.  And does Bonnie get off fairly easy and make a sudden change in her thought processes?  Well, yes, but that's the point: as the Doctor says, "Well, here's the unforeseeable.  I forgive you," and later, when Bonnie asks how he can forgive her, he says, "Because I've been where you have.  There was another box.  I was going to press another button.  I was going to wipe out all of my own kind, man, woman and child.  I was so sure I was right."  "What happened?" Bonnie asks.  "The same thing that happened to you," the Doctor replies.  "I let Clara Oswald get inside my head.  Trust me.  She doesn't leave."  And that's the point; that's why Bonnie goes off to become a new Osgood.  Because she stopped to think, and found redemption as a result.  That's not a bad message at all.

So this two-part story has an absolute knockout scene as its resolution, but the preceding 75 minutes or so are no slouch either.  With its willingness to take one of Doctor Who's classic monsters and use them not as standard aliens but as a way into a much more interesting, nuanced story, "The Zygon Invasion/Inversion" is a fabulous tale from start to finish.  Definitely one of the standout tales of not just series 9 but Steven Moffat's entire tenure.







²⁶⁶ This and the mention in the previous episode is a subtle reference to fourth Doctor companion Harry Sullivan (who, as those who remember Terror of the Zygons would know, has a vested interest in stopping the Zygons), as well as explaining an offhand reference in Mawdryn Undead that Harry was "doing something very hush-hush at Porton Down" -- now we know what that something was.

July 23: "The Zygon Invasion"

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

Peter Harness's story last series - "Kill the Moon" - didn't exactly impress me with its writing (it was in fact my least favorite episode of series 8).  So it was heartening to see just how much of an improvement "The Zygon Invasion" was over that entry.  Perhaps that's because there's less frustrating pseudo-science in this episode; one of the major problems with "Kill the Moon" was the feeling that it was an early draft, with events connected by the barest of threads that were never properly resolved/technobabbled away; the underlying idea wasn't too bad.  Fortunately, there's very little of that unfinished feeling here.

It's also good to see the show finally address the major dangling plotline left unresolved from "The Day of the Doctor": what exactly happened with the Zygons at the end of that story.  The opening of this episode gives us a bit of expository-heavy but necessary background: a resettlement opportunity was created where 20 million Zygons would take on human form (so as not to unsettle the humans) and would live peacefully on Earth.  "[The Zygons'] shape-changing ability should not be considered a weapon," one of the Osgoods says.  But should the ceasefire between the humans and the Zygons break down, there's something called an Osgood Box that will resolve the situation, although we don't know how.

That's the setup.  The actual storyline deals with this "Nightmare Scenario", with a small faction of Zygons demanding the rights to live without hiding, even though it seems that's only possible if the human race is destroyed.  The story doesn't shy away from being political; with pointed references to radicalization of a splinter group who nevertheless believe they're acting in the best interests of their entire race, it's not hard to draw parallels with groups like ISIL/ISIS or Al-Qaeda.  Fortunately, however, this isn't turned into the focus of the story, but rather is used to draw a parallel for the audience.  What the story wants to make clear (although, honestly, it'll be more obvious in the next episode) is that this group (called Truth or Consequences, it seems, after the name of the town in New Mexico where relations between the two species first broke down) only represents a small proportion of the Zygons living on Earth; this isn't the standard monolithic alien race bent on conquest, but something more nuanced.

There's also a more global feeling to this story; we get scenes in London, New Mexico (in reality filmed in Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands, but they've done a decent job making it look like a town in the American Southwest), and the fictional country of Turmezistan (presumably somewhere in central Asia, near the other similarly-named former Soviet republics), which does expand the scope of things.  And the use of a more global cast for UNIT (Colonel Walsh is fairly obviously British, but others like drone operator Lisa and soldier Hitchley are American) helps with this as well.  And so the combination of these global elements, combined with the radicalization plot, gives "The Zygon Invasion" the feel of a contemporary political thriller -- something of a different style for Doctor Who, but one that's very effective.

And of course it wouldn't be a Zygon story without doubles.  Here we learn that Zygons can now reach into people's memories to take human form (no more need to refresh the bodyprint à la Terror of the Zygons), which leads to lots of memorable moments, like a whole group of UNIT soldiers' family members emerging from a Turmezistan church or, charmingly, the revelation that the Zygon High Command have been operating as two little blonde girls.  But the most impressive of all is Jenna Coleman, who's taken over early on (though we don't learn that until the end of the episode) and then pretends to be Clara -- although her pulling her hair back (something I can't recall seeing the real Clara do) is a bit of a sign that something is different.  But she seems so much like Clara ("Did you just call yourself 'Doctor Disco'?" and "Everybody middle-aged always thinks the world's about to come to an end" being two of her more memorable lines) that when that façade drops, and we see just how cruel she is as "Bonnie", that's genuinely chilling and impressive.

