Doctor Who: Series 9: 6. The Woman Who Lived
October 24, 2015 1:43 PM - Season 9, Episode 6 - Subscribe

England, 1651. Deadly highwayman 'the Knightmare' and his sidekick stalk the dark streets of London. But when they find loot that is not of this world, they come face to face with the Doctor. Who is the Knightmare in league with? And can the Doctor avoid the hangman's noose and protect the Earth from a devilish betrayal?
posted by fearfulsymmetry (74 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
They keep the door open for more Maisie Williams, and rightly so, great episode.
posted by Pendragon at 4:04 PM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


This, to me, felt like the first serious mis-step of the series, which is a pity since Catherine Tregenna wrote three of my favourite Torchwood episodes (and, er, Adam.)

It's not Daleks Take Manhattan bad, although the comedy was verging on Love And Monsters bad, but the whole idea of multi-dimensional, fire-breathing lions with magical portal technology that allows them to harness a single death... it was 'the moon is an egg' level of stupidity (and I liked In The Forest Of The Night, so I have a low bar for that sort of thing).

The whole amulet thing felt like a Torchwood plot.... series one Torchwood.

I fear Maisie/Ashildr/Lady Me is being set up as the big bad (The Minister of War, which they telegraphed earlier in the series, unless that it a throwaway line or it relates to next week's Zygon adventure), and the conversation in the pub seemed like a watered down version of the restaurant scene in Boomtown, which was the best thing in Boomtown.

On the plus side, the dreadful comedy aside, it was well shot episode, and they did give a decent explanation for why The Doctor didn't take Ashildr off into space, so she and Clara will still be around to be killed by Missy in the season finale.

The idea of the diaries was nice, but does she really hump around that much stuff each time she 'dies'?

On the further plus side, I am sure this episode will be one million times better than this will turn out to be.
posted by Mezentian at 6:22 PM on October 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


We're still watching it, but I have already yelled at the TV a lot, because what, it didn't occur to The Doctor that making this teenage girl immortal might just mess her up a bit?!
posted by sarcasticah at 6:43 PM on October 24, 2015


I wasn't 100% on board with the writing in this episode, but I continue to be charmed, relieved, and excited by the path of this season in general. This Vanity Fair piece is pretty close to how I feel, actually.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:46 PM on October 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


I couldn't decide if this was terribly written or terribly directed, or both. It wasn't Vampires in Venice bad, but close.
posted by Catblack at 6:51 PM on October 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Hey now, let's all remember the director's pedigree: a song about masturbation, a documentary about sewers and Top Gear.
posted by Mezentian at 7:00 PM on October 24, 2015


That was an interesting view of immortality without extra special powers. Memories fading, emotions running out, new personalities coming and going. Her next appearance seems like it will be pretty bleak.
posted by humans are superior! at 8:46 PM on October 24, 2015 [4 favorites]


Maybe we can look forward to Ashildr and Captain Jack teaming up at some point.
posted by homunculus at 8:56 PM on October 24, 2015


Maybe we can look forward to Ashildr and Captain Jack Agent Rex Matheson teaming up at some point.

Come on... we're all thinking it: what happened to Ashildr during Miracle Day?

We, the public, demand more.
posted by Mezentian at 9:20 PM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Right. Giant fire-breathing space lions from Delta Leonis. How convenient.

There was too much talking, and talking and talking and talking, with the bloody awful score telling me exactly how I should feel about every word. Urgh. What a waste of Maisie Williams.
posted by prismatic7 at 9:22 PM on October 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


There was too much talking, and talking and talking and talking,

You would prefer more invading giant fire-breathing space lions from Delta Leonis?

The io9 review has been up for less than an hour, and the comments are pretty split along the Best Episode Ever/Worst Episode Ever axis ... but everyone hates Grumpy Lion-O.
posted by Mezentian at 9:26 PM on October 24, 2015


I'm firmly in the 'liked it' camp, personally. The ending was too talky, (particularly the weird thing where the highwayman - unbound - was doing stand up comedy to stave off his execution - wtf?), but I felt like the heist was worth the price of admission. I liked the Doctor interrupting Ashildr's highwayman routine, then mucking up her B&E. It was fun enough I'm willing to temporarily overlook the return of the horrible sunglasses.

I also enjoyed the examination of the Doctor's tendency to run away - I'm much more willing to entertain everyone obsessing about the Doctor if they're at least willing to be critical. (I also felt like Ashildr had much better justification for shadowing the Doctor through history than Torchwood did.)

Come on... we're all thinking it: what happened to Ashildr during Miracle Day?

Nopenopenope. All I ever think about Miracle Day is, "Wow, they sure proved Children of Earth was a fluke, didn't they?"

but everyone hates Grumpy Lion-O

Yeah, that was all very silly. Until they made it clear she was after the amulet, I was expecting her to try and hijack the TARDIS, maybe like in Let's Kill Hitler.
posted by mordax at 9:50 PM on October 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


So the notion that the doctor needs the "mayflies" is a strong one, but this episode was a mess. I agree that the lion was a mis-step.

It would have been more interesting if he did take her with him, and then we actually get to see them losing perspective, with bad consequences, but that might be hard to earn in a single episode.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:28 PM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


I like how the doctor gets to have angst both about short-lived companions (That thousand yard stare in School Reunion) AND long-lived companions. AND medium-lived companions (not wanting to travel with River at the end of Amy and Rory).
posted by bleep at 11:03 PM on October 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


I guess a 2000 year old having had angst on every permutation of everything isn't far-fetched either.
posted by bleep at 11:47 PM on October 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


It was OK - poorly directed in parts and the lion was badly thought out but the script was fine. Grumpy Lion-O wasn't really the point though. The dialogue was often great and Maisie really sold being the immortal Lady Me. The scene of her with the three empty cribs was horrifying.

On the further plus side, I am sure this episode will be one million times better than this will turn out to be.

