Review of The Girl Who Died
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

One of the advantages of avoiding as much information about upcoming episodes as possible is going in without any particular expectations. All I had this week was the trailer, the title, and knowledge of the big name guest star (which was neutral information, since I don’t watch Game of Thrones). I had no pre-conceived notions about The Girl Who Died, and figured we’d be getting an okay-but-not-fabulous story. I was, thus, not disappointed.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2015 BBC

Conversely, I wasn’t pleasantly surprised. It was, to my mind, merely average. Given how much I (a) love Capaldi and (b) disliked certain episodes in the last series, though, fair-to-middlin’ is still perfectly acceptable. As long as Capaldi’s on screen, it can’t be all bad.

As far as I can tell, though, the main point of this episode was to introduce Ashildr, the eponymous character. Unless there’s actually something subtle going on, rather than the anvil-to-the-head clues dropped here, we’ve just seen the seeds of a major piece of the series arc.

Back when Davros was crowing over the supposed success of his latest mad scheme, he justified it by claiming he was fulfilling a Gallifreyan prophecy. “It spoke of a hybrid creature,” he cackled. “Two great warrior races forced together to create a warrior greater than either.” Now we’re meant to see how that prophecy really gets fulfilled. Take the Mire, “one of the deadliest warrior races in the entire galaxy,” add their technology to a Viking, and voilà! Hybrid ahoy! The Doctor even says so, just in case we’re not clever enough to get it ourselves.

I say that I had no expectations going into the episode, but I’ll admit that as the opening credits rolled, I had a hot/cold moment when I noticed the writers were listed as Jamie Mathieson and Steven Moffat. Mathieson wrote the scripts for my two favorite episodes of Series Eight, Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline. Moffat, on the other hand, well… We all know Moffat’s style and have our own opinions about whether it’s good or bad.

For my part, I just figured Moffat’s writing credit here meant Mathieson would have to shoehorn larger arc shit into his script, for better or for worse. However much of TGWD was Mathieson, the signs of Moffat ex machina were unmistakable. Ashildr’s fate, for example, will obviously have repercussions at least for the rest of the series.

And then there was the Doctor’s face. Oh dear. What can be said about this particular nugget? I just can’t get too excited about this in-universe explanation for why he’s wearing a face we’ve seen before. The Doctor has to remind himself to be empathetic? Why? Did he know going in that the factory reset would make him less likely to be able to relate readily to humans? He says it’s “to hold [him] to the mark,” but was he really likely to slip from it after going through that whole experience with his other selves in Day of the Doctor?

Apparently so, given his behavior in various parts of this episode. Even in the pre-credits sequence, we have the Doctor being un-Doctor-ish. First he assures Clara that the Love Sprite crawling up the inside of her space suit is “just hungry,” then he stomps it flat without a second thought. I can almost accept that by assuming Love Sprites aren’t sentient. Almost. Still, it rankles.

Then, of course, we have his reluctance to help the village once they declare they will stay and fight. Since when does the Doctor just stand by and watch (unless it’s a “fixed point” in history, like it was the last time he saw that face and saved its owner anyway—oop!)? Maybe he just figures all he has to do is sit back and wait for Clara to handle things, because she’s certainly taking matters into her own hands more and more often these days. “Oh, Clara Oswald… What have I made of you?” (Maybe she’s the hybrid…)

So keeping with the theme of hybrids, TGWD was mixed bag. There was nothing I really hated, but I was distinctly un-fond of the revelation about the Doctor’s face (as mentioned above); I’d have preferred it to be left unaddressed forever, as when Six wore Maxil‘s face. Similarly, I wasn’t a fan of the electric eels, though it was easier for me to let that slide than, say, the huge issues with gravity and conservation of mass we saw in Kill the Moon.

In the middle of the road were moments like the Doctor asking for a show of hands (“How many people here have actually held a sword in battle?”) and learning something new about Clara when she raised hers. The little non-verbal interchange between them was charming. And I didn’t hate how the Doctor could “speak baby” here.

Now that’s kind of big. In Matt Smith’s hands, this script would have been very, very different. The gravitas Capaldi managed to lend that scene is something I just don’t think Smith could’ve pulled off; it would not have come across with such pathos. As it was, the scene moved me more than it irritated me, so I guess that can go in the “pro” column.

My absolute favorite moment, though, was when he told Clara he was “reversing the polarity of the neutron flow.” I screeched “YES!” so loudly (and spent the following 30 seconds giggling incoherently into my hands) that I missed his follow-up comment (“I bet that means something; it sounds great.”) on first viewing. It may be pure fan service, but I, for one, love that shit.

So what are my overall thoughts on meeting our “strange” new acquaintance Ashildr? Aside from a strong sense of foreboding (those who unexpectedly gain immortality—especially without their consent—rarely maintain a cheerful outlook), I can’t help but wonder if she really is what she was presumed to be in this episode. Ashildr herself talks about how unusual she is, and that “here, [she is] loved.” Might she have originated somewhere else? Does that have something to do with why the Doctor noticed her upon entering the village, quite apart from “remembering in the wrong direction”?

It’s all speculation at this stage, and we’ll have to wait for next week’s installment to see what shakes out. Until then, I declare this one simply average. It may have broken the streak of super-strong episodes, but the series isn’t dead yet. Let’s hope this is just a temporary setback.

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