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yeonchi · 6 years

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Doctor Who Series 11 Review Part 1/10: The Woman Who Fell to Earth

Air date: 7 October 2018

The first episode of Doctor Who Series 11 premiered this week and well, my overall spoiler-free thought for this episode was, “Has someone been getting ideas from Japanese tokusatsu?” Quite a few elements in this episode harken back to some aspects of these shows, which I will elaborate on in this review.

Keep note that I will not review the episodes in this series linearly (in order of events), but I may go back and forth as I talk about various aspects of it. If you haven’t seen my background to this series yet, feel free to read it here.

Here is the obligatory part where I have to warn you about spoilers, as with every new episode; if you haven’t watched it yet, keep scrolling for now. Otherwise, we continue after the break.

Focus character of the week: Ryan Sinclair

This episode seems to focus on Ryan, particularly at the start and the end. The other companions, which are introduced in this episode, all seem to revolve around him in some way. Bus driver Graham O’Brien is his step-grandfather (being the second husband of nurse Grace), while probationary police officer Yasmin Khan (who will also be referred to as “Yaz” from here on) attended primary school with him.

I mentioned at the start about how this episode derived some of its ideas from Japanese tokusatsu. As stated in the episode, Ryan’s mother died six years ago and his father was known for being notoriously unreliable. This trait of deceased or missing parents matches the reason why we don’t always see the parents of the main Riders of many Kamen Rider series; because they are usually missing or dead. Now, since this is the first episode, I could be wrong, so I’ll come back to it when I have more information on this.

Another aspect matching tokusatsu is that the character has a unique trait that the others do not, which is that he has dyspraxia, a co-ordination disorder. We see this disorder happening when Ryan is trying to ride his bike and when he almost falls off the ladder of the crane during the climax of the episode. While I think it is good to show people with different neurological disorders in the series, you would think they would have introduced someone with high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome by now, but it’s a step in the right direction as far as I’m concerned. Compared to the Kamen Rider series, it’s better than a weird, infallible man, a so-called “destroyer of worlds”, or a living ghost.

When Ryan was making his YouTube video about “the greatest woman [he] ever met”, I thought he was talking about the Doctor, but it is revealed that he was talking about his grandmother, who died after she was electrocuted trying to disable a gathering coil that the main villain of the episode was using to cheat. I’ll come back to him later.

The post-regenerative Doctor and the new sonic screwdriver

The reason why this comes second is because the Doctor doesn’t make her debut in this episode until around 10 minutes in. For a regeneration episode, the Doctor doesn’t seem to have been as affected as much as his/her previous incarnations - for reference, the Tenth Doctor was suffering from some regenerative stress when the Sycorax invaded, which he recovered from when some tea seeped into the TARDIS, the Eleventh Doctor’s tastes in food seemingly changed with every food he ate, while the Twelfth Doctor became irrational following his regeneration. The Thirteenth Doctor just forgot her name, but she still retained a general idea of who she was.

For those people who are a bit unsure if a woman can play the Doctor as well as a man can, then this episode will likely convince you. During the scene when the Doctor uses materials in the workshop to build her sonic screwdriver, she gives off a “handyman” kind of feel, particularly given that she hasn’t changed from her predecessor’s clothes yet. When I saw that scene, I didn’t think of the new Doctor as female, but rather, I thought of her the same way that she has been through her incarnations so far; female by appearance, male by nature.

As for those people who are still against the Doctor being a female, whether it be because of “pandering” or whatever, I won’t hold that against you if you’re not convinced after watching the episode. The Doctor does make a brief remark about becoming a woman - “Why are you calling me ‘Madam’?” - but as far as I know, there are no other red flags in the episode in that regard. It’s only the first episode and I think it’s doing well not to disrespect the series’ legacy. I’ll continue to keep a look out as the series goes on.

When I first saw the new sonic screwdriver, I was wondering, “How could she build a sophisticated piece of alien technology using only things in a workshop?” After that, I watched the episode again and saw that she took a couple parts out of the alien transport chamber, which seemed plausible enough for me. I would presume that the Doctor would make further modifications and refinements to it once she gets settled in her new TARDIS.

Speaking of the new sonic screwdriver, it looks exactly like something the Doctor could kitbash in under an hour. It’s a deviation from previous screwdrivers in that the body is no longer straight. There is only really one button (at least on the toy versions) and the screwdriver does not have any extend/retract functions.