Oh dear God
posted by brilliantmistake at 1:23 AM on October 25, 2015


Fantastic, I hope we see Maisie Williams again. Maybe her and Sam Swift can get their own spin-off show.
posted by Coaticass at 2:11 AM on October 25, 2015


I didn't really expect people to dislike this episode. Immortality leading to disaffected evil -- in even the best of people -- is a character-based sci-fi concept that the show hasn't really done before. That's surprising, because it's really thematically appropriate. The conversations were a great throwback to the slow, thinky pace I wish the show would return to.

The lion and the cartoonish heist were dumb, but whatever. It's Dr Who: that stuff's in every episode. When it's incidental to the main goings-on of each episode, it's easy to ignore.
posted by painquale at 7:14 AM on October 25, 2015 [7 favorites]


Very much reminded of the 'Men of Good Fortune' story from the Sandman series

A bit stunt-casty - Rufus Hound is more well known as a comedian and tv presenter in the UK than as an actor, but a decent enough romp
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:41 AM on October 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


Rufus Hound is also the narrator for Doctor Who Extra this year.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this episode despite the somewhat dodgy lion. It was a nice twist to last week's story to have the Doctor remind a human of their humanity.
posted by plastic_animals at 9:46 AM on October 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Going my own way, I thought it was a mixed bag. Maisie Williams yes, Grumpy Lion-o, a throwback to the rubber monster 70s but not in the good way, concept of immortality yes, low comedy at the execution not so much, heist more please. So not the best but not the worst.

The thing that I actually liked least about this episode was the heavy-handed leaning on what This Portentous Thing Means For Clara. Aka, Foreshadowing (tm), Your Key to Quality Literature. I like Moffat's work as showrunner overall and I get that he's aiming this stuff at kids, too, but the constant reinforcement is a bit much. It makes me miss the days when companions coming and going was only a big thing and not a huge thing.
posted by immlass at 11:07 AM on October 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


At this stage Clara is like the cop movie partner who has one week left to retirement and has just bought a boat.
posted by sobarel at 11:10 AM on October 25, 2015 [21 favorites]


I strongly prefer Capaldi's punk rock grandpa version of the Doctor to his misanthrope in magician's outfit version.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:14 PM on October 25, 2015 [7 favorites]


I get the Doctor not wanting to travel with Ashildir... But why couldn't he take her to some spaceport in 2535 and leave her there? Even if they were a bad match, why strand her on Earth?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:42 PM on October 25, 2015 [7 favorites]


Yikes, tough crowd. Well, I enjoyed it (yes, even Grumpy Lion-o) and I'm looking forward to all the Ashildr-meets-past-companions fix-it fics that're bound to come out of this episode.
posted by bettafish at 3:48 PM on October 25, 2015 [2 favorites]




I'm with painquale on this. I really liked examining both the Doctor's responsibilities to the people he leaves behind and the problems with (effective) immortality. And I just love Maisie Williams, so that no doubt raises my estimation of these two episodes in ways they probably don't deserve.

But there were problems elsewhere. Things that seemed amateurish or slapdash or silly, or all three. What puzzles me, though, and where I also agree with painquale, is that these weaknesses have been scattered all through the show always, but especially lately. I don't really understand why people are objecting to this stuff now when they didn't object to it for the previous episodes.

As much as I love Maisie Williams, I think we saw her struggle with some of her (current) limitations as an actor. Although the writing asked quite a bit of her. The kind of stuff she's been doing on GoT she totally nailed in this episode -- she understands that stuff very well. Some other things seemed to me to be stretching for her and it's where I think a better director could have helped her alot. But I remain convinced that she's very talented and I think she's going to really increase her range as she works more widely and she'll just keep getting better and better.

To be fair, I think Capaldi struggled in some scenes, too. I don't want to just blame the writing -- some scenes required comedy or drama but didn't quite have the scaffolding to support it, writing and direction and otherwise. The actors worked with what they were given.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:00 PM on October 25, 2015 [5 favorites]


I thought the torn out pages in her diary were going to be previous meetings with The Doctor (which haven't happened to him yet). They still might be if she pops up in a future episode. She knew about him flying around in space which he questioned but didn't get good answers.
posted by Gary at 4:01 PM on October 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Even if they were a bad match, why strand her on Earth?

Easier to keep an eye on her I suppose ... but, speaking of bad matches, wouldn't it be interesting if Missy decided she'd like a companion...
posted by sobarel at 4:03 PM on October 25, 2015 [9 favorites]


Oh, god, that would be the best thing, ever. Or maybe it would be too much of a good thing and it wouldn't work at all. Probably could never live up to my expectations, though. But, wow, do I like the idea of Missy and a companion to parallel the Doctor and companion, and for it to be Maisie Williams. And I also have always liked the Doctor/Master relationship in its ambiguities and contradictions. It seems really right to me that there be a parallel companion who also has a similarly complicated relationship with the Doctor.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:20 PM on October 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


I thought Sam Swift ended up being a good character, but I think he would've worked better if they'd set him up as more of a charming, quippy rogue in his first appearance. He just kind of came across as a dumb crook early on, and then when he started doing stand-up comedy at the gallows it seemed to come out of nowhere.

If Ashildir could become amoral and jaded from her immortality, it would seem like Swift could become a genuinely terrible fellow given that he was already a robber when he was a mortal. But perhaps he'd go the other way, and become more wise and compassionate as the centuries passed and he learned more about humaity. Somebody pointed out that he'll probably die in a bar fight before he even knows he has the potential to be immortal... but I wouldn't be too surprised if he shows up in some distant future space bar, a few seasons from now.

I've yet to watch Torchwood, but is there some explanation given there for why Jack Harkness didn't seem to become so jaded and amoral? He was kind of a charming conman when we first met him, and as the centuries passed I didn't get the impression he lost his zest for life or that he stopped caring about people. If anything it seemed like he became more heroic. (Although again I haven't watched Torchwood and I'm only familiar with the general outline of the show.) I also didn't get the impression he'd forgotten a lot of stuff about his life. How was his immortality different from Ashildir's? Did it grant him a super memory or something?

