the woman who fell to earth review

In fact, visually everything about this episode is a marked step up from what we’ve had previously. Playing it safe and middle-of-the-road at least means that Whittaker gets a solid foundation rather than being put off-balance by swinging for the fences.). And, most importantly… How did the titular woman survive her fall to Earth? As a showrunner and scriptwriter, Chris Chibnall immediately and effectively establishes himself as a safe pair of hands. TV Review – Doctor Who: The Woman Who Fell to Earth Posted on October 8, 2018 by tldrmoviereviews TL;DR – We barrel into the 11 th season with an opening episode that will hit you in the feels, make you go ew, and have you sitting in wonder, so … Now I get to review the first episode – The Woman Who Fell to Earth! I’m not feeling pessimistic about this era yet, but I wouldn’t call it an auspicious start. The Woman Who Fell to Earth is efficient, if not excellent. To be clear, this was necessary and important process. This is the first time that the Doctor has changed gender during regeneration, and is the first time that the title role will be played by a female actor. The actual plotting of the episode is fairly boilerplate Doctor Who, almost as if the series is showing that it can still do that. The death of Grace at the climax of the episode, while attempting to help the Doctor, recalls the sort of angsty tragedy that the Davies era played used to suggest character death; the dead bodies that the Ninth and Tenth Doctors left in their wakes. It makes sense that Childs would direct so much of the season as a whole. “Suddenly, I feel very tired,” the Doctor states about one third of the way through the episode, and it is easy to see why. Yep. Doctor Who has always thrived on change, and based on the first episode it seems to be in rude health – let’s just hope that, now we’ve gotten to know Team TARDIS, their adventures prove to be worthy of their talents. But if Chibnall really wants us to believe this is still Doctor Who , … This grounded plotting is reflected in a number of ways, with The Woman Who Fell to Earth feeling more rooted in the real and material world than either Rose or The Eleventh Hour. But, yeah, I’m less sure of his ambition or his willingness to push the show in new directions or to take big creative risks. Doctor Who has always been willing and able to scare children, even if Chibnall is a bit more aggressive in employing that horror. The minimalist approach is reflected in Akinola’s version of the theme tune, which sticks heavily to the original but adds just enough to freshen it up. The title of The Woman Who Fell to Earth mirrors Grace and the Doctor, as does the opening scene. Moffat attracted a lot of criticism for his tendency towards “… everybody lives!” plots, a conscious desire to avoid treating supporting characters as expendable angst-generating machines. Doctor Who: The Woman Who Fell To Earth Review - Not Great, … The questions mount up. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Where the story does succeed is in its final act, and the tragic rug-pull that comes from the death of Grace, played by Sharon D Clarke. ( Log Out /  A new showrunner, a whole new TARDIS team, a new composer and even a new transmission day – some believed that series eleven (or season thirty-seven, if you want to be accurate about it) would be completely different to what had come before. The Woman That Fell to Earth features the Doctor crash-landing onto earth in the midst of an intense mystery in the middle of Sheffield. The Doctor is female, younger and despite all the external changes, still very much the Doctor! -Hopefully him or the other writers bring the great sci-fi in the following episodes. To be clear, the Doctor is later outraged at the very idea of the hunt, but it seems strange that she immediately fixates on the cheating rather than the barbarity. You just know that there are people convinced that Hedorah is a government hoax. But this series is being heavily promoted as an ensemble piece, and sure enough Ryan soon falls into line. Along with that, “The Woman Who Fell to Earth” has a more straightforward narrative with smaller stakes. The establishing shots of the valley are a large part of that, but so is the emphasis on “northern steel.” This makes a certain amount of sense. Given how much Chris Chibnall has talked about wanting this series to be filled with fresh elements, it’s a shame he felt he couldn’t just have the new Doctor appear to the others having already sorted out her issues. The audience doesn’t get to see exactly what happened to Ramesh, but the dialogue paints a vivid picture. It falls far short of “The Eleventh Hour”. But who is counting? The site's consensus reads "Jodie Whittaker easily embodies the best of the titular time traveler in 'The Woman Who Fell to Earth' and proves that change can be a very, very good thing." Indeed, what stands out most about it in contrast to the