The Written Podcast: Doctor Who – Season 11 – Episode 1: The Woman Who Fell to Earth

I am a massive fan of Doctor Who. It wasn’t until two-thousand and seven, two years after the show had come back on air, and at the backend of series three that I started watching the show. In fact, my first ever episode of Doctor Who was Blink – which has been noted as not only one of the best episodes of the show’s life, but also one of the scariest.

Of course, I had known about Doctor Who before sitting down and watching it, because my mum mentioned how she used to watch it when she was younger, and how it gave her nightmares. One of the most notable elements in Doctor Who is the scare factor, with the unofficial tagline stating you’d watch the show from behind your sofa. Blink, being the scariest episode in the series, certainly cemented those passing references before. But it hooked me. Blink wasn’t just scary, it was clever. Steven Moffatt, the now former showrunner, used to write a couple of episodes per season during the Russell T. Davies era, and knocked each and every episode he wrote out of the park. Blink instantly got me into Doctor Who, because it was the perfect introductory episode. It scared me, it included time travel in a clever way, and the story itself was outstanding from beginning to end. It’s also the only episode in season three where the Doctor, the main protagonist, doesn’t actually appear for much during the episode.

The next three episodes, Utopia, The Sound of Drums, and The Last of the Time Lords, absolutely blew me away. It brought in a couple of characters from previous seasons who I didn’t know, but that didn’t matter because they sort of explained them in a brief way anyway. At the end of Series three, that was it. No more Doctor Who until next year, two-thousand and eight. Which gave me ample time to catch up on every episode from series one, starting with Rose.

Back then, BBC Three was still on TV not exclusively on iPlayer, and about a couple of weeks after it started to air every episode, one per day, at seven O’clock. Rose all the way to the latest episodes. After school, that was my go to programme. And I fell in love with the show. Without going through each and every single episode individually – because there are over one-hundred and it would make this podcast too long, instead I’ll be only focusing on the latest episode, and how the show has changed over the years.

Doctor Who is probably the most versatile show around. It goes through so many changes, so many ‘soft-reboots’ new eras are practically completely different from previous eras, and that’s what makes the show so fascinating. The fact it’s capable of changing, keeps it fresh, and therefore entertaining. The show goes through a soft-reboot whenever the Doctor regenerates. New actor playing the Doctor, new personality, new stories, new monsters. The Show goes through a bigger reboot when more happens behind the scenes such as when in two-thousand and ten, when David Tennant stepped down from the role and Matt Smith became the Doctor. Not only that happened, but Russell T. Davies also left as showrunner and Steven Moffatt became the new showrunner. New Doctor, new companion, new showrunner – which in turn means new way of writing. It was a completely new fresh start for the show. The Eleventh Hour is also considered a brilliant way to start watching the show if you hadn’t before. It introduces the Doctor in a spectacular way, and shows just how powerful as a character he is.

Steven Moffatt’s era has been frequently criticised as being too complicated, a statement Steven shot down, but was an understandable and fair report, because Steven enjoyed his long running plot points that took a series or more to fully resolve, or complicated character timelines such as River Song. There was a lot that needed to be focused on and remembered between each episode, even an avid fan like me found it a little difficult to follow at times. That didn’t deter me from watching it though. It was still an amazing show, and I watched it every Saturday, religiously.

It was only a matter of time before Matt Smith decided to step away, and we were introduced to Peter Capaldi. This is where the show changed again, and this is where the fan base split. New Doctor, but not many people liked the meaner personality. However, as time went on, Peter’s Doctor mellowed enough for fans to warm to him, and even change their opinions from not a very good Doctor to one of the best Doctors.

