The Mystery of Maisie

Guest contributor Roy McGregor shares his thoughts on Maisie Williams’ mysterious S9 character.

When I first heard that Maisie Williams was going to be in ‘Doctor Who’ my reaction was surprisingly mild. I hadn’t really watched ‘Game of Thrones’ at that stage and, while I knew that Maisie was a great actress, I thought that there was not much point in getting all hyped up about her character as I thought she was probably just going to be playing a usual guest role. Now I’m not so sure.

Don’t get me wrong I haven’t jumped on the ‘Maisie is a Time Lady’ bandwagon yet, but I’m now more open to the thought that she could be more interesting that first thought. Currently I’m trying really hard to try not to have a strong opinion at all so I am going to try and go through all the facts as logically as I can while still leaving room for everyone to make up their own minds.

First let’s look at what her scene in the trailer actually contains:

Maisie’s character: (Pulls off mask)
The Doctor: (Staring incredulously) You?!
Maisie’s character: What took you so long, old man? (smiles)

That’s really it. All that we can gather is that she has met the Doctor before, that the Doctor is very surprised to see her, and that she is a girl with attitude. However there are a number of things that suggest that there is more to this than meets the eye.

For one thing we need to consider the positioning of the clip. It’s at the very end of the trailer. Usually in film or TV trailers an excited and important tease is put at the end of the trailer. Now there are really two reasons as to why that clip has been placed there that I can think of. The first, and sadly the most likely, is that the scene was put at the end so that it would be more noticed and all those fans of ‘Game of Thrones’ will see her in it and say to themselves, “I want to watch Doctor Who so I can see Arya be epic in sci-fi.” This is probably one reason why that clip was placed at the end of the trailer. I do think, however, that it is likely that putting the clip at the end of the trailer was there to emphasise that Maisie’s character is going to be important, not just to publicise Maisie herself.

The next important note to make is that the Doctor seems quite stunned to see Maisie’s character (OK from now on I’m going to nickname the character ‘Arya’). Again I think it means one of two things; firstly that she has a history with the Doctor which predates Series 9, that doesn’t really seem all that new necessarily as the Doctor has had many old friends that we never saw him encounter for the first time. The second is that, as this clip comes from ‘The Woman Who Lived,’ the Doctor might just be surprised to see Arya in a different time zone to the one he encountered her in ‘The Girl Who Died.’ This means one simple fact: Arya can time travel.

Now onto an element not mentioned in the trailer. There has been a lot of speculation regarding who Maisie will be playing and just about everyone who is in the know has said that it’s a secret. Usually when a prominent actor guest stars in Doctor Who someone at the BBC will leak something about it. The only times that this doesn’t happen is when the character is going to have a big reveal like Derek Jacobi and Timothy Dalton, who both had one in their respective stories. If Maisie is really just a time travelling young girl who drops in and out of time in Earth’s history for the sake of it, then why hasn’t The Mirror run an article yet about it? The reason that she remains a mystery is because the BBC wants her character to be a mystery. They don’t want the fans to know what they’re up to with her.

Earlier in this article I mentioned that there was speculation from some fans that Maisie was playing a Time Lady. This was because, as I said, she knows the Doctor, and the Doctor is surprised to see her. A number of these fans have theorised that Maisie must be a Time Lady from the classic series who has now been reunited with the Doctor again. While some have speculated that it could be Romana, the Inquisitor or even Chancellor Flavia (Yes seriously. I once met a fan who was wholly convinced that River Song was Davros in disguise!) most fans seem to think that Maisie is playing Susan Foreman. I understand why this theory is popular. In the classic series Susan was really ‘Good Girl 1963’ (Yes I know I’m being stereotypical but that was really how she was written) and I think a lot of fans would really like her to develop a more 21st century sense of independence and attitude. She’s not a helpless little girl any more. She is a kid that can take care of herself and doesn’t give a fig for niceties.

However while I like the Susan theory I have to admit that it is the most unlikely. For one thing we know from an article published on DWTV fairly recently that Carole Ann Ford still wishes to return to the role of Susan. Moffat has said in the past that he loves regenerations and I don’t think he’d be able to resist doing a regeneration sequence between Susan and Maisie. So there is no evidence to support the fact that she is Susan let alone a Time Lady. Mind you I suppose there’s no evidence to disprove it either…

I’m going to very quickly just mention the Clara=Arya theory. I’m not going to really explain it because if you’ve been on this site before you’ve probably read at least three articles about it in the past. I don’t think this is likely just because if Clara is the Doctor’s best friend I don’t think he’s going to address her as “You!” like he did in the trailer. Also Maisie has actually said that there is a 50/50 chance that she is Clara which, in my mind, makes it almost certain that she isn’t. Arya’s personality is also somewhat different to Clara’s, not to mention she is seen robbing a coach in an image taken during filming. I can’t say I know much about adolescent Clara but I doubt she was quite that bad as a kid. The only way Clara=Arya could work is if Clara were a Time Lady and could then regenerated into Arya which is impossible, isn’t it?

Conclusion

So what do we know at this point:

• Arya and the Doctor know each other.
• The Doctor is surprised to see Arya.
• Arya can time travel.
• Arya’s identity has been deliberately kept very quiet by the BBC implying that her character is going to be important.
• Arya could be a Time Lady but there is no evidence to support this other than “It would be, like, totally awesome.”
• Clara=Arya has never looked less likely.

The trailer has only been out for a little while though and I suspect that there will be more out by the time ‘The Girl Who Died’ airs in three months. Only time will tell.