Doctor Who 11.1 - "The Woman Who Fell To Earth"

[lizbee]

When Chibnall was announced as the new showrunner, my first reaction was, "Oh no." Because everything I had seen of his varied wildly in quality, was intermittently humourless, and relied way too much on sexual assault as a plot device. (Yes, even his Doctor Who work, consider the rape threats in "Dinosaurs on a Space Ship".)

Then Jodie Whittaker was announced as Thirteen, and I got excited.

This ... may have been a mistake.

Whittaker, and Thirteen, are magnificent. Like Eleventy, she rocketed straight into my Top Four Doctors (at which point I don't distinguish favourites, because whichever one I'm watching at that moment is my favourite).

But whether she can stay there is another matter -- there was a time when I loved both Nine and Ten, yet both wound up so tainted by RTD's problems that I stopped enjoying their episodes. (Nine is my all-time least favourite Doctor, and his "actually, fighting Nazis is as bad as being a Nazi" stance has aged really badly.)

This episode was incredibly uneven. On the one hand, THIRTEEN. She's fizzy and enthusiastic and angry and ready to fight the whole universe.

And Ryan and Yaz are both great characters -- well, Ryan moreso at this point; Yaz is still mostly just unrealised potential.

But the plot was just ... meh. Nothing we haven't seen before, and executed with a minimum of flare and very little humour. The high point, for me, was the montage of the Doctor building her sonic screwdriver -- after that, I found myself reaching for my phone to play a game, and when I looked up, a black woman was being fridged.

Doctor Who has a long history of treating black characters poorly. It gets no benefit of the doubt at this point. Grace was a magnificent character -- brave, kind, devoted to her family and to doing the right thing. And she was a nurse, a nice counterpoint to the Doctor. And she dies so that her male relatives, grandson Ryan and her husband, Scaredy Ableist McWhite Guy, can have sadness and motivation, and nothing to tie them to Earth.

So the first female Doctor, a white woman, saves the planet over the body of a black woman.

For all that Chibnall is doing a lot of work to make the show more diverse, both behind the camera and in front, that feels like a slap in the face.

Apparently the actress is signed for more episodes, but I'm honestly not sure I'm going to keep watching. I love Thirteen, and like Yaz and Ryan, but I don't care about Graham, and I hate what he stands for, the narrative significance of white men over black women.

And I'm just not a fan of Chibnall's work. I often found Moffat frustrating, especially after the Ponds left -- honestly, the seasons with Eleventy and the Ponds were Peak Who for me, as important and beloved in my subjective little heart as season 17 -- but I was usually keen to see what he was going for. Chibnall is just mediocre.

Fortunately, he can't write every episode, so we'll see. I'd be sad to nope out of Thirteen's run, but I think I'd rather do that, and revisit it later when the series has moved on, than watch it and hate it.

Comments

[infiniteviking]

I was so relieved to have a run-of-the-mill plot instead of fat jokes, class jokes, negging, endless self-importance mixed with endless self-flagellation, and smug cleverness at everyone else's expense that I didn't even notice the mediocrity. (I haven't seen most of Twelve's run because I couldn't deal with the negging, despite Capaldi being amazing.) But yeah, there's a whole pile of bad implications around Grace's death. I'm extremely glad she's signed up for more episodes.

Thirteen was so good. I badly want to see more of her.

[lizbee]

I miss Moffat. I'd rather be annoyed but engaged than annoyed and bored.

[capalxii]

I miss Moffat.

Maybe I'm just incredibly, incredibly biased, but even with the fridge I went through this episode feeling the opposite. It's not often in Moffatt or RTD's eras that the Doctor treated a black person with respect from the start--Bill got it, but then she also ended her run with a white man telling her she can't be angry, another white man seeing her get shot post conversion and then hooking up with her shooter, and the first white man making a grandiose speech about kindness that didn't seem to include her views on the people he'd decided to save. Then there was that whole monk story. So I'm cautious even calling her run a resounding success, and she was still a major outlier.

This story features not only the Dr treating both Ryan and Grace with respect, but also a lot of real diversity that was missing from Moffatt and RTD's run. And not all the brown and black people died, and not all the white people lived! Though a lot of the deaths were brown even outside of Grace, I think that was at least in part to do with the fact that a lot of the minor characters were just not white.

So idk. Knowing Grace will be back, knowing Chibnall has already hired people with voices neither Moffatt not RTD could manage to find, and seeing a world where not only could a person like me live but also be treated respectfully by the Dr without having to jump through hoops that the super special white companions wouldn't need to. Gives me reason to give Chibnall the benefit of the doubt, and wait to see if he fixes this somehow. I don't think I would've said that about him prior to this episode. DGMW, I think Moffatt's highs were very high and this episode was maybe not the best story- and pace-wise, but on the little things there were enough deliberate differences that I can wait and see with Chibnall whereas I would've been completely over Moffatt pulling the same nonsense.

[lizbee]

No, all that is fair.

I just ... don't like Chibnall's writing. I found this script had a level of cruel nihilism that hasn't been part of DW since the RTD or Saward days, and I think his writing on other series is incredibly hit and miss. And when he's good, he's really good, but when he's bad, he goes straight to violence against women as his major trope. I don't want to give him the benefit of the doubt because I've seen his work before, and I didn't like it.

