Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole), The Woman Who Fell To Earth
And we are off!
The clocked ticked down the minutes to seconds, anticipation building with this tick of the clock. At 1:45 PM, Eastern Time in the United States, the first images from Doctor Who's rebirth appeared on our screens.
Going into this, I was feeling a bit stressed. I felt the individual components of this new era of Doctor Who were top notch but what of the end product of those components coming together.
Everything is new. New Doctor. New showrunner. New supporting cast. With so much being brand new, would this still be Doctor Who?
And would it be good?
Coming up after the spoiler break, we'll answer those questions and more as we look at
The Woman Who Fell To Earth
By Chris Chibnall
Let's kill some suspense. To address the two questions above:
Would this still be Doctor Who?
And would it be good?
I have but one answer:
Yes, it is!
The episode opens on our new supporting principals.
Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole) is 19 years old and cannot ride a bicycle. He has a condition called "dyspraxia" that really screws up muscle coordination. He's trying to work through all that with help and encouragement from his grandmother Grace (Sharon D. Clarke) and her second husband Graham O’Brien (Bradley Walsh); but Ryan is very frustrated, resulting in him hurling his bike down the side of a hill. Going down to retrieve, Ryan encounters what I will describe as a large blue alien turnip. Ryan calls the police.
Back in Sheffield, Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) is a new police officer working as a traffic cop who wants to do more with her career. So she's sent off to investigate the large blue alien turnip.
Meanwhile, Grace and Graham are on a train heading back home to Sheffield when the train runs into something weird and most likely alien. The train is stopped dead as the lights go out and the something that is weird and most likely alien begins to stalk its way up the train when a woman falls through the roof.
It's the Doctor.
The Doctor is immediately on the case, standing up to
the something that is weird and most likely alien, taking charge like a boss, or more to the point, taking charge like the Doctor does. All is not completely well with the Doctor. Perhaps the sharp blow of slamming through a train roof after falling from space has left her a bit rattled; she knows a half hour ago, she was a white haired Scotsman but she can't remember she's called "the Doctor".
Still, she's up for the fight, whatever it might be. Because she knows one thing for certain: "When people need help, I never refuse!"
The alien shenanigans that drive the plot is an armored up alien named "Tim Shaw"....excuse me, that's Tzim-Sha, a member of the Stenza warrior race has come to Earth to hunt down a human trophy which will lead to him be named the leader of his people.
There is some derring do on a high rise construction crane as the Doctor takes on "Tim" to get him off the planet and stop his race from using Earth as a hunting ground. There is some high powered action sequences (with reports that Jodie Whittaker did her own stunts) as the Doctor does what the Doctor always does: face down an alien menace, remind said menace that Earth is not to be messed with and now, get the hell off the planet.
The showdown with "Tim" does not come without cost as a life is lost and the lives left behind are left to deal with hurt, loss and grief.
For all the alien shenanigans that drive the plot wherein sometimes I admit I occasionally lost the thread a bit (I'm still not quite sure what Grace was up to and why she had to die), the true power and strength in Chris Chibnall's script is in it's humanity. In the short time in which meet them and spend some time with them, Ryan and Graham are characters that are nuanced and we care about them. Even though she doesn't get the same level of attention, Yasmin too is someone we understand and accept as a real person. And other minor characters get fleshed out a bit, making them real.
This was Chibnall's strength on Broadchurch where the thrust of the story was less the crimes committed and more on the human toll those crimes took on the people in the community. It will be interesting to see if Chibnall follows that same approach in Doctor Who, how the travels in space and time affect the lives of normal people like Yasmin, Ryan and Graham.
Then there's the Doctor. Jodie Whittaker's take on the Doctor is fresh and unique but it's in keeping with previous Doctors. She talks fast and thinks faster, like the best of David Tennant or Matt Smith. But she's aware of others around her in a way that sets her apart from previous Doctors. She's more open, freely discussing with Grace and Graham what regeneration is like, for example. Her Doctor is strong and direct like her predecessors but she holds herself at less of a remove from these humans who find themselves in her orbit.
All in all, Jodie Whittaker hits the ground running, from her very first scene embodying the heritage of the Doctor while putting her special spin on the character.
A couple of things:
I was disappointed that we did not get an opening title and theme music.
And then there's this: since this was a world wife simulcast direct from the BBC, I had assumed we might get a respite from the cacophony of commercials that infest the programming on BBC America. No, we didn't.
I guess ultimately, we here in America finished The Woman Who Fell To Earth about a half hour after it finished in the United Kingdom. My wife Andrea went on Twitter to remind BBC America of the definition of the word "simulcast".
Anyway, we're going to pony of the dough to see this again at a Fathom Events showing, on the big screen and no commercials.
Also, Chris Chibnall appears to have lied to us. Remember each episode is a standalone episode with no story arc. Episode one of Series 11 ends on a cliffhanger. And no, the TARDIS is still among the missing.
I'm really hoping the TARDIS gets found next week.
Out of the gate, the new Doctor Who is off to a strong and encouraging start.
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