preceding six seasons is how straightforward and uninterested in being clever it is. From the beautiful Sheffield sunset to the inexplicably windy starscape at the episode’s end, the direction of this episode brings a scale and feel to the series that we’ve never seen before. (That sounds like a low bar to pass, and I’m being a little dismissive. PEOPLE CAN FIGHT ME ON THIS ONE. On the train, Carl ducks out of the central mystery, protesting, “I just want to get to work, and forget this happened.” It’s a marker of Carl’s privilege that he can just ignore something as potentially catastrophic as this, and count on the rest of the cast to solve a problem of which he is an integral part. (Can you imagine dropping a female Doctor on top of the already polarising Moffat era? Carl obviously suffers from the same self-worth issues that affect Ryan, but Carl has the luxury of an entire industry designed to cater to his own sense of self-importance. ( Log Out /  Moffat tended to give his locations a much more abstract and metaphorical quality, focusing on what they represented more than where they were. It felt like a mediocre episode of Broadchurch with weak sci-fi elements. The action for ‘The Woman Who Fell To Earth’ does not take place anywhere remotely close to London, practically the hub of the show since the show was revived in 2005. Luckily, The Woman Who Fell to Earth seems to identify this weakness early on, and tries to compensate. Yaz is the first full-time companion of South Asian origin. ( Log Out /  At least for this one. Carl is the kind of person who has the luxury of recusing himself from crises like the Trump era or Brexit, because it doesn’t concern him. There is a lot of horror and brutality in The Woman Who Fell to Earth, but none of it feels gratuitous and unnecessary. Carl seem like he might read Jordan Peterson, confidently declaring “I am important!” as he kicks an alien to what might be its death. Yep, I instantly noticed the weak dialogue just before “predator” asked ‘Who are you?’ and the answer did not thrill me as it usually did. Very early in The Woman Who Fell to Earth, it becomes apparent that Chibnall cannot match the knack that Davies and Moffat had for writing character voices. Instead, Chibnall builds the episode like a rocket so that there is no need for dialogue. I’m more worried about Chinball’s ability more than anything else. I mean, my expectations are appreciably lower than they’ve been at any point in the run of the series. I mean, making the Doctor female isn’t anything that will make it more popular. As such, Carl kicking the gigantic murderous alien off the crane really doesn’t seem like a big deal, especially given the stress that he was facing. However, the climax of The Woman Who Fell to Earth suggests that the order of the day is not deconstruction, but reconstruction. Those are both moments that Davies or Moffat would have knocked out of the park, but which sound like first drafts in a Chibnall script. This plotting decision makes a certain amount of sense, particularly if Chibnall was counting on The Predator to be a bigger hit than it become. -Lastly, Whittaker hasn’t quite clicked for me as The Doctor. This is a stock Doctor Who plot, but is particularly common for season premieres and regeneration episodes; Spearhead from Space is an archetypal example. “It broke his jaw open.” There’s a clear sense that Chibnall is setting out his stall and demonstrating that his version of Doctor Who will have an edge to it. Support the Site; Elizabeth Sandifer. And that just about sums The Woman Who Fell To Earth  up in a nutshell. That said, for all that The Woman Who Fell to Earth distinguishes itself from earlier seasons in terms of plotting and pacing, it struggles to define itself in other terms. Much of it before new Doctor Jodie Whittaker had filmed a single line of dialogue. “You’re interfering in things you don’t understand,” Tim Shaw threatens the Doctor atone point. However, those early shots in The Woman Who Fell to Earth suggests that the blurring of intimate and epic is even stronger here. It seems like he’s aiming for an RTD approach to characterization, but it doesn’t seem like he has RTD’s skill. Those fumes should be toxic to any l…. What’s absolutely certain is that Graham and Ryan’s loss will be felt for some time to come, both by the characters and the audience. The Woman Who Fell to Earth is not perfect. Similarly, the emphasis on the collateral damage around the Doctor recalls the Davies era, right down to her awkward and emotional confession that she doesn’t have any family any longer. I remain cautiously optimistic about Chibnall’s vision for Doctor Who. For one thing, as efficiently as the TARDIS team are brought together, the device used to keep them together is excruciatingly baffling –  the DNA bombs are a gleefully gruesome context, but why use them? The Woman Who Fell To Earth is very, very different from the work of the two preceding showrunners. Jodie