Being an avid fan who loves the show, I’m often confusing people by criticising it as well and saying how certain episodes weren’t good, or even awful. They say, ‘you didn’t like that episode, I thought you liked the show.’ My favourite band is Nightwish, but that doesn’t stop me from saying I didn’t like some of their songs. Just because I consider something my favourite, doesn’t disallow me from criticising it. Fear Her was weird and stood out from series two in all the wrong ways, whereas Love and Monsters was weird and stood out from every other episode of series two for all the right reasons, but I can understand why it has been criticised in various ways. It was also the first Doctor-Light episode, an experiment that paid off as they copied that format in series three and four with Blink, and Turn Left. Dinosaurs on a Spaceship was too clunky for my taste – starting off silly and bubbly and then suddenly, completely unexpectedly, going dark. This might be the episode’s intention, but it didn’t sit right with me. The Power of Three was phenomenal with its slow mystery, right up to the end when the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to fix everything. Attack the Moon attempted to suspend viewers’ belief even further than usual and didn’t sit well with fans. In the Forest of the Night was horrendous – enough said.

Series nine was phenomenal. Each story was told over two episodes, allowing each writer to expand on their idea, put a bit more detail in and the end result was incredible. The strongest series since five. Right up to the final episode, Hell-Bent. The previous episode, Heaven Sent, I was speechless throughout. Steven Moffatt had pulled off an episode that’s widely considered the best in the show’s history. It was a follow up Face the Raven where Clara had died at the end. Her character development saw her becoming too much like the Doctor, and paid for it. Not many people liked Clara, but thought it was a good idea to express she paid for her over eagerness. Heaven Sent saw the Doctor dealing with yet another loss of a companion, and saw the Doctor on his own for the entire episode. And then Hell-Bent undid those two episodes, brought Clara back and sent her off in her own TARDIS with Me as a Companion – and they actually didn’t answer the series long question, who is the hybrid. So… not the best ending.

Steven Moffatt was strongly for leaving after series nine, but decided at the last second to stay and do series ten. Unfortunately, series ten showed us that Steven should have left. His writing grew tired and the entirety of series ten was a let-down. Bill wasn’t fleshed out as other companions, her mother was only brought up briefly during an episode and never before seen again. Attempting to change the Mistress to a good person is a good idea, until you realise that the next time you see the character, all of that storyline would become irrelevant as the character would be crazy again. The only two good episodes was at the end, but even then there were a few flaws.

Series eleven. The biggest reboot of the show since series five. New Showrunner, Chris Chibnal, new Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, new way of writing, new companions, new monsters. It’s not just a new Doctor, however, but Jodie is the very first woman to portray the character, so it’s a massive reboot before mentioning anything else. One of the most notable elements of the show is it airing on Saturday nights, but Chris decided to change it to Sunday nights to give the new show a better chance. Everyone’s crazily busy these days, but winding down on Sunday before work on Monday, a tactic that I never considered before but does make complete sense.

There was a lot of pressure, a lot of responsibility for everyone on the team behind the scenes, but after seeing the first episode, I can safely say it was a reboot the show needed. It’s stripped everything back and started afresh. I thoroughly enjoyed the episode, and therefore am also relieved. I tried to remain neutral before the series began, but the hype was so strong, my excitement grew and subsequently did my worry of not enjoying the episode because it didn’t meet my unintentionally high expectations. Jodie Whittaker is most certainly the Doctor. They subtly slipped in a few references to us fans about how change, no matter how drastic is always a good thing. Reassuring us fans that everything is going to be OK. I firmly believe a huge chunk of those who believed the show was forever ruined but couldn’t resist seeing the episode enjoyed it as well, and spoke fondly of Jodie performance.

Establishing a new Doctor is always a strenuous task, because every showrunner is essentially working under the contradictory expression – same but different. Every soft-reboot has to be different from the former era, but retain enough similarities to keep within the overall tone – slash – atmosphere of the show previously. Changing the show but also keeping it the same is the basic principle that is the show. Changing to something completely different, but retaining the same core all the way through. We don’t see that only when the Doctor regenerates, but also during each era of the show. The Doctor is constantly up against challenges that test his character.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)