13.1: The Woman Who Fell to Earth

In which multiple women fall to Earth.

Broadcast: October 2018

Watched: June 2022

“Oh! I was expecting a tentacle-y thing.”

Alternatively: “Is it wrong to be enjoying this?”

This is the first time I’ve watched this episode – or any of this era – as part of the show’s history, rather than The New Thing. I think it benefits from being part of the pilgrimage, in which I’ve seen loads of bad Who (most of it, really) and tried to find the good stuff in it. And without the stress of “Oh shit is this just what Doctor Who is going to be like now”, I could sort of see it’s... not bad? 

The fact we start with Graham, Grace and Ryan feels significant, as it’s what the arc of the season is meant to be. The idea that Ryan’s a YouTuber is a nice framing device (though it’s typical of this era that it *never comes up again*). I’m the only idiot who didn’t see the ironic twist about which woman is referred to in either the title or the video coming a mile off, by the way.

Then we meet Yaz, who almost immediately starts doing things she clearly shouldn’t: both of the younger leads are clearly set up as frustrated and wanting more out of life. (Karl doesn’t want to play, he just wants to go to work. Ditto Graham: the idea he’s dragged into Doctor Who not bb frustration or a sense of adventure but by bad luck and grief is also quite an interesting one.) The fact the plot begins with a sinister thing in a wood feels very old Who/CBBC, rather than something the show would have done since 2005...

...and then the Doctor enters the plot by falling into shot on the train, as the first few chords of the new theme tune (which we haven’t heard yet because there are no opening credits) kick in, and is *immediately* brilliant. Her dialogue is pretty bad, because Chibnall, but I like the idea she’s looking for a doctor and doesn’t know she’s a woman. More to the point, she immediately takes control of the situation in a way this version of the Doctor is not going to spend enough time doing. 

There are lots of other good things:

• Grounding the show in Sheffield, not the south of England.

• “Hello, Ryan’s nan.”

• The bit where Ryan gives the Doctor his phone, and she immediately reformats it.

• Actually, quite a lot of the character work is good. (Ryan: “You all would have done the same!” Graham: “I wouldn’t.” Doctor “I would.”) Also, Graham, who’d earlier been lovely, snapping at Ryan. (“I suppose you’ll be blaming this on the dyspraxia as well. Can’t ride a bike, started an alien invasion!”)

• The Doctor’s description of how it feels to regenerate, and the bit where she makes a sonic screwdriver from scratch (“Swiss army sonic now with added Sheffield steel”).

• Karl doing his “I am special” speech before entirely failing to escape... then the Doctor almost fails too (“these legs definitely used to be longer”).

• The funeral: Graham saying he should have died and Grace survived, and the look on Ryan’s face which clearly says “f*cking right too”. Tosin Cole is great, isn’t he?

• Then the cliffhanger, everyone just hanging there in space, followed by the trailer, which hints at stories by focusing on guest actors... that may genuinely be the single best bit of the entire Chibnall era. 

Actually, the entire hunter/prey dynamic is, to be fair to Chibnall, a story we haven’t seen before. I don’t think we’ve seen a new cast so consciously set up as a team, before, or had the “right” companion die so her reluctant partner goes in her place. On top of that, the story does sort of reintroduce the idea that the Doctor Who feats we take for normal are a big deal. There’s loads here to build on.

Against all that, though, you have a lot of stuff that’s just rubbish:

• A lot of the dialogue, let’s be honest.

• Tim Shaw’s face full of teeth. Horrible, and not in a clever way.

• The Doctor tells Karl to do something that only makes sense once she has a plan *before she has that plan* (go to the far end of the crane arm). I suppose, charitably, she just didn’t realise she had that plan yet?

• The Doctor’s big speech about how we can all evolve just isn’t sold as The Big Moment of Self-Discovery it’s clearly meant to be. Charitably (again) this is a deliberate de-centring the Doctor after the naval gaze-y Moffat years thing, but... I think maybe the Doctor should be centred in her own regeneration episode?

• The episode’s other big moment, Grace’s death, is sold better, but comes from her own stupidity. It feels like it should grow out the story, be the fault of Tim Shaw, not happen because she was doing something she hadn’t thought through that pays off *after the villain’s been defeated*.

(That said, some of the spikier bits – Karl pushing Tim Shaw, Ryan still unable to ride a bike but the Doctor silently watches him try – work well. So perhaps that’s what Chibnall was going for?)

The single biggest bad thing of all, though, is:

• The fact we all know Chibnall isn’t going to be able to make this show he’s just set up.

Other things:

• Another reason I think this clicked for me this time is that, even if I have issues with the era’s writing, I’ve got a lot of affection for this cast. That means the emotional bits (Graham’s eulogy, Ryan’s fear and disappointment his dad isn’t at the funeral) hits harder this time.

• Is Chibnall trying to do a “nobody is a nameless victim” thing? Rahul, Karl, Skype granddad are all given a sense of back story and identity. The “eat my salad” guy doesn’t, admittedly, but at least gets to be funny.

• Jodie looks far, far cooler in Capaldi’s costume. That isn’t uncommon, is it? You can say the same about Smith in 2010 or Colin in 1984.

• “It’s been a long time since I bought women’s clothes”... OMG he already knew about the fugitive Doctor! (He didn’t.)

• Thasmin is absolutely nowhere to be found in this. There’s clearly meant to be a Yaz/Ryan thing going on.

• Erm, at the beginning, where are Grace and Graham actually meant to be going, since they live in Sheffield? [Actually, having thought about this more, they’re clearly getting the train *back* to Sheffield. Does make leaving Ryan on his own in the middle of the peaks a bit shitty, though.]

• Why did the TARDIS drop the Doctor on earth and then bugger off elsewhere, come to that?