{"id":1812,"date":"2015-10-20T14:48:35","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T14:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1812"},"modified":"2015-12-03T20:34:31","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T20:34:31","slug":"so-what-did-i-think-of-the-girl-who-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2015\/10\/20\/so-what-did-i-think-of-the-girl-who-died\/","title":{"rendered":"So\u2026 what did I think of The Girl Who Died?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Let\u2019s return to that discussion about brilliant execution vs vaulting ambition. If a \u201cperfect\u201d story requires both, but this occurs very rarely, does that mean I will only give five stars to one story every 2-3 years? No, I\u2019m not quite that stingy. A really solid adventure, with strong characters, neat concepts, well-directed and with a couple of exceptional moments will still do me fine. But that also doesn\u2019t mean you get a \u201cpass\u201d because your story was well done, but rather familiar, very simple and far from pushing the envelope, is apologetically backing away from it.<\/p>\n

The Girl Who Died \u2013 taken as a stand-alone story \u2013 does almost nothing wrong. The narrative line is clean and strong, there are no obvious plot holes which I spotted, the threat is real and makes sense and the Doctor\u2019s solution is clever without being incomprehensible. The banter between the Doctor and the Vikings I actually found funny (unlike Rubbish of Sherwood<\/em> last year) and Clara has a significant stake in the action.<\/p>\n

But shorn of part two, it feels a teeny-weeny bit \u201cso what?\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at some of the good points in more detail. As other commenters have noted, this is a rather bracing science-fiction, historical splicing together of Dad\u2019s Army and The Seven Samurai, which is not something we\u2019ve seen before in Doctor Who at any rate. Capaldi is the perfect Doctor to train this wet and weedy bunch of Norsemen, barking out caustically hilarious nicknames for them as he frantically scrambles to contrive a strategy which will keep them alive. The Vikings themselves are storybook versions of the real thing, which makes perfect sense. \u201cReal\u201d Vikings are much less fun to look at, and part of the point of the show is that they look like the fearsome warriors of our imaginations, but in fact they can\u2019t hold a sword or swing an axe without mishap.<\/p>\n

The Mire are a perfectly serviceable villain of the week, even if \u201cOdin\u201d is little more than a stumpier version of last week\u2019s Fisher King. Maisie Williams as Ashildr makes an instant impression and those stupid sonic glasses got snapped in two. Even \u201cI can speak baby\u201d was tolerable this time around.<\/p>\n

But, it\u2019s a pretty trivial matter for the Doctor to get involved in really, and without that sting in the tale it amounts to very little. Sadly, the sting in the tale is not without problems of its own. Firstly, I\u2019m not at all clear what Maisie Williams has died of. She seems to have come down with a fatal case of wearing a hat, which is not altogether convincing. Secondly, we\u2019ve had this debate before, with rather more piss and vinegar, in The Waters of Mars<\/em> and this new version didn\u2019t add an awful lot to the pile. Thirdly, it\u2019s not at all clear to me why destroying the galactic reputation of a war-mongering race represents a \u201cripple\u201d in time and giving one girl from 800AD a longer life represents a \u201ctidal wave\u201d.<\/p>\n

That having been said, the notion of a precocious Viking girl getting to live forever is rather a beguiling one, with something of a Torchwood<\/em> feel to it (and not just because it\u2019s about immortality). I am keen to see where this goes next week, and I did enjoy the episode, but it\u2019s a curtain-raiser rather than a completely satisfying story in its own right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s return to that discussion about brilliant execution vs vaulting ambition. If a \u201cperfect\u201d story requires both, but this occurs very rarely, does that mean I will only give five stars to one story every 2-3 years? No, I\u2019m not quite that stingy. A really solid adventure, with strong characters, neat concepts, well-directed and with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[18,19],"class_list":["post-1812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-doctor-who","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-te","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1812"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1882,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812\/revisions\/1882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}