Proper quips, good villain and JODIE!!!!!!! Love that she built her own sonic and LOVE how fast she's like "yup we're best friends!"

Also Grace would have been a terrific full season companion and as much as I love Graham, he feels like the inverse of a typical DW companion. Which I guess is to be expected from an old show in its 11th series.

And yes of course I am now reading into every glance Yaz and The Doctor share together I AM INCONSOLABLE

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

"THE WOMAN WHO FELL TO EARTH: TEETH, TECH, AND A TINKERING TIME LADY”

Chris Chibnall launches a new era of Doctor Who with The Woman Who Fell to Earth, a 60-minute opener that has a lot on its plate – introducing a new Doctor, a full team of companions, and setting a tone for Series 11. Much like previous era openers (Rose, The Eleventh Hour, Deep Breath), this story leans heavily on the companions’ point of view. We’re dropped into Sheffield, where Ryan struggles with dyspraxia and stumbles (literally and figuratively) into something alien. His step-grandfather Graham, with whom he has a strained relationship, soon gets involved alongside Yaz, a young police officer craving more excitement from her job.

It’s a grounded, human way to kick things off – and it works. We meet our leads as they are: ordinary people in an ordinary city suddenly plunged into something extraordinary.

POST-REGENERATION JITTERS (AND JOKES)

Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor doesn’t get the full-on amnesia or coma that earlier incarnations have suffered through, but she’s clearly still adjusting – rambling, inventive, full of spark but slightly scattered. Her entrance, crashing onto a train mid-alien attack, is pure chaos. But the core of her Doctor begins to shine through almost immediately. That famous crane scene, in particular, is her first proper “Doctor moment” – confronting Tzim-Sha (or “Tim Shaw”, as she dubs him) with moral authority, cleverness, and steel.

The Doctor’s Sheffield-forged sonic is also a fun twist – a nice build montage that adds to her image as a tinkerer, someone who crafts her own tools. From the beginning, Whittaker’s Doctor shows a collaborative energy, involving the "fam" in her plans, and leaning into empathy, ingenuity, and leadership.

NEW FACES AND OLD TEETH

Tim Shaw is a memorable foe. A Stenza warrior on a ritual hunt, he’s creepy, unsettling, and sports a striking design – his face literally studded with the teeth of his victims. It’s a disturbing image that sticks with you. The premise – two alien races battling on Earth with humans caught in the middle – is a neat twist on the usual alien invasion formula. And the early mystery, with its gradually escalating tension and piecemeal reveals, helps ground the science fiction in real-world Sheffield.

There’s a solid structure to how the episode reveals its alien elements: strange signals, malfunctioning tech, alien pods… and then finally, Tim Shaw himself. The sense of rising threat is effective.

THE COMPANIONS (AND ONE TRAGICALLY SHORT-STAY)

Ryan, Yaz, and Graham are all given distinctive introductions. Ryan's dyspraxia is handled with care, and his YouTube monologue bookending the story gives the episode a thoughtful frame. Yaz, while perhaps slightly underwritten at this stage, is shown to be curious and capable. And Graham – well, Graham is immediately the heart of the group, trying to be the sensible one even as he gets pulled into the madness.

And then there's Grace. Warm, funny, determined, and brave – she’s an immediate standout. So of course, her sudden death feels like a gut punch. It's narratively effective, if a little abrupt. Her loss is clearly meant to give Graham and Ryan emotional stakes going forward, and the closing funeral scene helps give her passing some weight. It’s rare that Doctor Who slows down enough to show grief like this, and it’s welcome.

Karl, the crane operator targeted by Tim Shaw, is an unexpected addition. He’s a character with no grand destiny, just a regular man caught in the middle, and his awkward affirmations (“I am special”, “I can do this”) make him oddly endearing. His final contribution – kicking Tim Shaw off the crane – is cathartic, even if a little morally ambiguous for Doctor Who.

And let’s not forget the legendary drunk Salad Man: “Eat my salad, Halloween!” – a line so gloriously absurd it feels destined for T-shirt immortality.