[capalxii]

That's also fair! Was trying to edit the comment to say none of what I was saying should be a dismissal of anything you were saying.

Where I'm coming from I guess is that it looks like he'll have an actual writing staff with people who aren't mostly white dudes, which could potentially minimize his own tropes cropping up in ways that Moffatt's and RTD's models didn't for their writing (and didn't curtail Chibnall's worst, either, as they were both like "yeah let's produce this and call the guy back to write more"). I suppose what I mean is I'm giving the model a chance, and giving him a chance to use the different model to not do the things that the others got so tripped up in?

[lizbee]

I suppose what I mean is I'm giving the model a chance, and giving him a chance to use the different model to not do the things that the others got so tripped up in?

That makes perfect sense! And it's one of the reasons I want to keep watching -- I'm excited about the new writers he's brought on board, and I'm reasonably sure I'll like their work better. And, hey, I made it through the RTD era, when I was guaranteed to strongly dislike everything the showrunner wrote!

[capalxii]

RTD's era was certainly a thing that occurred lol

[jesuswasbatman]

It's possible Grace was promoted as a recurring character to make her death more shocking, as the BBC had a major habit of in the 2000s.

[capalxii]

That would be disappointing for sure, though I thought it was announced that the actor is returning?

[lizbee]

Nothing has been confirmed yet -- there's a rumour going around that the Master will take on her appearance, but I truly hate that idea. I've seen people going, "Well, they did it with Michelle Yeoh in Discovery," but that was a specific case where the evil version has the same capacity for love as the original. The Master only loves the Doctor.

[nostalgia]

That would be HORRIBLE :(

[jesuswasbatman]

Horrible idea. And also why? (ETA: I mean "why would the Master/Mistress do that in canon" rather than "why would Chibnall do it")

[capalxii]

Nooo but ok "they're the Master or the Rani" is a common enough rumor that I can ignore it. People were saying Danny Pink would be the Master's apprentice/lackey at one point. Given it's still at least nominally a family show, I'm not sure they go the route of making someone's Gran suddenly the Master, as well.

[lizbee]

You know, I was so busy being mad at people who thought this would be a good idea, I forgot to register how unlikely it is!

[capalxii]

The fact that people thought killing off the cool and sweet black woman only to bring the actor back to play a completely different character, a complex yet still rather monstrous Old God, instead is a good idea--that's a good reason to be mad!

But yeah I'd eat my shoe if it ever actually happened

[miss_s_b]

This is where I am, at the moment.

[infiniteviking]

*distracted by your icon, LIZ TEN FOREVER PLZ<3*

I hope future episodes have more to sink your teeth into be interested in! I also haven't seen Chibnall's other work and can't anticipate his specific highs or lows, but going by what you said that's no loss.

[monanotlisa]

I'm glad I got my subscription, to send a message...but Grace dying was so stunning and useless; the episode had enough narrative speed at that point, in my opinion. She could have just stayed on Earth, Taking Care Of Shit (tm) while The Doctor was traveling through a universe that always, always has to have some White Dude Character. *eyeroll*

[lizbee]

Yeah, she wouldn't have been the first medical professional named Grace who decided she could do more good in her job on Earth than with the Doctor! It was a cheap stunt.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, there didn't seem to be a plot reason, and it wasn't set up in advance that she was doing something more dangerous than the various people who lived. It just felt tacked on.

[ironed_orchid]

I loved and adored 13. So much. And I really don't want to be overly critical when I think it's important people be allowed to squee about 13.

But I was bored through parts of the episode, and I was afraid that Grace would get killed off because I hadn't seen her in the teasers for the new companions. Then she died and it wasn't even a useful sacrifice, because The Doctor had already disarmed the thingummies.

So I am kinda mad and sad. But I still LOVE 13 and will keep watching and hoping.

[lizbee]

Then she died and it wasn't even a useful sacrifice, because The Doctor had already disarmed the thingummies.

I didn't even register that bit! (I was completely tuned out and playing on my phone.)

[ironed_orchid]

I spent a lot of the episode playing on my phone.

[fred_mouse]

I am so angry about Grace's death. But that won't stop me watching the series, because there was so much else going on that I want to support. Not least that the Doctor is female, and I feel that people not watching would send the wrong message.

[kerravonsen]

The plot made me think of something from the Sarah-Jane Adventures; something superficial and easy to understand. But I liked the characters, even the minor characters.

[philippos42]

I have to give this series credit for using Asian characters, including a regular in a non-stereotypical role. As an American, I'm used to seeing South Asians (that aren't Marvel Comics' Kamala Khan) mostly as physicians or as Bollywood nerds.

In a sort of related vein, I appreciate the idea of Doctor Who having an older white man as a sidekick, as a sort of inversion of the traditional Doctor and assistant types. I can't really knock that, even if Graham has yet to grow on me.

Grace's sacrifice wasn't well-integrated into the script, no. I'm not sure what to do with that.

I liked the setting of the first episode; I think they did pretty well with the realistic English bits. The second episode, on a fantastic & previously-unseen planet, lacks that kind of depth of setting and I didn't like it as much. The third episode looks like it might be an actual historical, or maybe a mostly-historical like the Vincent van Gogh story, and it's set in my stupid country, so I hope it's good.

I am still getting used to Thirteen's accent. It's a nice accent, but the vowels aren't all the same as other Northern accents, are they?