It’s become more noticeable over the course of its revived incarnation that the presentation of Doctor Who is determined more by the showrunner than the Doctor. There was virtually no aesthetic change of the Russell T. Davies years between Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant, and Peter Capaldi suffered from the same tropes and convolution Steven Moffat established with Matt Smith. It’s not entirely unique to the new run though. The style and the tone of the classic series remained much the same for the duration of John Nathan-Turner’s tenure as producer across the complete runs of three Doctors. Barry Letts on the other hand, reinvented the series in 1970, but also managed to evolve it over his five years with the program. The revived series especially has made a point of approaching the arrival of a new showrunner as a soft series reboot.
And as far as that goes, Chris Chibnall’s debut in charge of Doctor Who is a resounding success. His record as a writer on the show has been decidedly more mixed than Moffat’s was before he took over. But he has written a number of great Torchwood episodes, and the brilliance of his own show Broadchurch, on which he reached the peak of his maturity as a writer, shouldn’t be under-emphasized. It was there too where he found his Doctor in Jodie Whittaker, which in itself represents completely new territory for the fifty-five year old series. And so it was a given that his take would be fresh and different. This is definitely not the Doctor Who we’ve been used to for seven years.
Plot-wise, “The Woman Who Fell to Earth” is relatively conventional. It opens by introducing us to the new companions, starting with Ryan Sinclair, a dyspraxic young man learning and failing to ride a bike, and subsequently touching a strange light that appears in the air. When a blue pod materializes in its place, he calls the local Sheffield police and PC Yasmin Khan, an old schoolmate, comes to investigate. At the same time, a strange floating tentacled orb materializes on a train where Ryan’s grandmother Grace and her husband Graham are. As they all converge on the train, the Doctor finally catches up, still frazzled by her regeneration and unsure of her identity, but eager to investigate these alien phenomena and the threat they pose.
The main purpose of the episode is of course to establish the Thirteenth Doctor. Jodie Whittaker has the toughest challenge of anyone who’s ever played the Time Lord, yet has been wonderfully enthusiastic about the part. That enthusiasm translates on screen. In spite of what people who no longer deserve to watch Doctor Who may believe, she does in fact feel like the Doctor. She’s got just as much eccentricity and energy as her predecessors, as well as a great degree of tenacity, charm, and wit. She’s really likeable and impulsive too, and the troublemaker is not gone. When the others chastise Ryan for touching a mysterious, potentially dangerous entity, she admits she probably would have in his situation. Her search for her identity is the most compelling part of her story for the episode. All she knows is she’s smart and she needs to help. You know exactly when she’s going to remember and orient herself of course, but I like getting to sample her personality in the meantime, and would gladly take this over the “build-up” in “The Christmas Invasion” for instance. My only nitpick might be that she’s not quite unique enough. You can see a bunch of her previous incarnations in her behaviour: a little bit of Four here, some Five and Seven, obviously elements of Ten and Eleven. But I completely understanding playing it safe. Especially after the last Doctor couldn’t quite live up to the moral ambiguity implied by “Deep Breath”. And still, there are a couple small things that are new, like her propensity for intentionally insulting her enemy (calling him a “big blue shit” in a surprisingly risqué move for Doctor Who), and her literal inventiveness resulting in her creating her sonic screwdriver from scratch. I hope that the coming series will better emphasize her independent attributes, because she’s got a lot of promise. And that outfit really looks fantastic on her.
As for the companions (or “friends”), they’ve got a lot of promise too. And I like how the episode devoted just as much time to setting them up as the Doctor. Ryan Sinclair, played by Tosin Cole, is a little lost, with implied family issues and insecurity, someone who could use the Doctor in his life. Yaz Khan, played by Mandip Gill, is confident, headstrong, and courageous, if a bit sceptical but for keen for responsibility. And Graham O’Brien, played by Bradley Walsh is a wary cancer survivor with a strong moral compass looking for a better relationship with his step-grandson. The fact that they have prior relationships with each other lends itself to plenty of opportunities for development. And already we can see them working as a great team. It’s almost reminiscent of the gang from The Sarah Jane Adventures. The diversity is really a point in the groups’ favour too. Not just the fact that Ryan and Yaz are people of colour, but that Graham’s an older bloke. I’ve always liked the idea of the Doctor having an older companion. It’s a great way to shake up the Doctor-companion dynamic and Wilfred Mott proved it could work wonders. But really just the fact this is a TARDIS team rather than the Doctor and their assistant, poses a great new dynamic and new direction the likes of which we haven’t seen since the classic series.
