Spoilers The Woman Who Fell to Earth grade and discussion thread

[RPOW0614]

I liked it and gave it a "good" rating.

I like Jodie and look forward to her really diving into the "Doctor" role after her post regeneration confusion. I was less thrilled with the new companions. They were all a little bland to me. Let's hope they get more interesting and there are less bus driver references, LOL.

The "Big Bad" Tim Shaw seemed to be from the "Generic aliens manual", a completely forgettable character, but still better than the "eye booger" monsters from Capaldi's time.

 

[matthunter]

That started under capaldi. Tried watching with little one again and...within ten minutes there’s a kid under the ice and had to turn off. It’s one of the reasons I am pretty sure we are within three years at best of another cancellation. History repeats after all.

Ridiculously inaccurate. Skulls crushed by Dalek plunger during Eccleston's run? Innocents chopped up by whirring blades in the Cyberman episodes? Are people just forgetting all these, or are they looking for an excuse to rag on the new showrunners only one episode in?

 

[jaime]

Ridiculously inaccurate. Skulls crushed by Dalek plunger during Eccleston's run? Innocents chopped up by whirring blades in the Cyberman episodes? Are people just forgetting all these, or are they looking for an excuse to rag on the new showrunners only one episode in?

Well, since Capaldi wasn’t under the new show runner....let’s look at the difference shall we?
Torchwood workers under the cyberman stuff. Still grim, granted, but, we don’t know these people or their familial relationships. No ones family works for Torchwood. In the words of John Lennon, everyone’s allowed two grandads.
Same thing for the other Eastenders guest star. He’s a scientist, but we don’t know anything about him. Torchwood dude. He’s not established as a parental or grandparent figure. This is all ‘in the line of duty’ when dealing with weird alien stuff.
Night security guard grandad on a building site is not.
And to return to the point I made about Capaldi, there was a boy that died under the ice of the Thames, and in that precise moment, the Doctor gave more of a shit about the sonic screwdriver the homeless boy had pinched. That was a terrible error, even if it was brought up by Clara at the time and addressed in dialogue, DW should not be in the business of overtly offing child characters. Not to mention the human skin balloon etc of Deep Breath. Matt Smith was probably the last child friendly Doctor, within reason.
That’s what I mean.
Most of the RTD years got away with it by being overtly cartoonish. Now? Not so much.
Now, if you want me to go after the new production team, give me a week or three to actually see them do more than the slightly bog standard intro episode of this week, in which they got some things right, and some things wrong.
Stop leaping to conclusions. Some of them are thin ice.

Edit: ecclestone plunger moment not the Torchwood guy. Right. That would be the armed soldier working for an evil PMC. Not grandad mcordinary, and certainly older than say 12. Argument stands.

 

[T'Boggan]

Great.. a woman doctor Finally! .It was thought about in the eighties but sadly never came to pass. Different dynamics between companions?, yes but since Gallifreyans seem to be of indeterminate gender will it change the doc? probebly not. Looking forward to the season though, I have watched since the Hartnell years. My attention wandered a bit during the Baker/McCoy years as I was recently divorced and living in Naughty London at the time. There arnt really any spectacularly new story lines available really but its the telling of the story that matters. Sometime the crappy special effects were part of the charm, in the past. Sometimes I think with all the swish mod effects that a bit of that charm has gone. Live long and Prosper Daughter of Gallifrey.

 

[David cgc]

Rubbertoe Replicas, a company that makes several props for Doctor Who and, not coincidentally, sells Doctor Who prop collectables, posted that they'll be putting up a making-of article on the new screwdriver in the next few days.

Here’s the making-of for the prop.

 

[The Wormhole]

That said, I still wish we could get actual historicals without any alien involvement at all. I find it puzzling that is something hard to do.

Mark Gatiss said he tried to have conversations with Moffat about doing a proper historical, but Moffat had no interest in even discussing the subject.

I wonder if that for similar reasons that a 19th century Sherlock Holmes adventure Moffat wrote has a subplot set in the modern day?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Mark Gatiss said he tried to have conversations with Moffat about doing a proper historical, but Moffat had no interest in even discussing the subject.

Wow, if Moffat blew off his writing partner completely on the subject l, he really had no interest in it, which is a damn shame.

At least Gatiss had an interest in it, even if he's not the strongest writer. Gives me hope that other people will try to pitch the idea in the future.

 

[The Wormhole]

I have hope Chibnall will be open to the idea. He did, after all write the episode Countrycide on Torchwood, which turned out in the end to not be anything relate to aliens or anything sci-fi. Countrycide isn't exactly the sort of thing I expect or would even want to see on Doctor Who, but it does show Chibnall might be willing to do an actual historical.

 

[Samurai8472]

I have hope Chibnall will be open to the idea. He did, after all write the episode Countrycide on Torchwood, which turned out in the end to not be anything relate to aliens or anything sci-fi. Countrycide isn't exactly the sort of thing I expect or would even want to see on Doctor Who, but it does show Chibnall might be willing to do an actual historical.