(Come to think of it, Jack is supposed to be aging very slowly and not truly immortal. Maybe that affects a person's psychology differently somehow, although I'm not sure why it would.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:24 PM on October 25, 2015


I've yet to watch Torchwood, but is there some explanation given there for why Jack Harkness didn't seem to become so jaded and amoral?

Not explicitly. My read is that he's putting his best non-jaded and amoral foot forward for the Doctor because he wants him to be proud of him, while his Torchwood team has to deal with the brunt of his massive emotional trauma because he's their boss.

(I mean, there are many things I love about Torchwood, but seriously, Jack...)
posted by bettafish at 4:31 PM on October 25, 2015


My guess is Jack didn't become jaded and immoral because he is a romantic and stayed constantly connected to "the mayflies." And those human connections kept him from losing touch with his humanity.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:39 PM on October 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Come to think of it, perhaps the difference is that Jack wasn't stranded on Earth the whole time. He could wander the galaxy and have adventures, so perhaps that kept things novel and allowed him to run from his pain and have a more Doctor-like perspective on the value of life. Although IIRC on Torchwood he gets locked in a coffin for a hundred years or something (I only know about it from reading some episode summary a few years back) and if that doesn't turn a guy into a terrible, crazy person I don't know what would. Given what solitary confinement can do to people, decades of that sort of isolation (and claustrophobia!) would seem like an all-too-literal hell on Earth.

The more I think about it, the more strange and even cruel it seems that the Doctor won't let Ashildir leave Earth. I think they needed a line in there about why he felt she needed to stay here, as opposed to just refusing to travel with her. He could have traveled with her for 30 seconds, dropping her off at some space-bus station in the Horsehead Nebula, and then never seen her again. But for some reason, he wanted her to stay here despite her desperation to leave. Did he think she would be dangerous if she was wandering the galaxy? How would she be more dangerous to the inhabitants of Epsilon 6 in the year 3000 than she would be to the people of Earth in 1937? Why should she have to wait for centuries to fly? I feel like I'm missing something important there.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:29 PM on October 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


Yikes, tough crowd.

The first few episodes of this season have been so great it's hard for this episode to hold up to them. Relatively meh for this season is still way better than most of last season.
posted by immlass at 5:35 PM on October 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


I was just about to say the same thing that Ursula Hitler wrote -- that Jack came from the future, traveled through time and space, and then even more so once Rose/Tardis immortalized him. Ashildir's been stuck on Earth, plodding through the days, as she says. I think this is probably very personality-type dependent -- some people become worse people when they are widely traveled and have great diversity of experience, while some people become better people by being in one place and deeply knowing it and the people around them. But both Jack and Ashildur seem to be caring adventurers, so their best selves are arguably most likely to come to the fore in the context of wide experience, while in the context of very restricted experience, the caring part gets sort of smothered by, I don't know, the familiarity breeds contempt sort of thing. I mean, people who love each other can have their love extinguished by an enforced closeness if it's not really the kind of thing that works for their personality. Other people have the opposite experience. And they sort of signaled in the first show that this was Ashildur's character -- she deeply loved her home, but she was also deeply imaginative.

But, yeah, the problem I have is that the Doctor will sometimes choose a companion and, while they're with him, he feels responsible for them, but otherwise -- both when he leaves them and everyone else he intersects with -- his sense of responsibility or even caring (on an individual basis) is weirdly limited or nonexistent. Even though he arguably owes her something for so transforming her life with immortality (and, no, I don't really agree with the "I saved your life so that's all the obligation I have" argument), he won't provide her with the opportunities commensurate with that transformation. Not even when she specifically asks for it, after he's seen how much she's suffered. Why not take her somewhere else? She's asking to travel with him, which it makes sense that he refuse, but why in the world won't he do something else for her? It's weird. And it's not just a writing thing, necessary for the plot. I think it's kind of a theme for him -- there's lots of things he could correct, damage done in the course of an adventure, if he took a few days to take someone somewhere else, or bring them something, or whatever. But what he actually does is just say, "goodbye!" and that's it.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:45 PM on October 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


I actually disagree on the "he was able to travel" thing -- most of the time we've seen Jack on-screen he's trapped on Earth and living thousands of years in the past relative to his time of birth with a commensurate lack of technology. Between DW series 1 and 3 he lives through 150 years with a broken vortex manipulator, between 3 and 4 he has a few months to a year of normal life and 1900 years buried alive (without a coffin) (thanks for deliberately breaking his vortex manipulator again, Doctor! what the fuck) and between 4 and his End of Time cameo he finally gets off Earth for some undetermined period of time, but probably not a very long one since his cameo implies that he's still pretty traumatized by the events of Torchwood: Children of Earth. He could have presumably wandered around space for thousands if not millions of years between End of Time and Torchwood: Miracle Day -- but who wants to spend any time thinking about Miracle Day?

Now that I run through all that again I remember that my problem with Torchwood's treatment of Jack isn't so much that he's jaded and amoral compared to his Doctor Who self as that he's a trauma survivor whose only character arc is to constantly have even more trauma heaped on him without any acknowledgement of previous traumas, let alone a chance for healing from them.
posted by bettafish at 5:55 PM on October 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's nice that all that time I wasted on Torchwood has proven vaguely useful for something. (Actually, the back half of series 1 and series 2 are pretty good pulpy fun, but Children of Earth was a mess and I have no idea why I watched a whole seven episodes of Miracle Day.)

But yeah, I think Jack's resilience is partly personality, partly a lackadaisical sense of continuity between the two shows, and partly the nature of his status as a "fixed point in time," which implies that he's sort of stuck at the moment of his first death. That probably helps him maintain his sense of self.
posted by bettafish at 6:01 PM on October 25, 2015


Are we supposed to know why purple is the color of death?
posted by plastic_animals at 6:09 PM on October 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


I watched and like regular Torchwood, had mixed feelings about Children of Earth, and watched only the first episode of that last thing. So it's been years and years and I guess my memory is rusty.

The argument that Jack had long periods of being stuck in one place (we'll leave the coffin thing out of it because that should have made him permanently insane) is a good one. But I also do think that he still had a perspective as a result of his experience that Ashildur lacks. Ashildur's world has been really quite small, it seems. I mean, what she should have done and maybe did was travel all this time, living as varied different lives as possible. Just hanging out in northern/western Europe seems like not the best decision.

