Doctor Who "The Woman Who Lived" Review

Doctor Who returns yet again with another stellar episode, i don't know if the show is back to the quality i enjoyed several years ago but this is definitely its best season in a while. This is The Woman Who Lived, a continuation of last weeks episode where The Doctor brought Maisie Williams character Ashildr back from the grave and made her immortal, now while travelling through the middle ages he runs into her, 800 years later for her and sees she has completely changed.

One of the strongest elements for this is the change in Maisie Williams character, unlike The Doctor, humans weren't meant to live this long and because of that she has lived and lost so much that she doesn't even remember most of it, she doesn't recall her own name or her family or the village she grew up in. Even some of the events of her past like giving birth to children is nothing more than a story to her because she doesn't have the slightest memory of it happening. This I would say is this episodes strongest element, the analysis of Ashildr's character and the ramifications of The Doctor's actions and now she is a cold and incredibly powerful person with wealth and skills and now spends her days as a criminal. Also the fact that she wants to travel with The Doctor but he won't let her leads to some incredibly powerful and emotional scenes, The Doctor sees the coldness in her and her lack of empathy for ordinary people and he knows that if it weren't for those ordinary people he would be just the same. Gods need people to keep them grounded and caring, otherwise you risk becoming a monster, and two gods travelling together is just asking for bad news. Not to mention the banter alone between these two is hilarious and makes this episode worth watching.

If i did have any problems with Ashildr in this episode I would say she starts caring for people a little too quickly, she goes from cold hearted killer to saviour of the innocent in a split second and it doesn't work for me. Also I know Maisie Williams is 18 but she still looks like a teenager, so seeing her kiss a grown man is just weird. Other problems I would have are the villain being very weak and having such little development i feel like they could have written him out, because honestly just The Doctor and Ashildr talking would have been more interesting. Yeah I know they say action speaks louder than words, but that ain't the case here.

In summary I thought this was a fantastic episode, the dialogue between The Doctor and Ashildr is fantastic and they leave it open so she can return later on. It's just the villain and his plot seems mostly pointless. 9/10.

-Danny