Series 9, Episode 5 | 1 part | First broadcast: 17 October 2015 | Writer: Jamie Mathieson and Steven Moffat | Director: Ed Bazalgette
Cast
- Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor
- Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald
- Maisie Williams as Ashildr
- David Schofield as Odin
- Simon Lipkin as Nollarr
- Ian Conningham as Chuckles
- Tom Stourton as Lofty
- Alastair Parker as Limpy
- Murray McArthur as Hasten
- Barnaby Kay as Heidi
Summary
The Doctor and Clara are captured by a band of Vikings and dragged to their village, where a towering figure claiming to be the god Odin appears in the sky and lures the strongest warriors aboard a spacecraft with promises of Valhalla, only to have them slaughtered and drained of adrenaline and testosterone by the merciless Mire, an alien race that prizes conquest above all else. A young village woman named Ashildr, spared along with Clara, impulsively declares war on the Mire on the villagers’ behalf, leaving the Doctor just 24 hours to train a village of farmers, blacksmiths, and misfits into something resembling an army. Drawing on Ashildr’s gift for storytelling and a tank of electric eels, the Doctor rigs an elaborate bluff involving a giant illusory dragon puppet that terrifies the Mire into retreating peacefully. The celebration turns to grief, however, when the group discovers the strain of the device killed Ashildr, prompting the Doctor to break his own rules and use alien technology to resurrect her, unaware that in doing so he has made her functionally immortal, and unknowingly set her on a path that will echo through the rest of his life.
Interesting Facts
- This episode finally reveals why the Twelfth Doctor has the same face as Caecilius, a character Peter Capaldi played in the 2008 episode “The Fires of Pompeii,” using flashback footage of David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor to make the connection explicit.
- Actor Brian Blessed was originally cast as Odin but had to withdraw, with David Schofield stepping into the role; Blessed had previously appeared in the 1986 serial “Mindwarp” and had turned down the role of the Second Doctor in the 1960s.
- This is Maisie Williams’s introduction as Ashildr, a character who recurs across the remainder of Series 9, including “The Woman Who Lived,” “Face the Raven,” and the finale “Hell Bent,” under the adopted name “Me.”
- The Doctor’s decision to make Ashildr immortal is directly tied to the “hybrid” prophecy introduced by Davros in the series’ opening two-parter, seeding a mystery that runs through the entire season.
- The episode holds a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score and drew the show’s highest viewership of the series to that point, with critics singling out the chemistry among Capaldi, Coleman, and Williams.
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