SETTING THE TONE, MISSING THE TARDIS

This is one of the rare stories in Doctor Who that doesn’t feature the TARDIS at all, and it’s to the episode’s credit that it doesn’t feel like anything is missing. In fact, the lack of the TARDIS makes the ending – with the Doctor cobbling together alien tech to find it, only to accidentally teleport her new companions along for the ride – all the more impactful.

That final cliffhanger, with the Doctor and her new team floating in deep space, is a solid hook. It’s bold, weird, and makes it clear that Chibnall’s vision for the show may be slower and more grounded, but it’s still very much Doctor Who.

📝 VERDICT: 8/10

The Woman Who Fell to Earth is a confident soft reboot that re-establishes the show’s human core while introducing a new Doctor who’s charming, energetic, and curious. The alien threat is solid, if not earth-shattering, and the character work – especially for Graham and Grace – gives the episode emotional grounding. The companions are promising, the setting refreshingly down-to-earth, and the overall vibe suggests a more character-driven approach for this new era. Whittaker hasn’t fully settled into her skin yet, but she’s clearly got the heart, humour, and fire needed to carry the show forward.

Not a perfect debut – but a grounded, heartfelt, and memorable one.

The woman who fell to Earth

This is a long title, this happens quite a few times.

Jodie's first episode and it's great, we meet the fam which is a terrible name, Thirteen makes a sonic out of Sheffield steel spoons, proving The Doctor's love of spoons. Tim shaw is semi-Defeated, banished somewhere and Grace is killed so Graham can have a character trait.

The Woman Who Fell to Earth: A Rambling Review

So, I do like that they're giving the new companions a backstory and traits. It just seems in my memory, that those never really went anywhere and were often forgotten. If I encountered a glowy thing in midair in the woods, I'm not sure what I would do. Logically, I wouldn't touch it. Though I suspect that curiosity might get the better of me. Does anyone else think that the pod looks like a giant blue Hershey's kiss? Almost ten minutes into the episode before the Doctor makes an appearance, but that does give us a bit of time to get to know our new companions a bit. I'm not sure what I think about the companions knowing each other before hand, I sort of like it but also sort of don't. I find that I would've preferred if Grace had joined the TARDIS crew, I liked her a lot more than Ryan or Yaz. In my inital viewing when these aired, I never really warmed to Ryan. I found he was just kinda there. I liked Graham, and found him the most enjoyable of the three with a personality and a nice balance between seriousness and comedy. Yaz has potential, but I never felt it materialized enough for me to like her.

While Jodie's Doctor does evolve her own personality somewhat in my memory, I do understand the comparisons to Tennant/Smith. This Doctor is very manic, talking a mile a minute, her brain moving too fast, and that's not something that goes away after her regeneration stabilizes. It does feel somewhat like the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, especially Eleven. Though I think it's almost in overdrive here. That said, I do love the design of the new sonic, and the scenes of her making it are great. And she does get a decent "I'm the Doctor" moment in the climax.

I will admit that the Stenza is good design, and an intersting idea. I'd love to see them expanded upon since that's something the TV show never really did. Apart from only meeting one member of their species in two episodes and then getting a little info in another, they haven't been touched. Maybe we'll get something in the upcoming Jodie run from Big Finish (as they were sort of set up as a nemesis for her) or in a future Classic Doctors, New Monsters.

So this episode does work for me. It's not the best episode, for me The Eleventh Hour is the pinnicle of Doctor introductory episodes, especially in the Modern Series. I like the more low-key threat, the more personal stakes. Tsim-sha won't ever be among the greatest monsters/villains the show has ever produced, but he's not among the worst. What this sets up works for me, it's the payoffs and what I remember to lack of building upon this that don't. It's a fine episode of Doctor Who, not terrible, not outstanding, just fine. I will say though, that the cliffhanger was rather nice. Anyway, I think that's everything. Final score: 7.5/10.

This story is by no means that works of it's era, but it's also not too great. There are clunky ploy elements and clunky dialogue. Lots of potentially interesting character traits are introduced here and, while this isn't s criticism of this episode, I feel that many of them are barely explored in future episodes.