Nu-Who stories don’t come much more straightforward than The Girl Who Died. The Doctor comes across a downtrodden group of survivors, coaches them up and successfully takes on the alien threat. Simple.
Or was it?
The nearly effortless turn from light-hearted romp to introspective drama occurred with plenty of time left in the episode, and this Doctor started moving into The Waters of Mars territory with his ruminations about those who have been left behind in his wake. He’s almost literally “facing” up to his perceived responsibilities without going over the top as he did in The Waters of Mars.
Or did he?
The Doctor makes a decision with consequences which will play out next week. Thankfully Maisie Williams’ Ashildr didn’t turn out to be someone more familiar in the Doctor Who ethos but rather was her own person. What she’ll be hundreds of years down the line is something we’ll just have to see about.
Images and caps for The Girl Who Died are now online. We’re also making the call on some images we’ve been sitting on for awhile and are preliminarily putting them into The Doctor’s Meditation, though the Tour reserves the right to move them later in case this turns out to be premature.
One note for The Woman Who Lived. Owing to pre-existing obligations the workup for that story will necessarily be delayed by a few days. We think it’ll be worth the wait.