The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived (2015) Review

This episode sucks, but Jesus! She is so freaking hot! She's like Jenna Coleman dialed up to 11!

The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived is a painful reminder that nothing is perfect. Series 9 was halfway to a perfect run and NOPE. There's always a stinker, isn't there?

PLOT

The Doctor and Clara have to defend a Viking village from invading... um... Viking aliens when the foolish Ashildr pushes them too far. After losing her life as a result, the Doctor uses the alien Vikings' gadgetry to turn her immortal. Um... overkill much?

ANALYSIS

The first half is a fun little runaround, nothing too serious and ends with a fantastic explanation for the Twelfth Doctor's face. But it's let down by what has to be one of the dumbest and most recycled storylines ever conceived: Ashildr.

Let's start with the fact that immortality has been done before, not just with Captain Jack, but with Clara herself. Yeah, she's technically not immortal, but The Name Of The Doctor makes it pretty clear that billions of her incarnations hover around at least the first eleven Doctors, always in the background. 

Second of all, none of this was necessary. If the character of Ashildr had died, it would've been a sad end to what started out as a really nice one-off character. The only reason she became immortal was to give the Doctor his second eternal stalker.

Apparently, her purpose now is to clean up the mess that the Doctor "always" leaves behind... except he almost never does. Most of his adventures end with the Doctor having saved the planet. He doesn't leave because he's running from something, he leaves because the job is done. Anyone with a time machine would go after this. 
The way the characters describe the Doctor, you'd think he was a pet whom people have fun with and who brings them joy and yet they have to clean up the poop he makes. It is so, so, so stupid.

One of the few interesting qualities about immortal Ashildr is that her memory is extremely faulty, something that I always imagined should've happened to the Doctor, Time Lord or not. If he's had so many adventures, why haven't they blurred in his head yet?

Of course, this good part was almost overshadowed by the insane amount of vitriol she had for him. I get being left behind for a thousand years is a little bit annoying, but then she pulls some feminism crap on him based on a joke he made? Also, the whole "lives are so short" thing is kind of daft as well, considering that even if you do live forever, time still passes slowly. 50 years for an immortal is the same 50 years it is for a human. They might eventually forget, but it's still 50 long years. 

CHARACTERS

You thought I was done ranting about Ashildr? The character is practically a carbon copy of Clara. She even looks almost exactly like Jenna Coleman, right down to her costume and hairstyle. Her thing is demeaning the Doctor for having his own methods for doing things despite hers not being any better, hell, she even acts more immature than he does. "You're not my dad." Did the word dad even exist back then?

Ah, I almost forgot... despite whining ENDLESSLY about how everyone dies around her, she doesn't figure out who to give the other "immortality chip". Suuure. Didn't she have children? What happened to him? Or the other people she hooked up with over the years?

To sum things up, Ashildr is a mean-spirited, irritating feminazi and another classic Moffat woman(he invented the character and probably her plot arc too) for the records. Moving on.

This may sounds incredible, but for the first time, in this episode of all places, I finally bought the Twelfth Doctor-Clara relationship for the first time. Their reunion at the end of the episode(albeit with the irritating reminder of the upcoming Class show) was genuinely touching and felt real. There was no bantering or competing, they were just two old friends together again. When I watched that scene, I actually felt something akin to what the Doctor feels: that Clara has been around for so long and has been his friend that she has slightly dwarfed her predecessors... but the clock is ticking and in the end, even she has to leave...

Sam Swift is a fairly fun character and whilst watching, I actually predicted they'd give him the immortality chip. And while they did, of course they decided to ignore that by saying it's out of power, although at least they admit here that the Doctor doesn't actually have a clue what he's saying, something that, as we remember, Series 8 Twelfth is particularly prone to.

Really, that's this story's entire problem. It's so Series 8. It has the same awfully written melodrama that made Series 8 such a horrible slog to get through. Doctor Who is so awful nowadays that the only way we can enjoy it is watching it burn in its own absurdity and self-awareness. As an audience member, I am hungry and the show is feeding me itself since it has nothing else to provide anymore. 

Viking aliens... yeah, I won't even touch that.

Clayton was a charming little character, completely oblivious to his surroundings. 

NOTES

*The Doctor uploading a Yakety Sax-themed version of the attack on the village was hilarious.

*Just like in Deep Breath, the appereance of a previous Doctor in a flashback is great... but at the same time, so weird. Apart from photos in the background or a random bit of archive footage, this sort of thing never happens. The Doctors always exist in their own little worlds. But yeah, the Tenth Doctor and Donna showing up was a terrific little moment.

*She's still fighting on... the DoctorDonna.

*I find it cute that people thought the sonic sunglasses were gone forever after "Odin" broke them. They're sunglasses people! Sunglasses! Why are they so hard to swallow? It's just another type of sonic. It's an aesthetic change!

*Be honest people... wouldn't this story be much cooler if Sam Swift became immortal? 1000 years and Ashildr falls in love with a drunk slacker. It was practically gift-wrapped to you!

*How did Ashildr know exactly what selfie to hide in?

*Also, wouldn't it be awesome if it turned out Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright are immortal because that's the only other two people the Doctor couldn't bear ever losing? To those of you who are confused, let me remind you: in the Sarah Jane Adventures story Death Of The Doctor, Sarah Jane looks up on all of the Doctor's companions after meeting Jo Grant and discovers that Ian and Barbara haven't aged since the 60s for an undefined reason.

CONCLUSION

Doctor Who isn't the question anymore... it's the punchline.