Daily Archives: November 4, 2023

‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon – ‘The Girl Who Died’

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

We’re back to single episode stories in Series 9 in ‘Doctor Who’, although we have the first of what is considered to be a two-episode story arc linked together by the introduction of a new character in the series. Today, we’re looking at ‘The Girl Who Died’ by Jamie Mathieson and Steven Moffat. This ‘Doctor Who’ episode has Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor and Jenna Coleman as Clara visiting a Viking village where the alien Mire, led by David Schofield (who I’ve heard in ‘The Doomsday Quatrain’) as Odin, make their attack. The titular ‘girl who died’ happens to be Maisie Williams (well-known for being Arya Stark in ‘Games of Thornes’ and I’ve seen her as Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane in ‘The New Mutants’) as a Viking girl called Ashildr. This story also features Simon Lipkin (who played Mr. Poppy in ‘Nativity! The Musical’ and has been in the 2018 film ‘Nativity Rocks!’) as Nollarr, one of the Vikings in the Viking village. There’s Ian Conningham as ‘Chuckles’, Tom Stourton as ‘Lofty’, Alistair Parker as ‘Limpy’, Murray McArthur as Hasten, and Barnaby Kay (husband of Nicola Walker who plays Liv Chenka in the Big Finish audios of ‘Doctor Who’) as ‘Heidi’. With Ashildr’s introduction in ‘The Girl Who Died’, she becomes a prominent character for the rest of Series 9. But does she win me over in her debut episode? Does she become a worthwhile character to be enjoyed in the ‘Doctor Who’ TV series? ‘The Girl Who Died’ can be checked out on DVD, Blu-ray and BBC iPlayer. Continue reading