The Woman Who Lived

I am Me.

This story had everyone in a tizzy with who Ashildr was prior to it and The Girl Who Died's airing. Once her secret was revealed, the air was let out of the balloon and these two stories got left in the dust of more interesting stories. As with the previous story, there are nuggets of good things in this story but it suffers from focus issues, though of a different variety than the prior story.

Plot Summary

The Doctor arrives in 1651 looking for a piece of lost alien technology. He stumbles across a highway robbery being performed by a criminal called the Knightmare. His interruption allows the coach to speed away before either of them can get the lady's amulet which appears to be the alien technology the Doctor is looking for. After they have gone, the Knightmare reveals himself to actually be Ashildr.

Ashildr takes the Doctor back to her manor house though she does not go by Ashildr any more. She now only refers to herself as "me" and operates as a highwayman for the adventure. She relates to the Doctor her various lives that she has lived over the past 800 years, much of which she has forgotten but has written down in a vast library. Knowing where the noble couple's home is, Ashildr tells the Doctor they will leave in an hour and steal the amulet from there.

The Doctor reads through her journals, noting two particular periods where a lover died of old age and her children perished in the Black Death. Those experiences hardened her to live her life alone. As he reads, Ashildr heads outside where she meets with an alien hidden in the shadows, informing him that she and this visitor will be heading out to find the lost artifact and that he has no idea of their true purpose.

The Doctor and Ashildr travel on foot to a nearby manor where they break in through the kitchens. They light a candle and search the house. Eventually they discover the amulet with an iridescent purple gem at the center. They pocket the amulet and sneak downstairs. But they accidentally wake the lord of the manor, having fallen asleep on the couch, and are forced to escape by climbing up a chimney.

The head back to Ashildr's manor where they are accosted by another bandit named Sam Swift with a couple of helpers. Ashildr disarms him but he tries to get the upper hand while the two companions restrain the Doctor. Ashildr eventually pins him and has the gun. Sam pleads for mercy but Ashildr is not inclined to give him quarter until the Doctor vows to become her enemy if she kills him. She lets him up and the three men run away.

In the morning, Ashildr comes down, dressed as an upper class lady and attended by an old, half-blind butler named Clayton. She expects the Doctor to leave again but he promises to stay and keep an eye on her. She begs him to take her away as she has lost so much and feels so trapped on Earth but the Doctor refuses, not trusting her.

At that moment the alien who had been waiting outside bangs on the door. The Doctor opens the door to let him in. The alien is called Leandro and claims to be the last of his kind. The amulet is his and will open a doorway to the afterlife and his people. In exchange for her help, Leandro has offered to take Ashildr with him through space. But the gem requires a death to activate it. Leandro is inclined to use the Doctor but Ashildr refuses to see the Doctor killed as payment for his saving of hers, no matter how much she might curse him for it.

Ashildr intends to kill Clayton but they are interrupted by two pike men who are here to warn the lady that the Knightmare has been seen in the woods and that Sam Swift has been captured and is going to be hanged at noon. Ashildr changes her mind and decides to use Sam's death instead. She had already tied up the Doctor when she announced that she would kill Clayton. She then turns the Doctor over to the pike men, telling them that he is the Knightmare's assistant. Ashildr and Leandro then drive off in her carriage.

The pike men take the Doctor haul him to the door, noting that they intend to collect a reward for him. The Doctor counters, pointing out that he knows where the Lady Me keeps a chest of gold. They release him, he shows them the chest and then rides to town to stop her.

In town, Sam forestalls his hanging by entertaining the crowd with humor. Ashildr and Leandro get impatient and call for his hanging. The Doctor arrives and he and Sam continue with the jokes, getting the crowd back into the entertainment. As they tell jokes, the Doctor offers the hangman his psychic paper, pointing out that Sam has a pardon from Cromwell. The hangman gives in but the crowd is unruly. Noting that the Doctor has a wanted poster for abetting the Knightmare, the crowd calls for his hanging.