We'll see how his Rosa Parks episode turns out

Title and Synopsis for episode three, "Rosa"

The Doctor takes her companions on their first journey back in time - to the dangerous, racially segregated world of Alabama in the 1950s. They encounter one of the era's heroes, black civil rights campaigner Rosa Parks, but also discover a plot to change the course of history. Vinette Robinson (Sherlock, The A Word) guest stars in an episode by acclaimed children's author Malorie Blackman.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Well, that could go either way, but it's probably not a pure historical if someone is trying to change history. Where did you find that synopsis?

 

[Samurai8472]

^Radio times

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv-programme/e/g546cj/doctor-who--s11-e3-rosa/

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Thanks for that. I was surprised to see it since Chibnall and company have been much more tight-lipped about what's coming. Hell, we don't know all of the episode titles, let alone synopses for them.

 

[Refuge]

Well, that could go either way, but it's probably not a pure historical if someone is trying to change history. Where did you find that synopsis?

Ug. The thought of a heavily political historical does nothing for me. I didn't mind that Agatha Christie episode a few years back though, it was a bit of fun.

 

[matthunter]

Well, since Capaldi wasn’t under the new show runner....let’s look at the difference shall we?
Torchwood workers under the cyberman stuff. Still grim, granted, but, we don’t know these people or their familial relationships. No ones family works for Torchwood. In the words of John Lennon, everyone’s allowed two grandads.
Same thing for the other Eastenders guest star. He’s a scientist, but we don’t know anything about him. Torchwood dude. He’s not established as a parental or grandparent figure. This is all ‘in the line of duty’ when dealing with weird alien stuff.
Night security guard grandad on a building site is not.
And to return to the point I made about Capaldi, there was a boy that died under the ice of the Thames, and in that precise moment, the Doctor gave more of a shit about the sonic screwdriver the homeless boy had pinched. That was a terrible error, even if it was brought up by Clara at the time and addressed in dialogue, DW should not be in the business of overtly offing child characters. Not to mention the human skin balloon etc of Deep Breath. Matt Smith was probably the last child friendly Doctor, within reason.
That’s what I mean.
Most of the RTD years got away with it by being overtly cartoonish. Now? Not so much.
Now, if you want me to go after the new production team, give me a week or three to actually see them do more than the slightly bog standard intro episode of this week, in which they got some things right, and some things wrong.
Stop leaping to conclusions. Some of them are thin ice.

Edit: ecclestone plunger moment not the Torchwood guy. Right. That would be the armed soldier working for an evil PMC. Not grandad mcordinary, and certainly older than say 12. Argument stands.

I'm glad it can stand after all those gymnastics.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Just saw it. And without having read all the comments (I gave up after page 9), I will say the following:

Jode Whittaker is the Doctor. But... she's clearly still finding the role. Not quite as impressive first performance as Baker, Davison, Eccleston or Capaldi. Still, with that said, she absolutely has the hearts, charm, wit and kindness of the Doctor down pat. She really reminds me of Eight, exuberant and lively and willing to risk herself for the greater good.

The supporting cast is quite good, I thought. Chibnall made the right decision to focus on them for this story because, as a reboot that's meant to attract new audiences, its establishing character and mood. And I liked that a lot, the fact that it took its time with the characters. There was a good point about spending time for the loss of one of the characters involved, and that was honestly good.

In fact, my immediate mpression is this felt, for the first time, like proper BBC drama, with the Doctor in it. Usually its something plus something else. This time it felt different, like Chibnall was going for a far more relateable, tonally concurrent with out world aesthetic than even RTD had achieved. It also certainly isn't a fable, which is how Moffat basically saw Doctor Who as.

The plot, otherwise, is fairly meh. Its quite easily the most forgttable plot for a post-regeneration story since Seven's, and even that one had the Rani in it. On the other hand, it is a tonal opposite to Capaldi's first, which is definitely pure fanwank compared to this. The aliens are basically a lesser version of the Sontarans and the Rutans.

The music was great. I like that its distinctly different from Murray Gold's, whose score I will miss, but "times change" as the Doctor has said.

There is one thing I did detest, and that is the asinine, parody-esque cliffhanger. It was just... ugh.

Overall, Good, the Doctor's almost there but not quite, the companions are all fine, the look is fine, the feel is fine... I just hope we get better stories from now on. Looking forward to Sunday.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

Ridiculously inaccurate. Skulls crushed by Dalek plunger during Eccleston's run? Innocents chopped up by whirring blades in the Cyberman episodes? Are people just forgetting all these, or are they looking for an excuse to rag on the new showrunners only one episode in?