But returning to the episode itself, it’s a lot of good set-pieces, some really impressive cinematography, and a handful of terrific moments supporting a rather mediocre story. It’s a very simple “alien causing trouble in present-day Earth” show, which a number of previous Doctor introductory episodes have been, and none have quite managed to escape the shadow of “Spearhead From Space” in this regard. The alien villain who emerges from the pod and can kill people with sub-zero burns, is part of a hunter race using the tentacle creature as a biological weapon to find and track victims. And he’s exactly what you might expect Doctor Who’s take on the Predator to be: a ruthless jerk who collects teeth as trophies on his face and is trying to cheat his way to be leader of his people, the Stenza. He’s called Tzim-Sha, resulting in the funniest gag of the episode as the Doctor, mishearing him, just calls him “Tim Shaw” repeatedly. As far as hunter aliens go, he’s not the Predator, nor even the Hirogen from Star Trek: Voyager, but he is somewhat amusing, a little creative in design -perfectly good if unsubstantial cannonfodder for a Doctors’ first episode. Not every debut alien can be the Autons.
The writing, though far from the quality of the first series of Broadchurch, is pretty decent too. It’s concise, smart, and comes naturally from the characters. Particularly, it avoids hackneyed references to the Doctor being a woman and misplaced commentaries on sexism, as undoubtedly it would under the former showrunner. The Doctor’s gender comes up only twice in the episode, and it does so completely organically, and with brevity, showing how much of a non-issue it is to her.
There’s one thing though that seems to forecast Chibnall’s new approach to the characters and perhaps is an indicator the show is in good hands. It opens like a dozen Doctor Who episodes have, with a character talking about “the greatest woman he ever met”, in this case Ryan through a youtube video, and the episode proper in flashback succeeding it. Though we’re trained to believe he’s referring to the Doctor, she’s the hero who leaves this impression on people after all, the end of the episode reveals he’s actually talking about his nan. Grace, played by Sharon D. Clarke, is actually a pretty big part of the episode, just as involved as the Doctor, Ryan, Yaz, and Graham. She’s concerned about Ryan, wants him to improve his somewhat distant relationship with Graham, but also has a sense of fun and adventure about her. At a point it becomes clear she’s not long for the world; she’s too involved, and we already know she’s the character here who’s not going on to be a companion. It’s still in a small way devastating though when she dies, particularly because of the lasting effect we know it’s going to have on both Ryan and Graham. But that clever misdirect as to who Ryan was appraising made me realize just how deified the Doctor has become. Over both Davies’ and Moffat’s rules, the Doctor has been the heroic centre of attention, the unequivocal good, godlike in the profound impact he’s had. Hell, some companions couldn’t define themselves other than in relation to him. To see Ryan herald his grandmother as the most important woman in his life is no minor twist. It’s indicative of a show that seems to be moving towards more of an ensemble focus, humbling the Doctor while still keeping her the leader. It’s setting up that these characters have lives and relationships that matter to them beyond the Doctor’s reach. That the Doctor isn’t the be-all-end-all, not the only saviour out there, and maybe a little more like you and me than we’ve come to know. And I’m very excited for that.
The ending of this episode I absolutely loved. Not just the mission-statement way the Doctor said “I’m just a traveller; sometimes I see things need fixing, and I do what I can” or her final reveal in her costume that was a bit of a Tom Baker callback; but the final moments when, using Stenza technology to create a crude transporter, she attempts to get back to the TARDIS and says goodbye to Ryan, Yaz, and Graham only for them to be accidentally transported with her out into space. The style of that kind of cliffhanger is really reminiscent of classic Doctor Who, though more than that, it’s the fact the companions were whisked away against their will in a manner not unlike how the series began. And as a big fan of those first few seasons and the lovable dynamic of that original TARDIS team, it made me hopeful the same magic can be recaptured. The TARDIS never made an appearance this episode, and I suspect it may be a while before it does turn up. The running thread through the first two seasons was Ian and Barbara’s hope to get home (no one had much control over where the TARDIS went back then). I wonder if that will be the case again. The new end credits are also amazing, bringing back the psychedelic kind of vortex of the late 70’s seasons. This episode didn’t have an opening sequence though, but I can’t wait to see it. Hopefully it’ll bring back the face.
“The Woman Who Fell to Earth” is a good introductory episode for both the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions; well performed, constructed, and shot -just a little banal on the story end of things. Despite that, this is still very clearly a new start to Doctor Who and I very much like the direction it seems to be headed in. If it can expand on what it did here, develop the ensemble both individually and in relation to each other, keep up the creativity, and take smart risks, this could be a really great series. It already seems to be doing so. There are no two-parters this series, and it will also be the first of the revived run to feature no classic monsters, including the Daleks and Cybermen. That’s really bold, but also compelling.
What’s likewise compelling is the shows’ new dedication to diversity. In addition to the diversified cast, there’s an even gender split in the directors, and the writing team will consist of people of colour for the first time in the shows’ history. The end of the episode also gave a preview of the guest cast for the upcoming series, featuring numerous actresses, performers of colour, and Lee Mack. The fresh ideas and perspectives from this initiative are limitless and it’s what the show needs going forward.
But of course it’s also just comforting to have Doctor Who back, going on adventures, saving the world, standing up to tyranny, and making friends across time and space. It’s a simple formula, but that’s why it’s so perfect. And it couldn’t have returned at a better time. With all the bad news and hopelessness in the world right now, the clear injustices and hateful travesties happening every day, we need the Doctor back on television now more than ever.
And we need her to be a woman.
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