I also think that what Rose did maybe oughtn't be compared to what the alien device does for Ashildur. The Tardis energry fixed-point-in-time whatever stuff is so far beyond some alien nanotechnology that it's essentially magic, even in futuristic alien nanotechnology terms. It could be helping maintain Jack's mental health to a limited degree that this nanotechnology device wouldn't.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:13 PM on October 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Jeez, it sounds like I'm really in no position to speak about Jack's character, since I had no idea he'd been through so much. I was just thinking of his behavior on DW and his cameo in the space bar in the 10th Doctor's last episode, all of which suggested that Jack was a zesty fellow with some compassion and a working memory and he had really traveled around in time and space. But 1900 years buried? Christ, it's a wonder he can still string a sentence together after that. I don't know how anybody's mind could survive that. But I suppose if anybody was going to bounce back from that and put on a charming smile, it's Jack.

But (on DW at least) Jack is depicted as a born adventurer and pansexual sex fiend, and Ashildir seemed like much more of an innocent who was ready to spend her whole life in a small village. Jack wanted excitement and novelty, so maybe having more time on Earth just gave him more places to go and people to bang. (Although that craving for newness must have made 1900 years under the dirt even worse.) Ashildir would have been content with one lifetime in her village, so maybe having centuries of life was a punishment instead of a gift.

(If she stayed in Europe that whole time that is kind of weird, but perhaps she did travel and we just didn't hear about that. Or maybe her homebody instincts kept her from wandering too far from home, which is sad in a whole new way. Even when she was sick of home, she loved it too much to leave.)

I'm not sure if the 10th or 11th Doctor would have given her the same excuse for leaving her on Earth. Maybe. But while 10 and 11 had their dark sides it's hard to imagine either one refusing her like that, saying those words. At the very least, they would have been a lot more distraught about it. (If 10 was ever going to give one of his "I am so, so sorry" speeches, this would have been the time.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:22 PM on October 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yeah, to be clear I think Jack was much better equipped psychologically to handle his immortality at the time he was resurrected than Ashildr was when she was saved, it's just that I think the difference was more that she was a teenage girl who'd lived her entire life in a 9th(?) century Viking village rather than a time-travelling adventurer in the prime of his life, less so what they went through afterwards, which in both cases was frequently miserable.

Are we supposed to know why purple is the color of death?

According to series 1's "The Empty Child" (Jack's first appearance, incidentally), mauve is the universal color for danger alerts everywhere except Earth.

I think Eleven might have taken her with him while coasting along in denial over the potential issues. But Ten has probably the worst track record of all the modern doctors at sitting down and having the hard conversations and the worst track record at respecting his companions' agency, so I think he might have handled it even worse than Twelve.
posted by bettafish at 6:54 PM on October 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


I enjoyed it for character-based reasons. Maisie Williams should play a highwaywoman more often, I think. Anyway, as usual, I thought it was fun and don't have much more to say about it here (you more enthusiastic types who want to discuss it know where to find me).

If she stayed in Europe that whole time that is kind of weird

I'm pretty sure I noticed a set of Japanese swords in the background of one shot inside her manor, which I assumed implied that she'd traveled outside of Europe. (Though who knows, maybe she takes after the Doctor in being...geographically obsessive.)
posted by wintersweet at 7:51 PM on October 25, 2015


but Children of Earth was a mess

I don't want to type that you are wrong (and you don't know I just said it out loud), but that is a rare position to take.

Are we supposed to know why purple is the color of death?

Because the non-descript costume broach is totally purple, and so obviously the Eyes of Hades....
posted by Mezentian at 12:19 AM on October 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


but Children of Earth was a mess

I'll say it. You are wrong. CoE wasn't just the highlight of the Torchwood series, but as sophisticated a piece of science fiction as I've ever seen on television.

Here's my problem with this episode specifically: I didn't buy the whole previous episode, so I had trouble with the premise of this one. I just don't believe the Doctor would have made someone immortal just because he didn't want them to die (based on that one time one of his previous faces saved someone with his current face). I mean, Captain Jack is mentioned in this episode and that back when the Doctor was having adventures with him at the end of time, the Doctor called Jack "wrong". And now he's made a teenage girl immortal?

What I liked about the episode was how he dealt with the aftermath of that, but I also am not sure I like the idea that she's hanging around helping out all his companions that he's left behind. Seems unsatisfying to me. Though I expect this will round off nicely at the end of the season when he leaves Clara behind.
posted by crossoverman at 3:57 AM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


I mean, Captain Jack is mentioned in this episode and that back when the Doctor was having adventures with him at the end of time, the Doctor called Jack "wrong". And now he's made a teenage girl immortal?

Jack was made 'immortal' because Magic Heart of the TARDIS, so his immortality was plucking at the strings of reality, time and space, and WRONG!

Ashildr's immortality was just magic science. Presumably some say, circa say 2015, she'll run out and age quickly in an SFX montage.
posted by Mezentian at 4:45 AM on October 26, 2015


*ahem*
Don't even mouseover if you think you can think you can avoid 'em:
Spoilers.
posted by Mezentian at 6:28 AM on October 26, 2015


Oh, but... you can click on this. Because you want to see the BEST new companion back. And you know it's totally a smokescreen for a return to the screen.
posted by Mezentian at 6:55 AM on October 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


Corgi Dresses Up As All 13 Doctors

Dogtor Who... I thank you
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:47 AM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


clicks on Mezentian's link and... We'll agree to disagree (unless there is some irony I'm missing in that post). We all have our favorites but she was definitely not mine. I think I'd sooner see her granddad Bernard Cribbins traveling with the Doctor.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:31 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Big Finish Tennant! Yay!
posted by brilliantmistake at 2:07 PM on October 26, 2015


Donna is definitely the best of the new companions. And then Martha.
posted by crossoverman at 9:11 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


When the Doctor mentioned that he had previously had a (virtually) immortal companion, my first thought was Romana.
posted by jwgh at 4:17 PM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm really surprised (but not displeased) by all the Martha-love here. Not so long ago it seemed like fans were really not at all happy with the character. I heard a lot of crabbing about how she was only defined by being hung up on the Doctor, and complaints about how she was treated as a POC. (To cite one example, some people were REALLY pissed about the Master forcing her to work as a maid in The Sound of Drums, they saw that as reinforcing the stereotype of POC working as servants. Personally I thought that was something the Master would have done to any of the Doctor's companions and Martha's ethnicity probably had nothing to do with it either in the story or behind the scenes. Still, it was quite a little controversy at the time.)