Osgood and the Doctor question a Zygon captive. ("The Zygon
Invasion") ©BBC

That's not to belittle the other actors by comparison, mind; Peter Capaldi continues to impress (and he seems to be going for a '70s theme in names, calling himself both "Doctor Disco" and "Dr. Funkenstein", after the Parliament song), Ingrid Oliver is wonderful as Osgood (and it's nice to have her back in a clever way, after she died at the hand of the Master in "Death in Heaven"), and Jemma Redgrave does a good job as Kate Stewart, investigating what happened in Truth or Consequences (which includes a scene, as she drives up, with a clichéd tumbleweed rolling by -- until you realize after the fact it's not a tumbleweed but the remains of a Zygon victim²⁶⁵) -- even if she seems a lot more trigger-happy than before.  (What happened to "Science leads"?  But I guess if you suddenly had to monitor Operation Double all the time, you might become more inclined to violence too...)

In other words, this is an incredibly strong episode, one that has a good chance of being one of the standout stories of series 9 -- so long as the second episode can keep things going, that is.  And what a cliffhanger!  "I'm sorry, but Clara's dead.  Kate Stewart is dead.  The UNIT troops are all dead," Bonnie says to the Doctor.  "Truth or consequences," she adds, as she shoots the Doctor's plane out of the sky with a missile launcher.  If that doesn't get them tuning in next week, I'm not sure what will.







²⁶⁵ Unless I'm reading too much into this, but I don't think I am.

July 22: "The Woman Who Lived"

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

After 7 years (not since 2008's "The Sontaran Stratagem" / "The Poison Sky" 2-parter, to be precise), we finally get a female writer on Doctor Who proper again (although apparently not, as Steven Moffat stressed, for want of trying).  This is Catherine Tregenna's first story for Doctor Who itself, but you might remember her name from some of the better episodes of the first two series of Torchwood.

So, despite the similarities in names between this and the previous episode (and the "TO BE CONTINUED" thing at the end of "The Girl Who Died"), "The Woman Who Lived" doesn't feel like part 2 of a 2-parter so much as a sequel that happens to directly follow the original story.  I can't quite decide if that's a good thing or not; on the one hand, it's rather jarring to go from Ashildr's characterization last week to Me's characterization this week, and so perhaps putting a story in between (maybe the "Under the Lake" 2-parter?) might have helped smoothed things over; on the other hand, part of me wonders if this disconcerting feeling isn't in fact the point of the exercise.

Because make no mistake, the intervening 800 years have changed Ashildr/Me, and not for the better.  If the person we saw last week was kind and caring, the person she's become is bitter and cruel, seeming to blame the Doctor for her woes and believing him to be a coward.  "So you intend to fix me?" she says bitterly to the Doctor.  "Make me feel again, then run away?  I don't need your help, Doctor; you need mine.  Just this once, you can't run off like you usually do."  Scenes like this are probably meant to be somewhat accusatory toward the Doctor, to make us question him and his motives, but since we've already had plenty of that up to this point (see just about every episode Toby Whithouse has ever done), this didn't really engage me; instead my primary feeling was one of pity for Me, seeing her brought to this state.  She's exhibiting an all-too-human reaction, yes, but it's still sad to see how much pain and anguish she had allowed to enter her heart.  Mind you, the script isn't unaware of this, as a later exchange makes clear:

DOCTOR: Oh, Ashildr, daughter of Einarr, what happened to you?
ME: You did, Doctor.  You happened.  ... You still won't take me with you.  You gad about while I trudge through the centuries, day by day, hour by hour.  Do you ever think or care what happens after you've flown away?  I live in the world you leave behind, because you abandoned me to it.
DOCTOR: Why should I be responsible for you?
ME: You made me immortal.
DOCTOR: I saved your life.  I didn't know that your heart would rust because I kept it beating.  I didn't think your conscience would need renewing, that the well of human kindness would run dry.  I just wanted to save a terrified young woman's life.
ME: You didn't save my life, Doctor.  You trapped me inside it.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Woman Who Lived)

Leandro is killed by his people while the hangman, the Doctor, Me,
and Sam Swift look on. ("The Woman Who Lived") ©BBC

These are obviously some heavy moments; so heavy, in fact, that the comparative lightness of the rest of the story feels slightly unbalanced.  It probably doesn't help that the alien plotline with Leandro the Lionman isn't terribly compelling, and in fact doesn't actually take up much screentime, despite its ostensibly driving much of the story.

What does help, though, is Rufus Hound's performance as Sam Swift the outlaw, who gives a fun performance, with a generous dose of gallows humor that intentionally feels slightly desperate, as he knows that once he stops telling jokes they'll hang him.  In some ways Sam Swift is the antithesis of Me; Me says she steals for the adventure of it, but she never seems to be having much actual fun doing it, while Sam Swift seems so happy to be alive (both before and after he's pardoned) that it's hard not to get swept up in his spirit a little bit.  In fact, I wonder if the story had focused a little more on the contrast between the two, if that might not have sharpened some of the points being made.

So while I can see what they're all trying to do, and I think they do a good job of it, nevertheless it's hard to say I actually liked "The Woman Who Lived".  This is, for me at least, an episode that is much easier to appreciate and respect than it is to actually enjoy.

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.