8: "I'm Sorry Madam... I Think I've Been Murdered..."
One of the things that I've been mildly concerned about when it comes to Madame Vastra and Jenny is that, while their relationship has always felt real, it was so often played for laughs. 'Hey hey, we're Victorian lesbians! Isn't that wacky?' Which is exactly why that moment in The Name of the Doctor worked so well. I'd like to give Team Moffat credit for deliberately playing up the Vastra/Jenny relationship for comedy just to underscore this moment, but I'm fairly certain that it's just an incredibly happy accident of scripting. Whatever the reason, what happens is this: After several recurring appearances as that wacky Lizard Woman From The Dawn of Time and her Plucky Wife Jenny, and indeed, after spending the first 20 minutes or so of the story in that exact same tonal vein, Jenny is brutally murdered. And Vastra isn't even paying enough attention to notice when it happens. Because that's what happens when you're with someone for a long time. You take them for granted. You feel safe. You don't always pay attention the first time they say something because you're going to have the rest of your life to talk to them and you're in the middle of something else right now. And while you aren't looking something unspeakable happens, and suddenly the rest of your life together is over. The look on Madam Vastra's face once she finally realizes what's going on is underscored beautifully by
the very fact that their relationship had been played for laughs so much in the past. Because when you're with someone for any significant time, you don't actually spend every moment of every day thinking about the fact that you love them, regardless of what Melrose Place led us all to believe. And so that wrench from 'oh, it doesn't really matter' to 'Nothing else but this will ever matter again' is a powerful moment. I like Jenny as a character, but I'll never forgive them for undermining this scene by bringing her back from the dead 10 minutes later.