[WARNING: The Following Review Contains SPOILERS!]

It was a fairly typical day for The Doctor. Four spaceships trying to kill him. His companion Clara trapped in the cold void of outer space with no oxygen and a nasty bit of brain-sucking vermin crawling around in her space-suit. But it was nothing The Doctor couldn’t handle.

A band of Vikings abducting them during a quick trip to Earth to wipe the nasty bits of brain-sucking vermin off of his shoe proved a bit trickier. But again, nothing The Doctor couldn’t handle. After all, pretending to be a god and terrifying the local savages into obeying you is Time Traveler 101.

Shame that another “Odin” appeared in the sky above the village before The Doctor had a chance to prove his divinity by showcasing his yo-yo skills. Thankfully, Clara has proven an apt pupil of The Doctor’s School Of Crisis Management and she’s soon able to bluff Odin and his allies – a murderous group of aliens known as The Mire – into leaving the planet alone… right up until they are challenged by Ashildr – a spirited Viking girl with a warrior’s heart.

With all of the village’s warriors dead and only a day to plan, The Doctor’s first instinct is to run and he encourages the Vikings to do the same. But when they elect to go down fighting, The Doctor will find himself torn between his duty to protect the integrity of time and his desire to help as many people as possible.

The Girl Who Died is a heavily conflicted episode. This is not to say that it is a bad one. Indeed, the episode hits far more than it misses. But those few misses are mighty ones indeed.

The key issue lies in the script by Doctor Who show-runner Steven Mofatt and writer Jamie Mathieson. This episode has a number of great speeches and a good deal of frankly hilarious comedy. That being said, there’s not a lot of sinew holding the meat and bone of the story together and the script depends entirely too much on cutting from point A to point B with no explanation being given for how things get to the next point.

A prime example of this is how Clara and Ashildr escape from a Mire deathtrap. We never see the actual escape. We just know it happens because they’re wandering around The Mire ship one scene later. There’s also the bit where The Doctor’s first training exercise with real swords somehow leads to half the Viking village being set on fire with no explanation. This sort of thing was fine and funny back when Moffat was writing Curse of the Fatal Death as a Comic Relief special but it is starting to grate on the nerves.

The larger problem is that The Doctor – in this story – does not exist as a character so much as a plot device. There’s a fertile mass of territory to be explored regarding the conflict between The Doctor’s promise (Never be cowardly or cruel. Never give in. Never give up.) and his natural inclination to run from danger. But this story doesn’t quite manage any seriously examination of this amidst the gags involving The Doctor playing drill sergeant to a gang of misfit Viking warriors or translating baby talk.

And then there’s The Doctor’s solution at the end of this episode regarding the titular girl who dies, which raises a number of questions. Chief among them being why The Doctor, having found a way to make humans immortal, doesn’t immediately give it to Clara?

Thankfully, the performers are able to make this material work in spite of all the logic gaps. Peter Capaladi has been on fire for the entirety of Series 9 and seems to be settling into the role of The Doctor to the point where he’s all but absorbed by it. Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams gives a powerful performance as Ashildr. And even Jenna Coleman – left with little to do but offer emotional support to The Doctor during his crisis of faith – showcases the strength one would expect of The Impossible Girl.