{"id":7338,"date":"2019-07-01T13:00:38","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T20:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=7338"},"modified":"2019-06-26T15:20:41","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T22:20:41","slug":"mark-watches-doctor-who-s11e01-the-woman-who-fell-to-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2019\/07\/mark-watches-doctor-who-s11e01-the-woman-who-fell-to-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Doctor Who’: S11E01 – The Woman Who Fell To Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the first episode of the eleventh series of Doctor Who<\/i>, a woman falls to Earth. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Doctor Who<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I loved this so very, very much, and I am so happy to have fully met the Thirteenth Doctor, Graham, Grace, Yaz, and Ryan. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for me to enter a new era of Doctor Who<\/i>, one that already feels different from what came before it. But isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that one of the possible readings of Thirteen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brilliant monologue about change? There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a way to honor who you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been, to cherish those experiences and memories, and still change into something new. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exactly what this show has done, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m opening this by stating that I am so incredibly excited to see what this show will become now that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got Whittaker as the Doctor and Chris Chibnall\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwho was the showrunner of one of my favorite shows, Broadchurch<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dat the helm.<\/p>\n

Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discuss.<\/p>\n

Production<\/b><\/p>\n

I want to save most of this review to talk about the story, the characters, and the talented group of actors who brought \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Woman Who Fell to Earth\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to life. But one thing that stood out to me that I want to make sure to spend time discussing is how this premiere felt different. Some of those distinctions were tangible and easy to categorize, but others are more subjective in nature. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that long ago that I finished Broadchurch<\/i> for my Patrons on Patreon, and so I still had a lot of the visual style in mind as I watched this. I knew Chibnall was the showrunner, and I knew Jodie Whittaker was the new Doctor. (That was one of the few spoilers that was impossible for me to avoid, since I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t block her name from all the filtering programs I use.) Whittaker portrays the Doctor nothing like she did Beth, but I did<\/i> see some similarities in style from the production team. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if Chibnall used any of the same crew, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a crisp realism to the way this episode is shot. I loved all the wide angle shots of the landscape around Sheffield, a place I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve not visited before BUT NOW WANT TO. The color palettes felt so much less fantastical than during Twelve\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s run, too, and that might just be this episode, since it all takes place on Earth, and much of it is at night. But this felt like a movie! Visually, at least, and I think it was a bold decision that paid off in terms of storytelling. This was likely the first introduction to Doctor Who<\/i> for plenty of people. Still, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gorgeous. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s different<\/i>. The same goes for the musical score, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m super into how this was noticeably new as well. WHO IS THE NEW COMPOSER, I LOVED THE SCORE SO MUCH.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The New Doctor<\/b><\/p>\n

The premiere of a new Doctor generally has to achieve a few things for me: I need to see their new personality. I wanna know what food the Doctor is craving. I want to see the new Sonic Screwdriver, the new TARDIS console, and the new costume. While one of those things is clearly saved for the next episode\u00e2\u20ac\u201dWHAT WILL THIRTEEN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S TARDIS CONSOLE LOOK LIKE!!!!\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthis manages to hit every single mark for the introduction of Thirteen. And it does so while giving us one hell of a story!!! That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all I could ask for, right?<\/p>\n

And so, after falling to Sheffield upon regenerating, the Doctor lands in the middle of a hunt. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know<\/i> that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what is happening, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a vibrant energy to Thirteen as she does her best to figure out who has invaded Earth and<\/i> who she is now that she has a new body. Both of these stories are intimately entwined within one another, too! The story of Tim Shaw (I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how to spell their actual name, and this is what their name sounded like) is about the choices we make\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe intentional ones and the unspoken, subconscious ones. Even Karl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey to self-improvement fits in nicely with the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey and Tim Shaw\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s refusal to play this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153game\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by different rules. Does this episode give us all<\/i> of Thirteen in a single hour? No, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why this is a journey. We meet Thirteen and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funny, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s witty, she speaks rapidly, and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got an immediate kindness that we did not see in Capaldi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s version of the Doctor. He was so much more rough around the edges, but there seems to be none of that here. (Yet.) Thirteen is open. Excited. Wide-eyed. Ready for an adventure. Adoring of Ryan and his willingness to pose new theories. Interested in Yaz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desire for something new. Intrigued by how Graham experiences the world.<\/p>\n

Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about them.<\/p>\n

The Companions<\/b><\/p>\n

Three. THREE OF THEM IN ONE EPISODE. Well, technically four, but the only traveling Grace does with the Doctor is by car. (More on her in a moment.) I love that this episode spends so much time introducing us to the Sinclair family\u00e2\u20ac\u201dRyan, his nan Grace, and her second husband, Graham\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand Yaz, and then bringing these four people together because of the arrival of Tim Shaw. Not since Amy and Rory has this felt quite like a family affair, and I love the dynamic. I love that these four characters are incredibly distinct from one another. Yaz has been in her probationary period as an officer for so long that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bored and eager to do something else with her life. (A classic dilemma for a companion of The Doctor!) Ryan is perhaps the first companion we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen who has a neurological disorder, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s woven into the story in a way so that we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore it, but it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t dominate his storyline. (I loved the little acknowledgment of it when he and Yaz were about to climb the ladder of the crane; she was aware of his mobility issues and gave him a chance to decline, but he still did it anyway.) And Graham\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to talk about Graham without talking about the ending. Prior to Grace\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fate, Graham struggles with acceptance. His wife loves him dearly, but her grandson, Ryan, is still uncomfortable with the idea of Graham being his step-grandfather. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also someone who plays things straight, who doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rush into danger, and who certainly does not run towards a frightening alien who collects the teeth of their victims. (NO, THANKS.)<\/p>\n

But then Grace dies. (And she fulfills the title of this episode in a much more tragic way.) And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no way this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to affect his role as a companion, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m curious to see how that will manifest in the show itself. We only get a tiny glimpse of that towards the end, so I feel less comfortable making assertions about who he is. I also have to take a moment to point out that we have yet another dead Black woman on the show, and the second dead mother in a row, since part of Bill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s development was her<\/i> dead mother. I know that Grace\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death is most likely a pivotal part of this series, but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t negate that Black women don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to fare well on Doctor Who<\/i>. I mean, technically, Bill is dead? But sort of not? (I seriously miss her.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, one criticism amidst a whole lot of praise. I loved this episode, and I desperately want to know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s next. What does the console look like??? What about the interior design of the TARDIS? Why are they in the middle of space????<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Woman Who Fell to Earth\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"