20 Worst Doctor Who Episodes Ever

12. The Woman Who Lived

Doctor Who The Lie of the Land Peter Capaldi
BBC

The Woman Who Lived is one of the most lacklustre, uninspiring Doctor Who stories of all time. So much so that it's kind of hard to class it as one of the worst, because it's hard to summon up any strength of feeling about it whatsoever.

Maisie Williams doesn't have the range to portray the centuries of sorrow experienced by Me, and therefore comes across less like a lonely god and more like a stroppy teenager.

Rufus Hound does his best to provide the comic relief, and Capaldi responds well to this. However, Williams' performance is so flat, and the threat (a literal Lion King) is so unthreatening that it ends up as a damp squib of an episode.

Which would be fine, if it wasn't also an integral part of the ongoing series arc. Oh dear.

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Citizen of the Universe, Film Programmer, Writer, Podcaster, Doctor Who fan and a gentleman to boot. As passionate about Chinese social-realist epics as I am about dumb popcorn movies.