{"id":1829,"date":"2015-10-29T23:33:16","date_gmt":"2015-10-29T23:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1829"},"modified":"2015-10-29T23:33:16","modified_gmt":"2015-10-29T23:33:16","slug":"so-what-did-i-think-of-the-woman-who-lived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2015\/10\/29\/so-what-did-i-think-of-the-woman-who-lived\/","title":{"rendered":"So\u2026 what did I think of The Woman Who Lived?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Some wise soul, I forget who, (Tat Wood possibly?) observed that a great many problems with the production of Classic Who could have been solved with one modern-style \u201ctone meeting\u201d. At these august gatherings, department heads go through the script together, with the executive producer guiding the conversations, and duties are assigned not simply as a matter of avoiding doubling-up, but to ensure that the production is united by a common vision. Thus one avoids Johnny Byrne\u2019s script describing a gloomy, claustrophobic undersea environment being shot with every single studio light turned up to maximum.<\/p>\n

This excellent process should not be confused with creativity by committee. What\u2019s key is that the executive producer (or show-runner) is the last voice that matters. Everyone else can have opinions, but Russell T Davies or Steven Moffat will make the final decision. With too many people having what they imagine is the last say, a production \u2013 or even a script \u2013 can end up trying to serve too many masters and end up a porridge of ideas.<\/p>\n

Now, singularity of vision is no guarantee of quality. I didn\u2019t like Vincent and the Doctor<\/em> but I appreciated it as a singular vision of Doctor Who from a top writer. I absolutely hated The Trees Are Everywhere La Di Da<\/em> or whatever it was called, but even I must grudgingly admit that I hope the series still has the balls to experiment with new styles, whether or not I happen to think the results are worthwhile.<\/p>\n

The Woman Who Lived<\/em> has quite a serious problem in this regard. Just what kind of story was it trying to be? It felt somewhat as if Catherine Tregenna had written two different scripts \u2013 one a deep and rather sad philosophical meditation on the nature of longevity, the other a childish romp full of dick jokes and prat falls \u2013 and then due to some sort of Jeff Goldblum-style transporter accident with Final Draft, the two scripts ended up fused together into some sort of ghastly hybrid. Now a mix of styles can be bracing and fun, but it needs to be handled with a great deal of care, and both styles have to be worth doing and appropriate. My problem is that I adored one of Tregenna\u2019s scripts and hated the other.<\/p>\n

This episode and its predecessor are clearly the odd ones out in Series 9. Yes, they represent the two halves of a two-part story but there\u2019s far less connective tissue between the two episodes than is usually the case, and there are different writers for each half. It\u2019s odd then The Woman Who Lived<\/em> directly followed The Girl Who Spoilered<\/em> in the running order when there was no need for this. Sure, it\u2019s pretty obvious that we would be seeing Maisie Williams again, but it also seemed obvious we\u2019d be seeing Georgia Moffett again at the end of The Doctor\u2019s Daughter<\/em> but that was seven years ago and we\u2019re still waiting.<\/p>\n

Having the Doctor turn up after only a week of viewer-time and immediately be tracking the same gee-gaw as Maisie was clunky and unnecessary. Far more interesting to let us forget about Arya Stark for a few weeks, and then play the first meeting from the Doctor\u2019s point of view. Anyway, once they get together and start talking, much of what they have to say to each other is rather striking. Tiny details like the endless shelves of journals, Lady Me describing the lives of mortals like mayflies of like smoke, the pain she feels from having outlived her own children \u2013 it all works brilliantly and Maisie Williams sells it like a pro.<\/p>\n

When the Cowardly Lion turns up and starts breathing fire, I can\u2019t quite connect this to the rather wonderful adult science fiction I\u2019ve just been watching. And during the Doctor and Lady Me\u2019s break-in, where apparently the entire household has been struck with hysterical blindness and deafness, I began to wonder if I\u2019d fallen asleep and woken up during a repeat of Rent-a-Ghost<\/em>. (Hat tip to my mate John Voce however, making much of very little as Mr Fanshaw).<\/p>\n

Rufus Hound is a good and likeable actor, and was well cast as a swaggering highwayman, but having him cracker-joke his way off the gallows was just ghastly. The solution to the crisis was neatly hidden in plain sight, and I don\u2019t mind the Doctor Fendahl<\/em>ing his way out of a proper explanation, but even Maisie Williams can\u2019t pull off the ludicrously sudden volte-face<\/em> which Lady Me is now expected to experience.<\/p>\n

And the climax sets up an ending which is off-kilter in at least two different ways. Firstly, the Doctor has left Me in a worse position than he found her. Now she is still cursed with immortality but with no prospect of being able to bring someone else along for the ride. Secondly and more seriously, the notion that she is hanging around looking over the Doctor\u2019s shoulder for every Earthbound story post 1651 is rather odd and presumably it also means that she will be bumping into Clara The Impossible Girl quite a lot. Just how many magical guardian angels does one Time Lord need?<\/p>\n

So, for all the sensitive and detailed exploration of the pros and cons of Me\u2019s situation, it\u2019s a clear four. It can\u2019t be more than that because it didn\u2019t have time to go anywhere. For all the willy jokes and falling over, it\u2019s a two and so that\u2019s a three for the latest episode I\u2019m afraid, and there\u2019s no need for a score for the two parter because each half was very much its own thing.<\/p>\n

Whether or not we see any more of Maisie Williams and whether or not that retcons this review into a more (or less!) favourable one remains to be seen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some wise soul, I forget who, (Tat Wood possibly?) observed that a great many problems with the production of Classic Who could have been solved with one modern-style \u201ctone meeting\u201d. At these august gatherings, department heads go through the script together, with the executive producer guiding the conversations, and duties are assigned not simply as […]<\/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":[18,472,19,473],"class_list":["post-1829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-doctor-who","tag-rent-a-ghost","tag-reviews","tag-tat-wood"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-tv","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829","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=1829"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1836,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829\/revisions\/1836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}