DOCTOR WHO Review : The Girl who Died

Doctor Who Review : Series 9 Episode 5 - "The Girl who Died"

Captured by Vikings, the Doctor and Clara must help protect their village from space warriors from the future, the Mire.

Spoiler Alert: The episode may contain the odd spoiler or two so you know the drill, if you don't want the episode to be spoiled then I suggest you read this later.

So, the pre-title sequence actually see's The Doctor and Clara, in another predicament prior to the events we see happen in this story. Once they arrive in the woods and the scene is set, events start to take off quite smoothly and of their own accord. 

I thought the pacing of this episode this week was great, last week was a little slow but this set off on a really good pace and it reminded me of some of the early hartnell stories where The Doctor and co arrive on this planet, they see a helpless bunch of people (usually rebels) in distress from an alien menace and so they help them fight the aliens off, and win. 

In this instance it was a matter of using clever thinking, out smarting the enemy and using initiative to provide clever visual trickery to frighten off the opponents. Who are meant to be this war race of aliens. 

I like the episode a lot, I think it was what we needed after last week. Light hearted, action packed sort of story with comedy and action almost side by side, comedy for the light hearted stuff to make it not so serious and the action to keep viewers interested. That's the thing with TV you got to keep your audience interested otherwise you haven't got a show. The episode provided some great gags, interestingly designed monsters, fantastic sets and cinematography, sound was clear, the music was great and it was clean cut as well. 

It also crossed fandoms having Maisie Williams in it, because you are now bringing fans from a highly successful popular show into watching another highly successful popular show, bringing in more audiences as well. It was a clever move to cast her in a guest role as it would engage viewers in a story which is in a way similar to Game of Thrones as you've got Vikings, Tudor-like setting and historical back drop in a fictional reality. 

It was also interesting to spot certain references to other doctor who related stuff, for instance the viking design is very similar to the designs that were used in the Time Meddler. Which I thought was a nice touch, also what was good was Peter Capaldi saying 'reverse the polarity of the neutron flow' - Jon Pertwee's favourite line. 

The Mire were very impressive, they looked amazing. They didn't however have long enough to impose a strong enough threat in my personal opinion. I think they seemed to be something there as something for the opposition on the Doctor's side to fight against, you could of had Sontarans and it would have worked just as well. Above all The Mire could do was stand there and look menacing, that was the extent of their talents which is what I was worried about when it came to seeing them on screen. my fears came true.

David Schofield was also really good, but then again he's a really good actor what can you expect. I'd like to see him in Doctor Who again playing a different character, perhaps in an earth bound story? who knows.

From the way the episode left things leading into next week, it basically ended with The Doctor solving a problem by creating one. However it didn't really need to be a two parter in all honesty, I can't help but wonder if this story could just have been finished and not have to carry on into next week. It's a bit like 'The Ark' they resolve the problem in two episodes and then come back to the same place in the future and have to solve another problem. It's not really needed. 

Having said that next week however, looks very interesting. It's a different time period. I love period settings and it got highwaymen in it. what more do you want?

I'll give this a 2/5 which is not a bad score, it's just weighing up all the pros and cons.

NEXT WEEK : The Woman who Lived.