Doctor Who
Season 9, Episode 6 “The Woman Who Lived”
Directed by Ed Bazalgette
Written by Catherine Tregenna
Starring Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Maisie Williams, Rufus Hound
BBC America
Air date: Saturday, October 24, 2015
If I talk to my mother about growing old, one of the things she reports about getting old is the annoying sensation of seeing people make the same mistakes over and over again. It is that sort of insight that raises questions about immortality in Doctor Who 9.6, “The Woman Who Lived.” How do you deal with the fear and ignorance of those around you? How do you form relationships with individuals whose status can only be transient? Do you have children when you know that you may see them grow old and die? How do you react to a world that seems to lurch often backward and only occasionally forward? These are all tremendously fertile questions to examine through drama, and while the episode frequently does a more than competent examination, it is let down by some uninspired elements that pop up in its last half.
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