WHO REVIEW: 11-1 - "The Woman Who Fell to Earth"

I love Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor.

Straight away, she's endearing, exciting, and 100% the Doctor. She doesn't get to do much with the character yet beyond some pretty basic Doctoring, and that's perfectly fine - this is her first episode, and more in-depth exploration can come later. She has a puckish charisma that steals every scene she's in, and she absolutely nails it from the outset. Refreshingly, she doesn't have to spend half the episode dealing with regenerative fallout. Aside from one collapse and a nap, and struggling to remember her name, she's straight into the action. Indeed, the name lapse isn't an example of the Doctor forgetting her identity; it's purely there so she can have a triumphant "I am the Doctor!" moment.

The multiple companion characters don't really stand much of a chance against Whittaker. They're all quite well drawn and performed but being consciously realistic and ordinary means they make less of an impression when there's this remarkable alien charging around. Still, it's a breath of fresh air to have recognisable characters again; aside from Bill, it's been a long time since we had an ordinary person on the team. I particularly like Ryan (Tosin Cole), who comes across as a believably frustrated but likeable young man. I'm interested in the reaction to the dyspraxia angle; I'm hardly an expert in the condition, but my girlfriend and several of my friends are dyspraxic and it's rare to see it portrayed on TV. Feedback from them suggests it's pretty positive so far, with Suz pleased that he's a pretty cool character and that it's not just being used to cheap laughs (although she did point out that there's no way he'd be going up that ladder so fast).

Yaz (Mandip Gill) is also very likeable, but her character is very sketched in so far. I get she's the capable one, who wants to prove herself, and having her in the police is a potentially interesting set-up, but nothing's really done with it. I'm hoping she gets to develop as the series continues. Other than Whittaker, the one who had to prove himself was Bradley Walsk, unfairly labelled as just a gameshow host when he's an established actor. As it is, he's perfectly good here, portraying perhaps the most real of the three companions; just an ordinary bloke who has believable reactions (although how anyone can possibly doubt the existence of aliens in Doctor Who at this stage is hard to credit).

The character I liked the most, though, was Grace (Sharon D. Clarke), Ryan's nan and Graham's wife, who's the most likeable and positive character in the episode. She brings everyone together as a team moreso than the Doctor, in fact), but she's not part of the companion group, so I guess she was doomed. However, this is a more personal, character-focused script than we generally got in recent Who, and the death of a character is genuinely saddening, even though we've only known her for a short time. Even dorky Karl (Johnny Dixon) is a sympathetic character.

It was never Whittaker or Walsh that made me worry, but Chibnall's past form. He's not, to put it politely, a writer who has provided consistently strong material. His strengths seem to lie more as a showrunner than a scriptwriter. I've never seen Broadchurch, and now it'll seem like the weirdest multi-Doctor story ever, but I've heard very positive things, but the first two seasons of Torchwood, which would seem like the most obvious point of comparison, were all over the place in terms of quality. On the whole, though, some clunky dialogue aside (and there's plenty of that), this is a pretty decent script. Utilising the industrial North provides a different feel to what's gone before, although still thoroughly British, and the grim night setting, along with more understated music than we're used to, intensifies this. If anything, it has the air of early Torchwood, which perhaps isn't surprising, albeit without the painful attempts to seem "adult," which is a mercy. It's an odd mix of the real life procedural, kids' telly sci-fi and some gruesome horror, but it works. 

It's a straightforward story, to be sure, but that's no bad thing when it comes to an introduction. The almost complete lack of references to the past make this a sharp break; even "Rose" featured an old monster, and lately the series has become very inward-looking. There's hardly anything here that calls back to what's gone before. There's a reference to having been "a white-haired Scotsman," and she's running around in his clothes (I love it when the new Doctor is still in their predecessor's clothes, and Jodie actually looks amazing in the battered suit), but otherwise that's pretty much it. Even mentions of the TARDIS and the sonic screwdriver are pretty much standalone. It really does work as a jumping-on point for new viewers, and I have a few friends who sat down to watch it with their kids for the first time ever and loved it.

 A fairly standard runaround with a monster or two is a safe bet, and that's what we got. I liked the electrical cable beast a great deal - it'c clearly alien but almost unrecognisable as a life form, a very uncanny effect. I wasn't so sold on Tim Shaw - although that joke was great - but again, a generic Predator-esque alien is a simple concept to put across in an episode that's busy introducing other things. The tooth-face thing was horrible though - I'm not alone in finding that genuinely disquieting. If he was such a massive cheat, though, why didn't he just pull all the teeth out of his victims and stick them in his head to make it look like he had loads of trophies?

Tooth-face Tim might have been a step a little too far for the kids, but this otherwise hits the right balance for a family show. It's accessible and a lot of fun, and although it lacks the colourful verve and newness of “Rose” and the sheer bold skill of “The Eleventh Hour," it's just different enough to successfully kick off a new era of Doctor Who.

Some observations about the Doctor:

I'm pleased that not much was made of the Doctor's change of gender. A couple of jokes, but barely a mention really. A nice line about change and how it's just something we all have to deal with. Plus, the costume choosing scene. I love that the Doctor picks out her clothes from a charity shop - is this the first time she's ever actually got her clothes from a shop, rather than already owning them or just nicking them? It would be even better if the costume actually had been collected from charity shops instead of being the result of an intensive design process. Also, when does she get her ears done?

The new Doctor is more immediately compassionate than her predecessors. She says sorry an awful lot - not the dramatic "I'm so, so sorry," of Tennant, but genuine concern for people having to see terrible things. On the other hand, she's exactly as holier-than-thou as her forebears. She lays into Karl for kicking Tim Shaw off the crane, after the guy was hunting him and after she just tricked him into liquefying himself.

Is it me, or does the Doctor have a serious Holtzmann-from-Ghostbusters vibe when she puts on the goggles and apron and builds her own screwdriver?

Some general observations:

This is the first time on TV that we've had an Asian British companion, and the first time we've had a regular companion who appears considerably older than the Doctor (although Tennant had several one-offs). Am I right in thinking this is the first disabled companion in any medium? Correct me if I'm wrong.

So far, the music is a big improvement. Not to say I didn't like Murray Gold's work, but god, it was relentless sometimes. It's nice to have something you can hear the dialogue over. I like the theme too, but it'll be nice to get a title sequence next week.

The aesthetic is a bit weird when compared to the promotional material. That was colourful, the episode itself is dark and sinister. The promotional reel after the episode is strange as well, focusing on the actors rather than monsters and exciting visuals.