Oh yes, there's a lot of casual forgetting and "BUT IT WAS DIFFERENT FOR THEM" in the criticism that's rolling out. I've even seen someone claim Toothface was worse than the "People are still trapped in their bodies when they die and feel everything" revelation that caused a mini-panic after "Dark Water"/"Death In Heaven" aired.

Honestly, a good deal of the opinions on the Doctor building the sonic or reprogramming the phone or reprogramming the transport beam seem to be demonstrate some eliding of implicit bias into criticism. No one has really come right out and said "Women can't build sonics" but there're a lot of "It was never firmly established that the Doctor made the sonics before, therefore this is bad" or "The doctor doesn't just build things with earth parts!" despite years and years of assuming the character had done the former and onscreen evidence of the latter. It's immensely frustrating. Especially as a lot of it is chaff in the way of legitimately criticizing parts of the episode. Next thing you know people'll be saying the Doctor can't fix the TARDIS console. ;-)

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Honestly, a good deal of the opinions on the Doctor building the sonic or reprogramming the phone or reprogramming the transport beam seem to be demonstrate some eliding of implicit bias into criticism. No one has really come right out and said "Women can't build sonics" but there're a lot of "It was never firmly established that the Doctor made the sonics before, therefore this is bad" or "The doctor doesn't just build things with earth parts!" despite years and years of assuming the character had done the former and onscreen evidence of the latter. It's immensely frustrating. Especially as a lot of it is chaff in the way of legitimately criticizing parts of the episode. Next thing you know people'll be saying the Doctor can't fix the TARDIS console. ;-)

And if I thought it was cheesy that the Doctor built advanced tech out of Earth scraps in the other instances, what then? The topic was this week's episode. Can't someone have an opinion about something on its own merits without having someone else project motives onto them?

 

[BritishSeaPower]

And if I thought it was cheesy that the Doctor built advanced tech out of Earth scraps in the other instances, what then? The topic was this week's episode. Can't someone have an opinion about something on its own merits without having someone else project motives onto them?

No. ::bangs gavel.:: Bailiff, next case.

But, really, it's fine to find it cheesy or whatever. Just be aware of how that criticism is framed and how that criticism functions in the larger context of the series it's being applied to.

 

[jaime]

I'm glad it can stand after all those gymnastics.

What gymnastics? It’s somewhat been my same point all along, no gymnastics required. It’s nothing to do with the new mob, so your suggestion it’s wanting to bash them specifically is mistaken as soon as you make it. The show is in danger of not knowing who it’s aimed at (or aiming too broad which is similar, or too tight which ends with the same result....we have seen this before in 86.)
Feel free to read my previous posts where I and sundry others make the same points about the same bits in the episode. Best I can grade it is..fair. Next week, who knows.

 

[Christopher]

In fact, my immediate mpression is this felt, for the first time, like proper BBC drama, with the Doctor in it.

I dunno, I think you could maybe say that about Davies's era to an extent, at least parts of it. And if you go back far enough, the early historical serials were far more in the BBC's wheelhouse than the sci-fi stories, because they'd done tons of historical dramas. So those serials often felt more sophisticatedly made and more sure of themselves than the sci-fi ones. As I remarked in another thread, "The Crusade" in particular feels like the TARDIS crew have stumbled into a BBC presentation of a lost Shakespeare play about Richard I.

The plot, otherwise, is fairly meh. Its quite easily the most forgttable plot for a post-regeneration story since Seven's, and even that one had the Rani in it.

I wouldn't say "Time and the Rani" is forgettable. It just makes me wish it were.

The aliens are basically a lesser version of the Sontarans and the Rutans.

No, that's just what we were supposed to think at first, and no doubt what the Doctor was thinking when she guessed it was two warring species using Earth as a battleground. But that was a red herring; it was just a hunter on a leadership ritual, and the Gathering Coils were just his hounds for sniffing out the fox.

There is one thing I did detest, and that is the asinine, parody-esque cliffhanger. It was just... ugh.

I don't see the problem with the cliffhanger. That's getting back to the classics, the way the early serials always ended with a cliffhanger intro to the next serial.

Honestly, a good deal of the opinions on the Doctor building the sonic or reprogramming the phone or reprogramming the transport beam seem to be demonstrate some eliding of implicit bias into criticism. No one has really come right out and said "Women can't build sonics" but there're a lot of "It was never firmly established that the Doctor made the sonics before, therefore this is bad" or "The doctor doesn't just build things with earth parts!" despite years and years of assuming the character had done the former and onscreen evidence of the latter. It's immensely frustrating.

The Doctor spent years building stuff with Earth parts when he was exiled here. And plenty of other times besides.

For that matter, it just occurred to me... The last appearance of the Second Doctor's original "penlight" sonic screwdriver was in "The War Games," and the first appearance of the more familiar classic-series screwdriver model wasn't until the second year of the Third Doctor's exile on Earth (although it was in "Colony in Space"). So if anything, that implies that the Doctor may have built the classic screwdriver using Earth technology in the first place!