·
Yes, this is a separate story to “The Girl Who
Died”: they have different writers and settings, and different characters save
for the Doctor and Ashildr/ Lady Me. Clara isn’t even in most of Part Two,
which is a companion lite episode. And tellingly, this episode doesn’t start
with a “last time” sequence, instead just diving straight into the action. I bring
this up because it gives me the chance to acknowledge an important fact about
series nine: it is not a series of entirely two part stories: while arguments
from authority don’t confirm anything substantial, it’s worth noting that “The
Girl Who Died”, “The Woman Who Lived”, “Sleep No More”, “Face the Raven”,
“Heaven Sent”, and “Hell Bent”, are all listed as one part stories by the BBC.
Even the stories that are listed as two parters have single episodes that are
clearly defined parts of their respective two parters (“The Witch’s Familiar”
is the episode with the Doctor and Davros’s conversation, “Before the Flood” is
the episode with the time loop, “The Zygon Inversion” has the Doctor’s big
speech). Instead, the success of the series comes from its breaking down of the
barriers between single and multi part stories.
·
This is an episode that is brilliant in its best
parts, particularly its experimental bits, most of which come in the first half
of the story, but wobbles in the second half as the Doctor Who story creeps in.
I get the sense Treganna isn’t comfortable with the stereotypical Doctor Who
plot, just wants to be doing the Doctor and Lady Me’s two hander, and wants to
get it out of the way: she doesn’t take the time to integrate it into the
deeper themes and ideas of the episode, in stark contrast to “The Girl Who
Died” before it. Unlike Moffat and Mathieson, Treganna seems to include the
monster plot because she feels that is a necessary part of a Doctor Who story,
not because it is something she wants to comment on. Nonetheless, she pulls
things back in an excellent coda: the fact that in spite of all the good, “The
Woman Who Lived” is still one of the weaker series nine stories, reflects well
on the season rather than particularly badly on the episode.
·
So let’s get to the good of the episode. It’s
first worth noting that Catherine Treganna is the first female author in the
Moffat Era, and only the second in New Who, something that is undeniably
overdue, and a continuation of a clear, and welcome, push to make series nine
more diverse both behind and in front of camera. And the episode has some
satisfying continuations of series nine’s feminist themes, with the episode
subtly but notably hinting what it was like to be an apparently young woman
living through history for Ashildr/ Lady Me, as she reports nearly being
drowned as a witch after saving a village, having to disguise herself as a man
for the battle of Agincourt (her “first stint as a man”, so she had to do this
multiple times to achieve what she wanted in her life), and losing her children
to the black death. While I’ve founded plenty of interesting, and feminist
themes in the Moffat era so far (contrary to many critiques of his early
seasons in particular), it’s a nice example of the way a new, more personal,
perspective can find things to say, with perhaps a little more nuance than a
less personal perspective. That is not to say Treganna has exactly the same
perspective as a woman who has lived through the middle ages to the 1600s, but
she does share more of that perspective than any of the male writers who have
written for the show. As a result she asks different questions, in a subtly
different way to those writers, about what Lady Me might have gone through.
·
Lady Me brings back the theme of the names
people choose, and the way these are tied to our identity. She has shed the
name of Ashildr, who, in many ways, has died along with the village that she
loved and loved her, just as she predicted in “The Girl Who Died”, and has also
hinted that she rid herself of any other identifiers she might choose to use.
Now she is just “me”, the singular pronoun she uses when talking about herself,
because she is all she has in life. Except this isn’t completely true: she also
chooses the identity of “The Knightmare” (another male disguise she uses to
survive in a world she wouldn’t be allowed to enter as a woman), a highwayman
who robs from the rich, and trades insults and blows with other highwaymen.
Also significant is the “Lady” part of her chosen name: she is now a member of
the aristocracy, one of the privileged members of society, reflecting her
sometimes disdainful attitude towards the value of mortal lives. Both of these
names are tied to her relationships with others, she is not yet the truly singular
person she claims to be, the “one and only me”.
·
Lady Me is also tied to the recurring Moffat era
theme of memory, a theme explored through her diaries. She cannot remember
everything about her life, as she has a finite memory but an infinite lifespan,
so she keeps in literature, as a story. She also has a literal selective memory,
tearing out the particularly painful parts, but keeps the memory of losing her
children, to remind herself not to have any more.
·
Also significant is the question of whether the
Doctor was right to save Ashildr, and notably, the ultimate conclusion was that
he was. The critique of his action doesn’t land on the idea that the Doctor was
wrong to break the laws of time, or create a “Tidal wave””, but that he ran
off, and didn’t take responsibility for the consequences of his decision. And
the critique of his actions is made stronger because the story allows him to
respond to the critiques, particularly in the “I didn’t think the well of human
kindness would run dry” exchange with Ashildr, unlike, for example, “Journey’s
End”, where Davros makes an incredibly superficial critique of the Doctor,
where the Doctor isn’t allowed to make any of the staggeringly obvious defences
of himself. Here, there’s a back and forth between the Doctor and Lady Me, that
makes for better drama, and enables us to take both of their actions, arguments
and worldviews seriously.
·
The other key theme in the episode revolves
around the importance of mayflies: the mortal lives the Doctor and Ashildr pass
by over the course of their existence. The need to share a life with a mortal
is cited as the reason the Doctor won’t travel with Lady Me: he says the two of
them travelling together “wouldn’t be good” because they don’t share the
perspective of mortals, a nice parallel to his “I prefer it down there.
Everything is so much bigger” speech from “Deep Breath”. Over the course of
this discussion, Clara is contrasted to Lady Me, and the Doctor’s fear of
losing Clara once again drawn attention to in Lady Me’s “she’ll die on you, you
know” exchange with him. The Doctor values travelling with mortals, and the
perspective this gives him, but he is ill-equipped to deal with losing them. This
discussion culminates in the lovely scene in the bar after the resolution of
the Leandro plot: Lady Me concludes that she will look after the “mayflies” the
Doctor leaves behind, and when the Doctor asks if this means they are enemies
now, she says they are “Not enemies, friends”. Once again, the complexity of
friendship is a key theme for series nine, the true source of hybridity in the
series.
·
The episode closes on the coda with Clara in the
TARDIS: there’s a wonderful warmth between Clara and the twelfth Doctor now, a
lovely progression for their relationship after the trials of season eight. But
the ominous warning of Ashildr’s “she’ll blow away like smoke” still looms in
the background, just as she hides in the back of Clara’s photograph, a
confirmation she is still watching after the Doctor’s impact on the world, and
we end on the note of the Doctor’s fear of losing Clara. These may be the glory
days for Clara and the Doctor, but a Raven is waiting.
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