"Doctor Who" season 9 is going to be the most epic yet

That's silly. Just because half the skeletons had really sexy child-bearing hips doesn't mean they were female. If they're buried with a sword they're a guy. Archaeologists know their shit. Nowadays we just go by hair length.


Male warrior


Hypothetical female warriors.

there's was actually a lot that I liked here, though I agree some of the bits written for her didn't work (possibly as much on the direction as the script and acting). The beats they TRIED to hit were solid, I think but a lot of them they missed.
I do think it's clear they are setting the character up for something bigger yet to come.

In particular, the business of how she knew all that stuff was directly addressed yet not clearly answered. Some one (or more) person(s) has been telling her things and it is designed to at least make the viewer suspect a bigger story arc is in play.

That's the problem. Her IMDB goes through 2016 and shows nothing about a bigger story arc. By the time they get around to revisiting her charager they probably won't be able to buy into her schedule.

My impression of the whole fiasco is that the writer's room has a bunch of big whiteboards with key character points for the new Doctor and where they want to take his character. These included how he's conflicted about leaving people behind, how he's trying to reconnect with his core personality, notes about his relationship with his companion, etc. Things that just sit on the white boards in a writers' room to keep everyone focused.

So Moffat told the writers to reference those key points for the episode, but the writers woke up late, were massively hungover, copied the sentences scrawled on the white board into the script, prefaced them with "Ashildr:" or "Doctor:", and turned them in like a school assignment.

"Did you hit the key points on the white board?"
"Absolutely!"
"Then roll. If anyone calls I'll be on the back nine."

Except, they weren't.

The Doctor Who episode was ... forgettable. The Ashildr character has a lot of potential though, and I hope she comes back.

She returns in episode 10.

IMDB is not a reliable source, but then I'm saying this to the guy who relies on wikipedia articles to win arguments. So.....

The, erm, blog you linked to is dated September 2014. The article I posted, based on current research and new findings, is dated October 2015. Unless The Doctor went back in time and falsified the evidence (which would be out of character), I think I'll go with the actual research, thanks.

Parts of the script have leaked:

Doctor: You again!
Ashildr: Yes, me again. You should get used to this, Doctor.
Doctor: But I thought you only signed on for two episodes.
Ashildr: That's what my agent wanted you to think, but did it ever occur to you that someone cursed with immortality isn't going to be limited to a two parter?
Doctor: Do the writers know about this?
Ashildr: Of course they do. Who do you think penned the crappy lines I'm spewing?

And your vintagenews.com article refers to the same 2011 paper (you know, that actual research) that is discussed in the link I provided.

Ok. I'm just going to go out and say it: I really, really liked that second episode. No, GoT girl wasn't perfect, but there isn't really a gold standard for playing that kind of character. I did like the dialogue, and I especially liked the directing and editing. The two of them reading the diary sequence was brilliant.

I'd also say there was a clear indication that her knowledge of the Doctor has different and more sinister roots than what she's told him here.

You must have managed to stay in the episode. I got kicked out when Ashildr knew more than she could have and showed more insight into the doctor's current character issues than anyone but a Doctor Who writer or reviewer would. Once kicked out of the episode, so much didn't work that it was hard to see the things that did, like the diary sequence.

But even that brings up the question about why Ashildr would write a diary. They tried to explain it, that her mind couldn't remember everything, but since when has anyone used that as a reason to keep a diary? Heck, she'd have forgotten why she was keeping a diary. Further, ninety-nine percent of diary entries are incredibly boring in retrospect. Ashildr had shelves of them. Two million shopping trips, meals, and bowel movements recorded in disturbing detail.

Oh, god. She'll give Zuckerberg the idea for Facebook.

Probably called MeBook.

That said, your username is looking a bit iffy after this week's ep.

Anyway, as for the episode itself, I actually liked the Doctor/Ashildr scenes - Maisie is quite a strong actress when given quiet, serious scenes. She didn't do too well at the high emotion, but most of her more intense conversations with the Doctor played fine. Sam Swift was alright - there for the "live life to the full and it's rich whether it's thirty years or three thousand" message the Doctor needed to impact on Ashildr. Lenny the Lion was naff, OK. We've seen catfolk on Who before and they didn't really work then, but he's only here to give Ashildr a chance to betray the Doctor and then come to her senses.

Lots of folk hate the guitar. I like it. The Doctor should have stuff he's doing when he's not saving planets - last season we got the chalkboard scribbles, now he idly riffs on a guitar to help him think, like Holmes' violin or (more fittingly), the Second Doctor's recorder. He can keep at it, IMO.

Next week looks strong stuff though - Blogtor Who have a spoiler-free review up which is very praising of the ep. I suspect it'll get bashing from some - it deals with themes the UK (and America) are dealing with right now...

Blogtor praised everything in his ever continuing bid to ingratiate himself with the production team.

