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Sunday 7 October 2018

Lots of planets have a Hoodezfield

Well, so far I like Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor. But then, she was never the one I was worried about, was she?

"The Woman Who Fell to Earth" by Chris Chibnall, directed by Jamie Childs. Spoilers after the cut.

Yes, this is Chris Chibnall's official first episode in charge of Doctor Who; both the RTD/Christopher Eccleston and Steven Moffat/Matt Smith debut episodes were great (both writers doing a lot less well when introducing their respective second Doctors,) and happily Chibnall follows their lead with a very strong start: "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" is nearly up there with "The Eleventh Hour" in making me excited for the new era. Of course, like Moffat before him, Chibnall doesn't come to the showrunner role as a complete newcomer to Doctor Who, and it's his past track record that worries me. I've never really liked his work much (and across Doctor Who, Torchwood and Broadchurch I can't be accused of not giving him a chance) so it remains to be seen whether he's turned a corner or if this episode was an abberation.

As far as introducing Whittaker's Thirteen goes, obviously there's a tradition of the Doctor not being quite theirself after a regeneration, and I think the episode finds a nice balance in having her out of sorts enough to occasionally collapse or forget her own name for the whole episode, but not enough that she gets sidelined completely out of her own show, and still gets to demonstrate that she's in control. The character's sex change is dealt with in the most Doctor-like fashion possible, namely as an aside, tossing out the fact that she was recently a grey-haired Scotsman as a factoid that some might find interesting/amusing. Just as Doctor-like is the dubious morality of her being against killing her opponents, but if she secretly turns his own weapon against him and he pulls the trigger WELL THAT'S NOTHING TO DO WITH ME, GUV.

There's enough in the writing and Whittaker's performance to link her to her predecessors, and while it's too early to say what the defining feature of her Doctor will be, let me say from the off that if she remains the MacGyver Doctor, constantly getting herself out of trouble by building things out of scrap, then I'll be more than happy with that. In fact, if she doesn't and they forget all about it by next week I'll be downright annoyed.

Like both his recent predecessors, Chibnall has not only a new Doctor but new companions to introduce, and he's made the unusual choice of giving himself a Peter Davison-style crowded TARDIS, and all of them to bring in at the same time. I can't say the new trio of companions has made much impact yet, but then that's what happens when you've got an episode guest who you wish was sticking around instead of the lot of them. (Imagine casting Sharon D. Clarke and Bradley Walsh, and deciding that out of them Bradley Walsh was the one you'd keep. Imagine.) Nice to see Amit Shah pop up, even if it was pretty obvious he wouldn't be there for long. Clever to have foreseen what the country would be obsessed with in autumn 2018 and named him Rahul, although for full accuracy he really should have apologised to the alien when it killed him.

Was I the only one getting Buffy vs Glory in "The Gift" flashbacks when the Doctor confronted Tim Shaw on the top of a crane at night? And while I'm glad she's going to be an action Doctor, look we saw Peter Capaldi's rings fall off her fingers during the regeneration, are you saying her feet stayed the same size as his? Because she should have been tripping over in those boots instead of jumping around everywhere. OK, let's say they stayed the same, I'm going to be imagining her running around with big clown feet for the rest of her time on the show, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW CHIBNALL?

Good start overall though.

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