The Girl Who Died Trivia Quiz

Answer: Odin

The Doctor was attempting to intimidate the Vikings with his yo-yo (one of his less well thought out plans), claiming to be the god Odin, when an apparition of Odin suddenly fills the sky. Odin turns out to be the captain of an alien space ship who teleports all of the Viking warriors aboard so he can vaporize them.

Odin was the chief God in Nordic mythology. He is widely associated with both death and healing. Thor was the god of Thunder. Freyr and his sister Freya were associated with sexuality and fertility. Tyr was a lesser god associated with war.

David Schofield played Odin. He has been acting since 1967, and has appeared in numerous films and TV shows since 1976. His credits include "Gladiator" (2000) and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series.

Answer: Ashildr

Williams was Ashildr, a Viking girl who has visions. She helps inspire the Doctor to come up with a plan to save the village.

Williams is probably best known as Arya Stark on "Game of Thrones". She has been on the show since the pilot, and has managed to survive five seasons - an impressive achievement given the show's high body count. Williams played Abbie in the 2014 comedy "Gold" and Lydia in the 2014 coming of age drama "The Falling."

FYI for "Game of Thrones" fans, Richard Madden, who played Arya's brother Robb, dated Jenna Coleman (Clara Oswald) for several years. Madden says he was more excited than Jenna was when she was cast on "Doctor Who".

Answer: The Mire

The Doctor consults his 2000 year diary to find out the enemy is named the Mire, some of the deadliest mercenaries in the universe. Clara thinks she has managed to talk them into going away, when Ashildr challenges the Mire to a fight.

The Mara was a snake-like creature the Fifth Doctor fought in "Kinda" (1982) and "Snakedance" (1983). The Myrka was a sea monster creature used by the Silurians in "Warriors of the Deep" (1984). The Macra are a race of crab-like creatures, first fought by the Second Doctor in "The Macra Terror" (1967).

There was an alien species called The Mire in the 1965 episode "The Chase" but they have no relation to the species in "The Girl Who Died." The 1965 Mire came from the planet Aridius.

Answer: Rusty

Rusty was the nickname the Doctor gave to the broken Dalek in the episode "Into the Dalek" (2014). For the record, he nicknamed the Vikings Lofty, Daphne, ZZ Top, Heidi, Limpy, and Chuckles.

Tom Stourton played Lofty, Alastair Parker was Limpy, Barnaby Kay was Heidi and Ian Conningham was Chuckles.

Answer: Electric eels

The Doctor (who speaks baby) heard the baby talking about "fire in the water" which was a reference to electric eels. The Doctor was able to channel their power and use it as a weapon against the Mire.

The electric eel (Electrophorus electricus) technically is not actually an eel, but a species of knifefish. They are native to the Amazon river basin, so how a group of Vikings got their hands on electric eels is little puzzling.

Answer: polarity

"Reverse the Polarity" was a phrase frequently used by the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee). Pertwee was notorious for hating the techno-babble associated with "Doctor Who", so the writers often simply had him use the sonic screwdriver to "reverse the polarity" of whatever happened to be causing the problem.

Capaldi's use of the phrase, and his somewhat knowing wink that it didn't really mean anything, were a tribute to Pertwee.

Answer: The Fires of Pompeii

"The Fires of Pompeii", which aired in 2008, featured Peter Capaldi as Lucius Caecilius Iucundus. In the story, the Doctor causes the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, but he saves the family of Caecilius. The Doctor explains that he chose the face of Caecilius as a reminder that he has the power to save people. "I'm the Doctor - and I save people!" he declares.

The real Caecilius (yes, he really existed) was a banker in Pompeii. He died in 62 AD, 17 years before the eruption that buried the city.

"The Girl Who Died" also included scenes from "Deep Breath", Capaldi's first full episode as the Twelfth Doctor. He wondered why he had chosen that particular face - now we have the answer.

Answer: Heart failure

Ashildr appeared in a dragon costume to scare off the soldiers of the Mire. And it worked, they ran away in chaos. Unfortunately, not before they shot at the dragon. The energy from the weapons overloaded the dragon suit and caused Ashildr to have a heart attack.

Or it is possible the energy from the suit caused Ashildr to go into heart failure. The Doctor was sort of vague about what actually happened.

Answer: False

Unless you have never seen a second of "Doctor Who", you got this one ... Of course he saves Ashildr. He's the Doctor, he saves people. It's what he does. The Doctor is able to take medical technology from the Mire helmet, which repairs the damage caused by the Mire weapons and she comes back to life.

The Doctor notes that this makes Ashildr a hybrid. This actually fulfills the prophecy made by Davros about a hybrid being made from two warrior races. Just not the two Davros was thinking of.

The repairs the Doctor made mean that Ashildr is now effectively immortal. As the Doctor notes, the downside of immortality is watching everyone you care about eventually die. However, it does set up the next episode "The Woman Who Lived" (2015). Ashildr now appears to share the same fate as Captain Jack Harkness.

Answer: Jamie Mathieseon

This is Jamie Mathieson's third time writing for "Doctor Who". He also wrote the season eight episodes "The Mummy on the Orient Express" and "Flatline" (both 2014). He has the right background for the show, as his first film script was the 2009 film "Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel."

Ed Bazalgette directed "The Girl Who Died" as well as the follow-up "The Woman Who Lived." He also directed "The Doctor's Meditation", the short which introduced series nine. Bazalgette has been working as a director since around 2000, but before that he was the lead guitarist for The Vapors, famous for the song "Turning Japanese."

Catherine Tregenna teamed up with Moffat to write "The Woman Who Lived", the sixth episode of series nine. Tregenna has worked in the "Doctor Who" universe before, writing several episodes of "Torchwood".

Derek Ritchie worked as the producer on this episode. He has worked on several other "Doctor Who" episodes this season. Ritchie served as the Assistant Director on many episodes of "Being Human" (2009-2012).