Whittaker would not be playing the lead role had Moffat not so aggressively pushed the boundaries of what Doctor Who could do. The final member of the team is Mandip Gill’s Yasmin, a former schoolmate of Ryan (given that their actors are thirty and twenty-six years old respectively, it’s not easy to buy into these characters only being nineteen, but this is a show about a time-travelling alien, so we’ll let it pass) and now a probationary police officer. First review in a series of of reviews, looking at each of episode of starring the 13th Doctor. It doesn’t fail or fumble the ball too badly. This might seem like damning with faint praise, but that minimises the number of demands operating on this season premiere. However, Chibnall struggles to tie the plot of the episode into his big themes. Whittaker’s version of The Doctor was already shown as a tinkerer, being able to turn everyday objects into advance sci-fi items. Nevertheless, it is clear that Chibnall is hoping to evoke the spirit of the Tenth Doctor, rather than the more esoteric personalities of the Eleventh or Twelfth. With a new lead in line, Doctor Who has made a return to our screens after what seemed like years. Advertisement. Chibnall’s stories tend to be more firmly rooted in their environment than those of Davies or Moffat; consider how much the setting and surroundings of Broadchurch added to the series, or even the use of countryside in episodes like Countrycide or The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood. On the Multiverse as the Future of Franchising... Screenwriter (Donald Clarke, Irish Times). Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Chibnall’s seeming acknowledgement of this weakness with dialogue perhaps also explains the emphasis on visual storytelling within The Woman Who Fell to Earth, and not just in the obvious computer-generated special effects sort of way. Tony Jones / October 8, 2018. A lot of the episode is spent trying to avoid potential pitfalls that would emphasise Chibnall’s relative weaknesses, and instead play to a very broad “big tent” ideal of what Doctor Who can be. Everything appears bigger and bolder. This is hardly new, and at least this Doctor isn’t relegated to spending too much time in bed a la David Tennant or Jon Pertwee, but these periods are often detrimental to the show. I was generally entertained by it, but I have some concerns about the core elements. It is easy to underestimate the popularity and appeal of Matt Smith, particularly in the United States, but David Tennant is the actor most closely associated with the series’ blockbuster phase in the United Kingdom. It accomplishes a lot of what it sets out to do, with a minimum of fuss. I’m sorry any of this is happening.” The script stops just short of having the Doctor utter the words “I’m so sorry”, but it inevitably harks back to the Tenth Doctor. Everything else needs to be safe to buttress that gambit. In fact, the branding of Tim Shaw’s face with distinctive teeth could itself be read as a sly nod to the infamous “vagina dentata” of the iconic movie monster, to say nothing of the threatened detonation at the climax of the episode. Although the episode opens on a quiet personal YouTube video, it almost immediately cuts to a very beautiful wide shot of the British countryside. The shift in aspect ratio serves to compress the image slightly, to box it in at the top and bottom. Our spoiler-free review is here. ‘The Woman Who Fell To Earth’ forgets to do that, at times. Jodie Whittaker made her first full appearance as the Doctor on BBC One this evening. This is Chibnall making a conscious bid for younger and familial audiences, by serving up a series that is paced in such a way as to evoke the more frantic rhymes of contemporary pop culture. The new regular ensemble has a breezy and easy chemistry that feels suitably distinct from more recent inhabitants of the TARDIS. There is a lot riding on The Woman Who Fell to Earth, and a lot of expectations that need to be satisfied. The familiar already appears breathtaking and spectacular. Perhaps reflecting Mark Gatiss’ nostalgic sensibilities, the Doctor seems quite happy with the brutal and imperial Ice Warriors in Cold War or Empress of Mars. The Woman Who Fell to Earth review. Ryan Sinclair, a young man in his very early 20s (possibly 19? Aspects like Ryan’s dyspraxia and Graham’s cancer may not factor into the story particularly, but they give the characters a depth that the likes of Amy Pond and Clara never had – these feel like real people, plunged into the Doctor’s chaos. But I feel like Chibnall might be a more efficient showrunner by any estimate than writing-machine-running-on-cigarettes-and-coffee Russell T. Davies or nobody-knows-whats-going-on-inside-his-had-but-him Steven Moffat. It’s easy enough to imagine The Woman Who Fell to Earth as Tennant’s regeneration story, but it would be an awkward fit for Smith or Capaldi.
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