The Doctor’s new costume looks good - it’s a cross between generic, stylish and the usual styles of the Doctor’s previous incarnations (I’m not good at describing detailed things). The suspenders are the one unique thing of the Thirteenth Doctor’s costume, on the same level with Nine’s leather jacket, Ten’s overcoat, or Eleven’s bowtie. As for Twelve, it’s either the red lining under his Crombie coat (in Series 8) or the sonic sunglasses.

Tim Shaw who broke the tokusatsu law

Tzim-Sha, the main villain of this episode, is a Stenza warrior looking to capture a human named Karl Wright so he can bring him back to his planet as a trophy and be the leader of his people. However, like many villains, tokusatsu or whatever, he broke the rules by sending a swarm of gathering coils ahead of him, which was against the “no weapons, no assistance” guideline of the Stenza. Evidently, what the Stenza was doing has happened before; Rahul lost his sister seven years ago to another Stenza, presumably the previous leader.

In terms of “Tim Shaw’s” appearance while masked, he loosely resembles Brighton or Mad Gallant from the Metal Hero series - though if you ask me, he also loosely resembles a certain “independent tokusatsu” hero made by some guy with a few Japanese pornstars (I’m not linking it and don’t tell me if you know it, because I already know by now). As for his unmasked appearance, I’ll let you make the comparison, but for me, a certain someone springs to mind...

Additionally, the name “Stenza” also brings to mind the Tenza race from Series 6′s Night Terrors. No relation, obviously, but still, it’s a good thing I thought to point out.

Being important

One thing I must wonder: how do the Stenza randomly select their human trophies? Inside the crane, Karl listens to a motivational audiobook called “You Are Valued”. When I saw it, I wondered if it was something the Stenza used to select their targets; unsuspecting people download the app/audiobook and the data goes back to their planet. Let’s face it, it probably would be something Steven Moffat would have done.

It’s funny how Karl seemed like some unimportant guy during the train scene, but he had a more important role to play in this episode. You would think that the Doctor would tell him that he is important like everyone else, but Karl empowering himself with his audiobook did the job for him.

The scene with the two cranes meeting harkens back to the scene in Gokaiger vs. Gavan that showed Captain Marvelous meeting the original Gavan for the first time... and then the feeling is ruined when Tim Shaw grabs him back. Goddamn it, Tim Shaw.

Other general thoughts

The aspect ratio of the episode doesn’t really fill up a widescreen display, but it’s not narrow enough for me to consider it cinematic.

Is Sheffield a multicultural city, or the British equivalent of Detroit in terms of demographics? No racism implied here, just wondering.

The Doctor doesn’t mention anything about her body following her regeneration, but she mentions her nose in this episode. Playing catch-up, maybe?

Where did the Doctor learn the word “fam” from? Maybe from all the years her previous incarnation spent at Bristol University?

Graham’s character initially seems like the usual skeptical figure; as is with every series, there is always one guy that doubts the existence of aliens at the start.

The final scene leaves us in suspense as the Doctor seemingly teleports herself, along with Graham, Ryan and Yaz, into outer space. We haven’t seen the new TARDIS console yet in this series (barring leaks and whatnot). That’s something to look forward to for next week.

The new theme, which can be heard at the end of the episode, brings itself back to its classic series roots. The tempo of this theme is a bit slow compared to the more upbeat themes by composer Murray Gold.

In the trailer for the rest of the series, it’s a bit funny to see the guest stars being credited in it. Actors of different backgrounds will appear in this series and as far as I know, there are no returning names, so no spoilers were given away there.

Summary and verdict

I’ll restate what I said earlier; don’t think of the new Doctor as a woman, but as the Doctor - female by appearance, male by nature. This episode is a pretty good introduction to the new Doctor and the new series. Based on this episode, I think Jodie Whittaker is a good actress, but I’m not entirely convinced yet as to whether she is a good Doctor. As to the comments her actress has made outside the series, that is a different thing altogether.

There are some hints to previous Doctors in this episode, as with many other episodes before this one. It doesn’t rely on nostalgic references or imagery, which is the last thing this new series needs when it has been stated that there will be no returning villains from previous series.

No SJW red flags from what I can detect - there may have been one or two, but I probably forgot about them as I thought they were just throwaway lines. If that’s the excuse that will make the naysayers think that I’m on or near the same level as them, then so be it because I didn’t want to be part of that debacle in the first place.

Overall, this episode is a good opener. It doesn’t introduce everything in the first episode, leaving the rest for us to look forward to in the next episode.

Rating: 8/10

Stay tuned next week as I review the second episode, The Ghost Monument.

#doctor who #doctor who series 11 #thirteenth doctor #doctor who series 11 review #thirteenth doctor review

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