Well that was... Not what I expected. I guess pretty much all of my predictions were wrong. I honestly don’t know what to make of that. Is it better than my idea… Not sure really.
Spoilers ahead.
The story goes as follows; an alien hunter arrives on Earth, looking for a randomly selected human to take as trophy back home. Proving themselves to be a capable hunter is the final act needed to become the leader of their people. The only rule, he’s not supposed to use technology. Meaning no advanced weapons, it’s supposed to be a test of skill.
He breaks that rule, using an array of tech that is both illegal and highly unethical to track down this poor sod and kill anyone that happens to witness him. Only the Doctor happens to fall (quite literally) into the middle of it all and takes umbrage at the hunter, nicknamed Tim Shaw in a mispronunciation of his true name, and his people's right of passage.
Meeting up with an unusual group consisting of a warehouse worker, Ryan, a police officer he went to school with, Yas, as well as his Grandmother, Grace, and her second husband, Graham, the five of them race after Tim Shaw and try to stop him the hunts for good.
Situation normal, but The Doctor is still recovering from a particularly traumatic Regeneration. Can she pull herself together in time to face this casual evil or will she be too slow to stop more cruel, ultimately pointless, deaths?
Nothing spectacular, but it’s a story. There are a few problems, for example there’s a bit in the middle where we’re introduced to the relative of a previous victim of the hunt. It just fills time and could have been easily cut from the final episode. Also the Villain, Tim Shaw, is is a 99p store bootleg of the Predator, only with a whole boatload more plot holes attached. The hunt itself is nonsensical, the logic convoluted and the ultimate result baffling to say the least.
However, that wasn’t the point. The point of the story was to establish this new Doctor and pull together a new TARDIS team. We needed to be introduced to them, so a simple, if unimaginative plot isn’t a bad thing.
So the big question; is Jodie Whittaker the Doctor? So far, yes! Very much so! Here’s the thing, with a Regeneration story the character is still in flux. Nothing’s quite set, not yet. We need more screen time before we can really get a grasp of the Doctor's current incarnation. In the old days of Classic Who that wasn’t much of a problem, adventures lasted across four half hour episodes. Meaning you had two hours, rather than just the one we get these days, to play about and set things up. We simply need more time before we can be certain. But all indications are good. A solid actress who has hit the ground running with the role.
The supporting cast have an interesting dynamic, They’re not strangers, but they don’t know each others lives inside out either. A little more than acquaintances that can grow and learn about each other over the season. Great possibilities that could be interesting later.
The actors are, like Jodie’s performance, solid. However we need see more of them. The biggest problem with a large cast like this one is you need to setup a lot more characters. That means more time needs to be spent, and again they only get one hour to share with Jodie. Making an judgement at this point is premature.
And I’m happy to say I want more. The other goal of this episode is to make people want to come back, the cliffhanger at the end is just the icing on the cake of that. We saw enough throughout the episode to wet our appetite and get us exited for what’s coming next.
In that way The Woman Who Fell to Earth was a massive success. In other ways I’m not so sure. It just fell short in too many places. Like I said earlier Tim Shaw wasn’t that good a villain. Parts of the story felt surplus, shoved in fill the hour. Ironic, because we didn’t get a title sequence. A trick usually reserved for episodes that would otherwise run over time.
Looking back I want to really love this episode and need more to put it in context. That said I have to compare it to what is, in my opinion, the best Regeneration episode in NuWho, The Eleventh Hour. Eleventh Hour is pretty much perfect; it introduces the Doctor, his new companions, gives memorable yet one off villains and sets the stage for what is to come. Not a moment is wasted. It’s tight, controlled, but handled with such a deft touch that it feels organic. There might be one or two forced moments that feel out of place in retrospect, but they don’t detract from the whole. It's a masterpiece and will take something very special to dethrone it.
Here’s the ranking, so far, of NuWho regeneration Episodes:
The Eleventh Hour
Rose
Woman Who Fell to Earth
The Christmas Invasion
Deep Breath
Christmas Invasion has fallen quite low because, while I do like that last act when the Doctor finally wakes up, everything else I just fast forward through on a re-watch. It’s all a build up for that one show stopping number at the end of the story. It’s fun I'll give ti that, but not a good story structure and on reflection its pay off is not worth it.
Deep Breath, while clever and introducing a wonderful actor to the role, still has Clara in it. Clara’s presence is an anchor around the neck of anything Who related. Dragging it down to the depths of awful.
Rose, is both short and sweet. Inoffensive, self contained and still a good introduction to the Doctor and his universe. The interesting thing is how Rose was followed up with End of the World, which added to our understanding. It was meant to further expand on the characters. Same happened with Beast Below after Eleventh Hour. Proving that we need more episodes to really get a feel of this new era.
So, we’ll have to see where we go from here.
Over all score:-
8 out of 13
Wish it was tighter, hope I’m just being overly critical about the plot holes. Still shows great potential and promise for the future.
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