It's funny how fan consensus can shift so much, so quickly. I wonder if 5 or 10 years from now everybody will say Daleks in Manhattan was the best episode ever, and Amy Pond will be universally condemned as "the worst". It wouldn't surprise me. Not that I'd agree with those opinions, but that fan consensus seems to follow its own strange rules sometimes and there's no predicting it.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 7:44 PM on October 27, 2015


Not so long ago it seemed like fans were really not at all happy with the character.

She wasn't really well served, and the acting could have been better (Freema is so much better in Sense8), and she really didn't have much growth over her season. She would have been better served if they hadn't had her fall in wuff with The Doctor.

The best thing she ever did was quit the Doctor, character wise.

She was certainly better in Torchwood.

some people were REALLY pissed about the Master forcing her to work as a maid in The Sound of Drums

Was that her? I thought if was just her family. Wasn't she walking the Earth sharing the Power Of Love?

That's also quite an American-centric way of looking at it. Historically, most servants in the UK were lower class whites, from memory.

I wonder if 5 or 10 years from now everybody will say Daleks in Manhattan was the best episode ever,

There has been no such reappraisal for Time And The Rani and Mel has only been redeemed by Big Finish, so I doubt it.
posted by Mezentian at 12:43 AM on October 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Was that her? I thought if was just her family.

Actually I was mixing up two episodes. In Human Nature Martha worked as the Doctor's maid when he was John Smith and in The Sound of Drums her family had to do domestic duties while Martha was wandering the world. Now that I think of it, one of the objections I heard at the time was that Martha and her family had been forced into servant roles, like RTD was trying to make some point about POC... again, not saying I buy into the idea that that was the show being racist, just noting that it was a criticism I heard at the time and the people who believed it seemed really offended.

(Although now that I think of it, I thought RTD did have a creepy, fat-shame-y agenda going on. Lots of evil fat aliens and evil fat people and pathetic fat people and just a general, negative obsession with fatness. It was weird and it came up a lot, most spectacularly with the Andipose aliens who made chubby people melt into piles of freaky little fat babies.)

I really didn't think Daleks in Manhattan was so bad, and I've never understood the hate. Granted it's not the show's best episode ever, but I thought it was fine. I thought it was better than the Agatha Christie episode of the same era, which I've now completely forgotten beyond the Doctor and Donna travel back in time and meet Agatha Christie and... there's a giant bee, maybe?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:04 AM on October 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Although now that I think of it, I thought RTD did have a creepy, fat-shame-y agenda going on

Having seen episodes of QaF, that might say a lot about Rusty, if there is anything to say.
And given his thing for twinks (I suspect), you might be onto something.

most spectacularly with the Andipose aliens who made chubby people melt into piles of freaky little fat babies

Although, awesome concept.

and I've never understood the hate

Say "Human-Dalek" hybrid in a bad Noo Yoik accent.
Plus, Daleks are xenophobes, so the concept makes no sense.

I thought it was better than the Agatha Christie episode of the same era

I hated that ep at the time, it grew on me. Daleks In Manhatten didn't.
posted by Mezentian at 6:01 AM on October 28, 2015


Yeah, RTD's anti-fat thing is incredibly blatant -- the Adipose could have been salvaged if there'd been more emphasis on satirizing unhealthy diet culture regardless of people's weight, but the Slitheen are basically one long joke about how gross fat people are and I'm amazed he was given such a pass on it.

I think if there's been a sea change in the perception of Martha it's down to two things:

1. There are proportionately far fewer people in fandom whose "entry companion" was Rose, and none who see her as the de facto main character of the show (which, to be fair, she was for the first series!) such that any follow-up companion is an interloper.*

2. Black female fans (British, American, or otherwise) have spent a lot of time unpacking the racial dynamics of the show and of fandom's reaction towards Martha, and how they fit into broader patterns of how people of color and in particular black women are treated in sff/media. It's not so much "Martha is made to be a maid, and that's racist!" so much as asking questions like:

- why the only lead non-white companion on the show -- who is still one of only three major black characters in the relaunch who are also the only three major PoC, period -- is also the only one who spent such a vast swath of her time on the TARDIS looking after the Doctor and cleaning up after his messes to only begrudging thanks, and how that tied into expected roles for black women in fiction as caretakers for white people (or characters who are played by white actors, if we must be pedantic);

- why Martha, as female lead, was stuck playing second fiddle in a love triangle to a blonde white woman who wasn't even on the show any more, and how that tied into broader media trends of treating women of color and especially black women as less desireable;
- why all three major PoC on the show have storylines that involve being on the losing vertex of a love triangle;

- why Martha, who very visibly tried to keep her unrequited feelings to herself, was criticized for being needy and clingy by people who gave Rose a pass for many instances of jealousy and possessiveness, why people who criticized both Rose and Martha gave the Doctor a pass for his high-handed dismissiveness and mixed signals towards both women, and how these criticisms fit into broader fandom trends of allowing for and even venerating the imperfections of white male characters while ripping down women/PoC for the slightest faults;

- and so on.

I don't want to get too much into this because (a) I'm exhausted from the cultural appropriation thread and related meta, and (b) as a non-black woman of color I don't want to put myself in the position of speaking for or over black female fans, but that's a brief summary of why it's more complicated than being "quite a little controversy" that people "got really offended about."

Also, it is way past time for there to be another companion of color on screen.

