10 Doctor Who Episodes You Completely Forgot Existed
5. The Girl Who Died / The Woman Who Lived - Jamie Mathieson, Steven Moffat And Catherine Tregenna
Hey, you know Maisie Williams? She's in that other show that you all watch. You know, the dragon one? You like her right? Well, lets put her front and centre where everyone can see her so we don't have to think too much about the plot!
Direct quote from Steven Moffat on this drag of a two-parter from Series 9.
Okay, so this may have been a small lie, but this certainly seems to have been the extent of the plan for The Girl Who Died / The Woman Who Lived.
The first half is essentially one big setup for the meatier story that Moff and company wanted to tell in part two, and so The Girl Who Died ends up feeling like some grade A fluff as a result.
The episode ends with The Doctor choosing to make a dead girl he's known for all of twenty four hours an immortal without her consent, probably because he realised most of his viewers were about to hop over to ITV, or that Maisie Williams cost far too much to hire to kill her off so soon.
In fairness, The Woman Who Lived is able to do a lot more with Ashildr, but still not enough to justify the hour and a half combined runtime we spend with her.
Also, was there a fire breathing cat man in there somewhere?