Review: Doctor Who 11.1: The Woman Who Fell To Earth

This is late, but then so am I.

Thirteen (Jodie Whittaker) proudly brandishes her
"Sonic Swiss-Army Knife"

Well then. Doctor Who is back after a long wait, now with a woman in its lead role. Casting Broadchurch actress Jodie Whittaker as the new Time Lord was a genius decision, if only for the fact that it brought discussion of the show to an all time high as people of every background argued back and forth about what a woman would bring to the role. I was cautiously optimistic - I knew that the performance of any new Doctor was half performance and half writing, and with Chris Chibnall at the controls it was anyone's guess what the writing would be like. The result of this experiment desperately wants us to think that it's The Eleventh Hour but in Sheffield, but it fails to reach that level for a variety of reasons.

I'm not sure what Jodie Whittaker was aiming for with her characterisation of the Thirteenth Doctor. She's manic, brutally honest, and also breathtakingly human and vulnerable. It's hard to get much more than that because we get precious little time with the Doctor on her own to assess her as a character in her own right; instead, she feels like the leader of a gang of kids, which is what Chibnall seems to have been going for. A lot of her key character moments, like shouting at someone for attacking an already-downed foe, or her triumphant "I Am The Doctor" speech, would have been a lot better if not for the utterly pedestrian editing, which was all over the place and gave the episode an odd, out-of-place feeling. I am confident that she at least knows what she's doing, which is why I'm optimistic, but at the moment I'm struggling to get the same gravitas from her as from previous Doctors.

The TARDIS team (or should I say TARDIS-less for the moment) has been packed with three new companions - dyspraxic Ryan (Tosin Cole), his step-grandfather Graham (Bradley Walsh) and PC-in-training Yaz (Mandip Gill). Most of the episode's focus is on Ryan, as he struggles to learn to ride a bike in the Sheffield hills, with grandmother Grace (Sharon D. Clarke) and Graham watching on. After he discovers a bizarre alien pod in the woods, he calls Yaz, and the two of them eventually end up on a train with Grace and Graham as an alien attacks and an amnesiac Doctor falls through the roof. After heavy publicity around the three companions, Grace's increasing presence in the adventure was immediately suspicious - and, on cue, she dies near the end of the story, creating lasting drama for Ryan and Graham. The two male companions have got the most drama going on, and the most tension for future episodes (although the whole "Call me Grandad" thing is lame, he's 19, he can call you what he wants) which really leaves Yaz in the cold a bit. A lesson not learned from Season 19 here - three companions is far too many, and so far Chibnall isn't even running damage control by splitting them up; they're together all the time, which leaves Yaz with very little to do besides asking questions and making the occasional joke.

Bradley Walsh provides some unexpected emotion at
Grace's funeral

While I did enjoy the episode's villain, Tsim-Sha, and his creepy face, the episode did very little to extract tension from him until the end. Most of the episode is spent working out who he is, and the Doctor comes up with the wrong theory, and so the actual exposition is left up to the villain himself, who monologues extensively and then takes part in a chase sequence about 10 minutes later where The Doctor kills him by melting his DNA with his own weapons. We're treated to a bizarre shot where The Doctor shouts at Karl, the bounty hunter's intended victim, for kicking his remains off of the edge of the crane they were fighting on - right after The Doctor herself saved the day in a painful and gruesome way. I hope this hypocrisy isn't a repeated theme.

Aside from a few other things like some really quite nice cinematography and a cool cliffhanger ending with our leads floating in space, this episode didn't really feel like a triumphant return to form. The decision to have three companions is already causing issues, and the writing isn't making up for the problems that that many side characters brings. I also want to say that I really want to like this Doctor, but there are a few niggling doubts in my mind that I hope are settled in the next few weeks. Overall The Woman Who Fell To Earth was an interesting start to a new era, and I only hope that the show manages to iron out its few kinks by the end of its run.

Thanks.

P.S. It's good to be back! Although I only really wrote this review because I really wanted to discuss next week's episode, The Ghost Monument.