*This dynamic repeated itself with Amy and Clara a couple of years ago, although it was less fraught because, you know, Amy and Clara are both middle class white ladies so there was a lot less hello-your-internalized-racism-is-showing.
posted by bettafish at 8:26 AM on October 28, 2015 [3 favorites]


I was also troubled by how they treated Martha and the fact that it seems like any time a female companion has a love interest who's a PoC, the Doctor doesn't like him, or is dismissive, or it turns out he's a villain, or he doesn't get any lines. It just kind of bothers me how this show tends to be so incredibly auteur-theory-centric that the show runner's personal hang ups and blind spots are all over the place like someone eating with food all over their face (like the anti-fat thing which I hadn't noticed but seems really obvious now). This seems like a common issue in British tv though.
posted by bleep at 9:34 AM on October 28, 2015


Yes! And so many of these problems could be solved simply by making more of an effort to cast major roles with PoC. It wouldn't be an issue to have two recurring boyfriend characters whom the Doctor doesn't like across eight whole seasons, if they weren't literally the only two black men in those eight whole seasons who appear in more than one story. And if the one recurring boyfriend whom the Doctor did like and who got to appear in two and a half seasons wasn't a white dude.

Part of the reason I'm a bit "meh" about the Paternoster Gang -- they're fun and all, but I hate this recurring sff trend of having more non-human characters in the cast than non-white humans.
posted by bettafish at 12:58 PM on October 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


Bleep, it's been a while, but wasn't the Doctor kind of mean and dismissive of Rory at first? And I seem to recall the show lampshading that the Doctor is generally rather hostile towards the boyfriends of his female companions. With the current Doctor that seems to be more of a protective fatherly thing, but with his previous three incarnations it was pretty clearly more of a romantic jealousy deal. I think the Doctor would have treated Mickey or Danny just the same if they were white, but it is kind of unfortunate that these two prominent boyfriend characters that the Doctor was sniffy about both happened to be POC.

As an aside, I'd kind of thought Clara was a POC, although I had no idea what her ethnicity was. Oswald is a pretty white name, but I guess I thought she was biracial or something. I don't remember seeing her parents. If Coleman's white, the Doctor hasn't had a companion who was a POC since Martha. That's a while.

Come to think of it... is the show whiter than it was in the RTD era? I haven't done a rewatch in a while and it could well be that there are just as many POC now as there were in the RTD era. But when I think of the RTD era I do tend to picture a more multi-cultural cast.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:14 PM on October 28, 2015


Bleep, it's been a while, but wasn't the Doctor kind of mean and dismissive of Rory at first?

Not that I remember, and if he was a little "Who's this chump?" it wasn't nearly to the extent of the way he treated Mickey like he wasn't there and Danny like human garbage. I know it was supposed to be about the whole "Oh I don't like soldiers" thing but I was still cringing really hard, especially when he was so happy when he thought Clara was dating a Matt Smith lookalike. And don't forget Donna's fiance who turned out to be a villain.

They showed Clara's parents in the episode where Matt Smith decides to go stalk her timeline to find out if she's cool and/or interesting; they were both white.

But while I think these issues are really obvious and unfortunate and give me second-hand embarrassment, I don't think it's willful malfeasance, I just that when one person is dominating any project as much as these showrunners do, their blind spots can't be mitigated by anyone else, and the result is a weaker product.
posted by bleep at 6:55 PM on October 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Lion-O was actually fine with me until he breathed fire. That probably sounded good in the script.

The climax didn't quite work, for a variety of reasons -- the outer space shot looked very '90s Video Toaster; the Doctor instantly got over Ashildr cold murdering a dude; the crowd instantly got over Ashildr trying to murder them -- but I thought the first half of the episode was very strong. I have no issues with Maisie Williams at all. I think she showed remarkable range, and held her own very well with Capaldi. On the whole, I think this is one of the best episodes so far this year.

I like the idea of giving Missy a companion. I like even more the idea of Missy just calling herself the Master again. It's been like a year and I still hate that the way I did the first time I heard it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:38 PM on October 28, 2015


Not that I remember, and if he was a little "Who's this chump?" it wasn't nearly to the extent of the way he treated Mickey like he wasn't there and Danny like human garbage.

I'd agree that the Doctor treated Mickey and Danny much worse than Rory. (Although I seem to recall the 10th Doctor being less nasty to Mickey than the 9th had been. But then, the 9th Doctor was a rather harsh and scrappy fellow in general.) If pressed I'm sure that both Moffat and RTD would say that they were trying to do color blind casting* on both roles and the Doctor wouldn't have treated Mickey or Danny any differently if they were white, and while that's great in many ways it does have the unfortunate effect of making the Doctor seem unusually harsh to two different POC dudes.

I found it easier to accept the Doctor being harsh to Danny, even if I thought the Doctor was being unfair. He had his anti-military thing, he was worried for Clara and he was jealous. And Danny could take it, he gave as good as he got. But poor Mickey was such a sad little doormat when he first showed up, and it felt like we were supposed to laugh at his frustration and jealousy. That whole thread really bothered me at the time.

Lion-O was actually fine with me until he breathed fire. That probably sounded good in the script.

For a minute I had no idea what you were talking about, but then I remembered this is supposed to be a thread about the most recent episode! That's how far we've wandered. Yeah, the flame breath was definitely one step too far. Even making him kitty-faced was rather dicey, and then he's a kitty-face who breathes flames!

*I know "color blind casting" is a somewhat outdated and even controversial term, but I was using it (as opposed to "non-traditional casting" which now seems to be the preferred term) to suggest that the roles were likely cast without regard to the characters' ethnicity, rather than the casting people specifically seeking to cast POC as the boyfriends.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 10:25 PM on October 28, 2015


I know "color blind casting" is a somewhat outdated and even controversial term,

Well, I'm baffled by that. Seems to me, not that this is my baliwick, that as "non-traditional casting" is an even worse term.

The think with the Doctor being dickish to Mickey and Danny is a curious one, since the Ninth and Tenth doctors were dickish. Matt Smith's Doctor less so, and now with Capaldi is crankiness seems to have been refined between the seasons.

