13 Reasons Why “The Woman Who Fell to Earth” Landed Perfectly

Feature by Mark McCullough.

It’s about time…

The very fact that Doctor Who is finally back on our screens is always going to play in the episode’s favour and will have helped attract a crowd. The advertising for the series has been as good as I can remember. And the viewing figures for this one are already a significant improvement on the previous series where they were starting to drop. Doctor Who is back!

…But is it really?

Doctor Who is not a show about time, it never has been and never will. It’s a show about an alien who does what they can to help others. It’s a show that focuses on the best aspects of humanity and manages the colossal task of painting this through an alien frame. It’s this focus that gives Doctor Who its charm. With so much changing, it was fundamental that The Woman Who Fell to Earth still captured this. It did.

Who needs a TARDIS?

The decision to take the TARDIS out of the narrative assists this sentiment and proved to be a clever move from new showrunner. This shifted the focus back onto the Doctor and her new friends and forced the characters to use their wits to solve the problems in front of them. Once again highlighting the show is about the characters and time is only the setting in which we see their story play out.

A New Vision…

With a new head writer, it is inevitable that there will be a new feel to the show. Chibnall shows his pedigree by blending a lot of the stronger elements of his previous work and reshapes it to suit the style of a Doctor Who story. His characterisation is impeccable, and he generates a style of episode that was both fresh and compelling.

…with the same tricks

That said, he’s obviously taken lessons in audience diversion from his predecessor. The name of the episode and the opening scene are carefully crafted to make you thinks the focus is going to be on the Doctor. It transpires that this is not actually the case and the real focus is on Grace. It’s a neat trick straight from the Moffat playbook.

The Stakes are Higher

Whether intentional or not, Grace’s fate in the denouement of the episode will have a lasting effect on the rest of the series. We’ve just had a scene where one of the Doctor’s friends died by getting involved with her. This is unprecedented since the revival of the show and highlights that none of the new trio are safe. Something I’m sure they themselves will be aware of.

A Breadth of Companions

Perhaps rather unusual is the fact that the Doctor now has so many companions. In the build-up to the episode I was slightly anxious in how this would work out. I was wrong to worry as it worked just perfectly, with several different character providing multiple points of access for the audience. It’s also a convenient way of getting around the traditional Doctor-Companion dynamic and the upset to this that would have been caused by having a female Doctor.

A Female Doctor

Always going to be a point of contention since it was announced, the decision to cast Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor split the fandom. Having been behind the decision from day one, I was delighted to see it come across so well when brought to reality. Chibnall’s approach was arguably the ideal one: by largely ignoring the change he is emphasising that the Doctor is not defined by her gender but by her characteristics. A perfect delivery to an extremely important decision.

Jodie’s ‘I am the Doctor’ Moment

A staple of any episode that introduces a new Doctor is that moment that you realise they are the Doctor. This includes: Nine grabbing Rose’s hand, Ten with the orange, Eleven and the Atraxi and Twelve pulling off the mask. Jodie gets a moment in which is on par with all the above in the crane scene, where she risks everything to save one man. Surely a moment that exemplifies the Doctor as a character. It makes for heart-in-mouth viewing and was surely the moment that silence a lot of lingering doubts.

Jodie is the Doctor!

However, for me she was already the Doctor before this. There are a few moments where the script allows Jodie to excel. The scene where she states that she tries to help where she can, echoes the basic promise of the Doctor (never cruel or cowardly). We also see her channel the intellect of the character where she designs her own new sonic screwdriver. Something which finally solves the issue of the Deus ex Machina around the Sonic as it feels like the Doctor has earned the right to use it given that she made it herself. Lots of facets of the Doctor are explored in the episode and Jodie slips into these like a glove making the character her own.

Small Scale Threat

To be a proper Doctor Who episode there needs to be some sort of adversary. The decision to keep the threat of the episode low-key was one that proved dividends. There was enough development that can appreciate the character and his motivations, the narrative is simple and easy to understand. Most importantly however it allows Chibnall to stick to the strongest element of his writing: his ability to craft compelling characters.

Character Nuances

Perhaps the biggest challenge presented to Chibnall was the momentous task of not just reintroducing the Doctor to the audience, but also crafting four compelling new characters to deliver his narrative through. This is where the episode benefits most from the extended run time as it allows each of the new companions to be built up and explored enough that the audience can sympathise with them and want them to do well. Despite it still being early days, they are fleshed out enough that I genuinely care what happens to them next.

Continuity

The cliff-hanger and Doctor Who have a strange relationship with multi-parter or series arcs often providing the only opportunity for these. However, Chibnall opts for a new approach here leading from one story directly into the next unrelated story. It hints towards a new style of more serialised storytelling, which should be very interesting to see how this works with a show like Doctor Who where one can be in the Wild West one week, or a Cold War Russian sub the next. It whets the appetite for more and helps deliver the purpose of a series opener, to make the audience come back

To summarise: I found The Woman Who Fell to Earth to be a highly entertaining hour of television. It was packed with compelling characters and wonderful moments wrapped in a neat, easy to follow narrative and tied with an incredible musical score. The bar has certainly been set high, let’s hope the rest of the series can live up to it!