Ashildr, not wanting the Doctor hanged, pulls out the amulet and stabs Sam in the chest with it. The gem extracts his life force and shoots a beam of purple light into the sky, opening a porthole to a waiting fleet of spaceships. The ships begin firing on the crowd. Ashildr realizes that she was tricked and that Leandro was only a scout sent to create a doorway for his species to invade. She pleads with the Doctor to help her save the people.

The Doctor tells her that the only way is to close the porthole by bringing Sam back to life. Ashildr then grabs the second Mire health chip and places it on Sam's head. The chip brings him back to life and ejects the amulet from his body. The porthole closes before any of the ships can pass through and Leandro is incinerated by his own kind for his failure.

The trio celebrates in a pub afterward and Ashildr asks if Sam is also now immortal. The Doctor doesn't know given how much power might have been drained to counter the amulet. Ashildr, now realizing that she does still care for the lives of others decides that she will change and now devote herself to watching over those impacted by the Doctor and then left behind like herself. This meets with the Doctor's approval and they promise to see each other in the future.

The Doctor arrives back in modern London where Clara greets him. She offers him a selfie taken by one of her students as a thank you for helping her with a history report. Looking over the picture, he notices Ashildr standing in the background and staring directly at the camera. The Doctor then offers Clara the chance to pick the location of their next adventure.

Analysis

If this story were 45 minutes of the Doctor and Ashildr running around committing crimes and playing a bickering duo, I think this story would have been much higher rated. The interplay between Ashildr and the Doctor, especially with no Clara to act as a third wheel, is quite amusing, even if Ashildr's whining about being left behind by the Doctor gets a bit grating after a while. Where the story falls apart is when they get to the "invasion".

The Doctor is in good form in this story and is quite entertaining. The Twelfth Doctor doesn't give in to comedy that much even in Series 9 but here there is a lot of bit play that is reasonably funny, especially in his getting offended at being referred to as the assistant and in the jokes in regard to his age. But he also has that moral streak which puts an underlying note of seriousness in things and also punctuates the comedy with the dark edge. He has pratfalls but not so blatant and over-the-top as were seen in the previous story. He's just fun to be around.

Ashildr is a mixed bag. She is better when she has the darker edge and false bravado to her. Her moments of softness, of opening up and recalling the old Ashildr seem weaker. I'm not sure how the set up would have really worked but I feel that the story might have been better if we didn't have any of the set up about Ashildr from the prior story and instead came in cold with a jaded woman who had known the Doctor previously but that story was left unknown. There is just something about knowing the girl from whom this woman came from that undercuts her edge or takes away from the tragedy.

Still, she is witty and clearly of a good mind. What doesn't make a lot of sense is why the Doctor wouldn't take her away, especially after she saved Sam. I can understand the Doctor not taking her while she acts like a petulant child, but once she shows that the she does care about life and people, why not take her on a trip here and there? It just feels like a plot convenience not to have the Doctor promise to take her to a new place if she shows growth or reform.

And on the subject of plot conveniences... the entire plotline with Leandro doesn't work on all kinds of levels. It feels slapped on with Leandro not being properly introduced until halfway through the story. With all the wit and intelligence Ashildr shows through the rest of the story, she has to be portrayed as very naïve to not see through Leandro's plot and that does not mesh with the hard, cynical character we have come to know. Then, after all that, Leandro is vaporized by his own people when the invasion porthole is closed. Never mind how that was done, that is the laziest means of getting rid of a villain and a loose plot thread that I've seen in quite a while. There was just very little about the second half that I found enjoyable.

Actually, there's not much else to say after that. None of the secondary characters add much, even Sam as he is also introduced late. The direction is adequate but not overly memorable and the scene of the fighters firing on the crowd gathered had a rather cheap look to it. Even the selfie scene at the end had a rather forced feel to it, though it did give Clara a chance to be genial. Honestly, if it wasn't for the fun repartee between Ashildr and the Doctor, this story would clearly be in "1" territory. But that interaction was good enough that I'll give it some additional consideration.

Overall personal score: 2 out of 5