Come to think of it... is the show whiter than it was in the RTD era? I

Interesting question. My gut feeling is that it is not, but I am sure there's an angry blogger somewhere who has tallied it up. Moffat's era has been complicated by the fact there have been more alien worlds, but I'd suggest it's about the same, more or less.

A quick way to figure it out would be to look at the promo shots they release. But I am too lazy.
posted by Mezentian at 4:35 AM on October 29, 2015


I think it's a mistake to focus on the Doctor's characterization with issues like this because the problem is the real world context that the show exists in, and the Doctor is, well, fictional. Nobody has made the claim that it's out of character for the Doctor to relentlessly refer to a math teacher as a gym teacher as a way to belittle his intelligence; the problem is that dynamic exists in a context where black men have spent hundreds of years being dehumanized by white people specifically through emphasis of their physicality and supposed lack of intelligence.

Moffat's era has been complicated by the fact there have been more alien worlds, but I'd suggest it's about the same, more or less.

I thought the same, but I decided to list all the recurring characters I could think of in each run and we're both wrong. Bolding the visible PoC:

RUSSELL T. DAVIES
4 seasons, 4 specials
Main characters: Nine, Rose, Mickey (being generous), Jack, Ten, Martha, Donna
Supporting/major guest stars/recurring villains: Jackie Tyler, Harriet Jones, Pete Tyler, Sarah Jane Smith, Francine Jones, Tish Jones, the Master, Sylvia Noble, Wilf
Bit players/Cameos/Technicalities: Clive Jones, Leo Jones, Elizabeth I, UNIT Captain Magambo, Trinity Wells, Toshiko Sato (at a stretch, since she wasn't intended as such, but then you have to add Luke Smith, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones)
Non-human: K-9, Dalek Sec, Davros

STEPHEN MOFFAT
4.5 seasons, 1 special
Main: Eleven, Amy, Rory, River, Clara, Twelve, Danny (being generous)
Support/Recurring: Madam Kovarian (eyepatch lady), Brian, Jenny Flint, Kate Stewart, Artie Maitland, Angie Maitland, Osgood, Courtney Woods
Cameos/Technicalities: Liz 10, Vincent Van Gogh, Elizabeth I, Mels Zucker, Clara's dad, Clara's gran
Non-human: Strax, Vastra, Dorian whatshisface (the blue guy), Davros

It's possible that Moffat is better at using colorblind casting for one-shot roles, but looking at the characters who come back, Moffat's era is hella white even just compared to RTD's. Also, it's worth noting that even where you do have PoC supporting characters and the like they're usually invested with less narrative/emotional importance than their white counterparts (eg Jackie and Wilf get stuff to do, character development, etc, whereas Francine's one big thing is that she accidentally sells her daughter out).
posted by bettafish at 10:05 AM on October 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


I found it easier to accept the Doctor being harsh to Danny, even if I thought the Doctor was being unfair. He had his anti-military thing, he was worried for Clara and he was jealous. And Danny could take it, he gave as good as he got. But poor Mickey was such a sad little doormat when he first showed up, and it felt like we were supposed to laugh at his frustration and jealousy. That whole thread really bothered me at the time.

I had the opposite reaction. The stuff with Mickey made the Doctor come across like an asshole, but it didn't raise my hackles. Either it wasn't as bad, (being rooted in character qualities Mickey actually displayed), or I was too busy being irritated at all the sad puppy dog eyes the Doctor kept making at Rose. (The Doctor having romantic feelings for a human being strikes me as incredibly creepy, and sort of washes out everything else that might have annoyed me about Nine.)

The Doctor's constant "P.E." jibes, on the other hand, struck me as really racist. I would've felt differently if he'd gone on about Danny's military service, calling him 'Sergeant' or something, but the dig that Danny couldn't possibly be smart enough to teach math always made me *very* uncomfortable. Like, "I am not sure if I would feel welcome at a function hosted by Moffat" uncomfortable.

I thought the same, but I decided to list all the recurring characters I could think of in each run and we're both wrong.

Thanks for looking at that in more detail. Fascinating.
posted by mordax at 1:29 PM on October 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


I felt the same way, mordax, because there really wasn't any other reason for him to have decided that Danny couldn't be a math teacher. He made that judgment from the moment he first met Danny. And there wasn't really anything about Danny's personality that would make him think that.

(I was also deeply irritated by Danny constantly calling The Doctor an officer and saluting him and all, because that felt like it came out of nowhere, too.)
posted by sarcasticah at 2:39 PM on October 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


(I was also deeply irritated by Danny constantly calling The Doctor an officer and saluting him and all, because that felt like it came out of nowhere, too.)

That seemed pretty clear-cut to me. Danny was picking up on the way the (current) Doctor orders people around, and he was perhaps sensing that the Doctor had seen combat in the Time War. I didn't get the feeling he was bowing to the Doctor's authority at all, if that's what you're implying. Every time he called the Doctor sir, I took it as a sarcastic F.U.

I gotta admit, at the time I wasn't seeing the unfortunate implications of the Doctor calling Danny PE, but now that it's been pointed out it does seem really icky. But the English have attitudes toward race that can be really puzzling to Americans. On the one hand they (seemingly) don't get bogged down in racial tension like we do in the US; I've heard it said that the English are hung up on class the way Americans are hung up on race. So, giving the English the benefit of the doubt, maybe it would never occur to them that the PE stuff would read like the Doctor was dismissing Danny's intellect because he was a POC.

On the other hand, I've seen English things where they make shockingly un-PC, race-based jokes that would NOT fly on US TV. (Even on QI they sometimes lapse into bad "Asian" accents and stuff. You are better than that, Stephen Fry.) So the PE stuff was either deliberately racist (which I very much doubt), unconsciously racist, or the English are so past America's racial crap that it wouldn't even occur to them that it could be racist. I'll leave it to our UK brethren and sistren to decide that one.

