“The Woman Who Lived” is probably my favorite episode so far of this season. The episode thrived on the chemistry between Peter Capaldi and Maisie Williams. I definitely hope we see more of Ashildr in the Doctor’s future; she could be a tremendous frenemy for our favorite Gallifreyan.
Their chemistry worked so well because their characters had so much in common. I wonder if the Doctor saw some of himself in Ashildr. Perhaps the Doctor had to wrestle with his own feelings of loneliness in order to become the hero we know him to be.
Here are some other thoughts I had while watching “The Woman Who Lived.”
Me
Ashildr was so committed to her solitary lifestyle that she changed her name. I’ve never really thought about changing my name but, if I did, I’d definitely go for something less depressing than “Me.” I can understand why she would want to change her name and why she would want to avoid human contact. She said it herself when she told the Doctor that she had infinite life with a normal-sized memory. I can’t imagine the people you love most being nothing more than a passing mist or a fleeting vapor. After hundreds of years of loving and losing I probably would only focus on me as well.
Memories
The first scene in Me’s house was heartbreaking. Her desperate loneliness was crushing, as were some of her most difficult memories. When the Doctor asked her about the torn out pages from her journal, Me said that when things were real bad she would tear the memories out. I again can commiserate with Me’s sentiment; who hasn’t wanted to tear out a painful memory? As much as we would like to, though, we can’t root out our painful memories; and even if we could, we shouldn’t. All of our experiences, the good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, shape us into who we are. God takes all of our experiences and either works through them or in spite of them.
Life
I usually don’t watch the new episodes of Doctor Who on Saturday night. Before that was because I didn’t have cable, but now it’s just more convenient to watch them on my schedule. So I was two days behind on this episode and I saw the official Doctor Who Twitter account tweeting out a lot of pictures of Sam Swift. As I watched the episode I wondered why Doctor Who had tweeted so much about such a small character. When he showed up at the end, though, the massive number of tweets made sense. I loved how the Doctor appreciated Swift’s passion for life, how Swift wanted to make the most out of every moment. After living for centuries it might be easy to lose sight of the simple joy of being alive. Heck, I’ve been alive for 34 years and I sometimes miss out on the joy of being alive. But there’s so much joy to be had in each day, with every breath. Hopefully it won’t take us until the end our lives to find the joy in life.
I thought this was a spectacular episode of Doctor Who; it used Ashildr to help us better understand the Doctor. As much as I enjoyed the episode, though, all the foreshadowing of Clara’s departure did leave me a little heavyhearted. However, instead of worrying about what will happen when Clara’s gone, I’m just going to enjoy her while she’s here.
What did you think of “The Woman Who Lived?”
I only started watching Doctor Who when Capaldi took over. I think this and the one before (The Girl Who Died, dealing with the power of story) are among the strongest I’ve seen. It goes a long way toward converting me to a true “Whovian.”
I would love to hear more about your experience of Doctor Who. So much of my experience with it is based upon previous Doctors.