I wouldn't try to ingratiate myself with the production team, but I might try to get in Jenna Coleman's pants.

The Master did it.

Come on, it's Mistress now.

I may have sounded more negative than I felt. I'm not, by nature, a highly critical viewer. A lot of the time I really like something and then I read a thread where the more critical types start in with "and what about this bullshit?" and I find myself looking back and saying "well...yeah, there WAS that"

When I was watching it initially though I thought it felt very much like a Doctor Who episode should feel - which I guess is the bottom line for me, if I'm watching anything and it connects with me on that level, and I'm just enjoying, maybe I should resist the temptation to see the flaws that others see.

Doctor Who
Given that Maisie Williams has a lot of filming commitments on Game of Thrones, you’d be excused for thinking her return would be a long-term prospect. But no.

Following her appearance in the recent two-parter (and confirmation her immortal character is hanging around in modern day London), it’s been confirmed that Williams’ character, Ashildr/Me, will be back later on in the current season of the show.

Speaking at London Comic-Con’s Doctor Who panel Sarah Dollard, writer of episode 10, revealed that Williams will return in her episode, which also features the return of Joivan Wade’s Rigsy, who appeared in last year’s “Flatline”.

http://io9.com/maisie-williams-will-be-back-on-doctor-who-a-lot-sooner-1738618983

Well, without wishing to start a "actually, it's about ethics in television review journalism" discussion, DenofGeek and DigitalSpy seem to think highly of it as well.

That said, whilst the reviews are encouraging, I'll wait and see. Everyone raved about Midnight and for me it was one of the worst episodes of Who I'd ever seen, whilst I actually quite enjoyed Love and Monsters.

I very much enjoyed the second ep, although Lion-O seemed needless, and we had something of a lost opportunity of Ashildr becoming a Mr Flint type character - being a Highwayman seemed so small. With centuries to play with, you'd have expected her to have set herself up something else. Although given her knowledge of the Doctor, maybe she has and they're saving it for the future? Head of an Illuminati type group looking for the Doctor, plenty of fertile ground there for stories.

Nevertheless, it was a fun romp, and the infinite-life with a human-sized mind is intriguing. You'd expect something of a parallel to the Doctor's regenerations, only a freshening of the mind, with an ever darkening personality corrupted by loss with one old memory clung onto throughout the new ones washing away the old, which would be the Doctor.

So, yeah, typical for nuWho - decent enough ep, but offers a great deal of unrealised potential.

She doesn't seem to like trusting or relying on regular humans, since she became hardened against them. So setting up conspiracies isn't likely. But I definitely think she's up to something we aren't aware of yet... Her knowledge of the Doctor's ship and background aren't just lucky guesses. And there's the question of exactly what memories she tore out of her diaries... I have a feeling she's met Missy, or another long-term acquaintance of the Doctor (River?).

I don't like or trust public transport, but I still use it

There are a raft of effective immortals in media to inform a new one with, from Dorian Gray to Ras al Ghul (oh, having those intimated at in the future would be fun!) and they've used mortals, so I don't think she'd simply avoid them altogether.

Good point with the diaries, I would suggest River more than Missy, as the latter would likely have tortured her to see how well the medical kit worked.

Obvious plot hole: If the medical fixer is so small and effective, why doesn't the entire galaxy use them?

When they created the Captain Jack Harkness character they explained it as a very bizarre even involving the core of the Tardis. Here we have a bag of immortality devices that nobody seems to think are even special.

Good ep - lots of balls in the air for the next half... Hopefully they won't be dropped. Played accurately on the paranoia about immigrants, radicals and not knowing who to trust.

Osgood has moved from a fan substitute to a strong, genuine character, still keeping us in the dark as to which version died at Missy's hands... And it actually doesn't matter, which is the point.

I want to know what's in her box. And that's not my usual filth... It was set up in the intro... So what is it?

Wasn't the fixer basically a body part ripped from the corpse of a Mire soldier and adapted by the Doctor to work on a human? I imagine they're usually hard to obtain, even if you did know how to adapt one for personal use.

Can someone explain to me the conditions of the original treaty? 20 million are hatched within the UK, they are allowed to take the place of the nearest human... what happens to that human?

I assume nothing - the duplicate is then relocated. Remember the signs in New Mexico about "Britons"? They shipped batches off to other countries, which stoked the resentment of the locals and led to the Zygons feeling like they weren't accepted. Hence the radicals.

Edit: in other words, the same situation we have (or the press wants us to think we have) with asylum seekers.

Oh, I see! I didn't understand that at all from the episode. (Except for the parallel to the current asylum crisis and the more general xenophobia towards immigrants. The symbolism was easier to understand than the plot.)

Thought it was very good. A good quality, intelligent script instead of a script by an ego-maniac who thinks he's intelligent. 9/10 for me.