Doctor Who: 12 Big Questions About Ashildr's Episodes

The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived continued Doctor Who series nine's winning streak. The first episode was a fun tale of Vikings versus robots, underlined by some great moral dilemmas, a deeper view of the Doctor and Clara's relationship and the debut of mysterious Viking girl Ashildr . The follow-up, while not technically part two of that tale, delved deep into the ramifications of what it meant to be immortal, with the fascinating debate between Ashildr / Me and the Doctor providing the heart of the story against a backdrop of 16th Century highwaymen, a fire breathing lion and the threat of an alien invasion from another galaxy. While Peter Capaldi continued to deliver another mesmerising performance as the Doctor it was Game Of Thrones' Maisie Williams that audiences were really looking out for. Could the girl who captivated audiences worldwide as Arya Stark deliver an equally impressive performance in Doctor Who? Arguably, the material Williams has to work with in The Girl Who Died probably wasn't quite as impressive as that other show - Doctor Who is still a family show after all - but in The Woman Who Lived Williams gave a performance that was subtly different; cold, bitter and yet still filled with warmth at times, a very different Ashildr to the girl the Doctor met 800 years earlier. But what was most intriguing was that the concluding part of her tale continued to bring up more questions than it answered and expanded some of series nine's themes - the Time Lord legend of the hybrid for example - in new and surprising ways. These two episodes have given audiences a lot to think about and in most cases, Ashildr is at the centre of it all...