It's always been a little unclear how the Doctor was involved in the Time War. I mean, we know he was the guy who sealed the Time Lords and the Daleks in the time bubble, he was obviously a central player in the conflict. But was he literally a general, overseeing troops and planning battles? Was he personally flying ships and dropping bombs? It's hard to picture. Even back in the original series, the Doctor (depending on his incarnation) already seemed very contemptuous of guns and iffy about soldiers.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 10:11 PM on October 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


So the PE stuff was either deliberately racist (which I very much doubt), unconsciously racist, or the English are so past America's racial crap that it wouldn't even occur to them that it could be racist. I'll leave it to our UK brethren and sistren to decide that one.

I've thought about it, and I wouldn't.

*shrugs*

While I doubt very much that it's door number one there - deliberate racist intent doesn't seem like a warranted conclusion - I'm really not inclined to buy that it's door number three, either. Per bettafish's napkin math, Moffat brand Who is whiter than ever, which points to at least unconscious bias.

More than that, his attitudes about women have been unfortunate, and it's been my experience that goes hand in hand with a lack of care with regard to PoC. Clueless white guys don't usually confine their cluelessness to gender. It's usually pretty equal opportunity.

I realize that's circumstantial, but he isn't winning any "Most likely to deserve the benefit of the doubt" contests as a showrunner.

I also do find the whole thing at least a little out of character for the Doctor. Being an arrogant SOB is part of his characterization, (part I generally like - I came into the show in the Tom Baker era), but he's always tended toward 'painfully honest and condescending' over 'schoolyard taunts.' Again, if he insisted on referring to Danny by military rank, never ever letting the man live it down, it wouldn't have led to this visceral reaction on my part. (The way the Doctor treated Journey Blue in Into the Dalek was dismissive enough that I noticed it too, but predicated wholly on traits that actually existed. She was, indeed, a soldier, and he frequently butts heads with them.)

And of course, even if I'm wrong and there wasn't a hint of that going on, it just leads back to "The Doctor is behaving like a boy with a crush on a girl who is a few percent of his age, which is creepier even than Twilight."

Either way, hackles raised.

That said, it wasn't to "drop the show" grade anger for me, just... you know, clearly present and offputting. Enough to go on and on about it here for a few posts and hope the show does better in the future, anyway.
posted by mordax at 11:39 PM on October 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


eg Jackie and Wilf get stuff to do, character development, etc, whereas Francine's one big thing is that she accidentally sells her daughter out).

These are all RTD things, and so, if you look at it simply (and it has been a while since I read Rusty's book) Rose's annoying family were required to "ground" her. Martha followed that pattern, and needed a "grounded" family" (as did Donna). And, I say this honestly, but Mama Jones selling out the Doctor is entirely what Mama Tyler would have done if the script required it, and you cannot tell me that most of Martha's scripts weren't Rose's.

I've heard it said that the English are hung up on class the way Americans are hung up on race.

I think this is an understatement.

I might be crazy, being Not American, but Danny constantly calling The Doctor an officer and saluting him and all makes total sense to me.

As Ursula says, it is class, nor race.

But I can remember the Internet 'MELTDOWN" when Turn Left was on, and the rage was all about how Rusty "Gay Agenda" T Davies was the WORST BEING IN THE UNIVERSE because the fortune-teller was Asian and clearly that was evidence of EVIL.

I had the opposite reaction. The stuff with Mickey made the Doctor come across like an asshole, but it didn't raise my hackles

Mickey The Idiot did me, I'll tell you that. That was not MY Doctor. But I got over it.
posted by Mezentian at 11:31 AM on October 30, 2015


Yeah, sorry, but speaking as an actual Asian viewer of the show who is present in this thread, and not some sort of strawperson you can whinge about, I do think it's pretty gross that the one time an actor of East Asian descent played a character of plot importance it was full on exotic Orient bullshit with a side order of inscrutability and complete lack of motivation. Season one's "Marco Polo" was better than that relative to its era -- and I mean 1964 season 1, not 2005. Being less stereotypical than a story where all the Asian characters are played by white people wearing yellow makeup should not be a high bar to clear.

Racism on the Rise in Britain (The Guardian, May 2014)
Race in Britain 2012 (The Independent)
The overwhelming majority of Britons I've met who claim that they "don't get bogged down by racial tensions" are white ones.

I don't usually pull out "my friend" anecdotes, but I do happen to have a friend who is not only British but lives near Coal Hill School's stated location. She's an avid Who fan, and when The Caretaker aired last year immediately and without prompting from any oversensitive Americans started talking about the racial undertones of the Doctor's treatment of Danny. She's also white, so perhaps that makes her perspective more credible? </sarcasm>

Anyway, I have better things to do than discuss this with people who clearly aren't approaching the subject in good faith, so enjoy your evening.
posted by bettafish at 2:27 PM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


As Ursula says, it is class, nor race.

I don't buy that, (best I can tell from watching the news and gathering anecdotes from overseas pals, racial tensions and baggage are *different* in Europe, but I have seen no indication from any source that they are actually less than here), but it wouldn't really matter if I did. All that says is "a clueless privileged guy was a dick because of someone's socioeconomic status instead of their skin color." Not really cause for celebration. Just a different spin on the same problematic behavior, and not the sort of stuff I am happy seeing placed in the mouth of a favorite character from my childhood.

Mickey The Idiot did me, I'll tell you that. That was not MY Doctor. But I got over it.

That's certainly your prerogative, and I am not personally going to stop watching Doctor Who probably... ever. The show constantly reinvents itself, and it's easy to just skip over rough spots in the hope the next thing will be better. I actually like the current season pretty well so far.

However, the implication that anyone should just get over lousy depictions of class or racial dynamics in the media is pretty... not good. I think I'm with bettafish on bowing out of the thread, given that sort of talk.
posted by mordax at 2:43 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Who was implying that, though? At least in my own case I was saying that my grasp of racial tensions in the UK wasn't great and I'd leave it people in the UK to make that call. There seems to be a consensus that the show isn't deliberately racist but beyond that I don't think anybody is saying it's wrong to be offended by the way the Doctor treated Mickey and Danny. The Doctor was being a jerk, and deliberate or not the fact that they were both POC led to some really questionable scenes.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:29 PM on October 30, 2015


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