The new Doctor... how did she do?
WHO’S THAT GIRL Star Jodie Whittaker
DOCTOR WHO, THE WOMAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, BBC1 CALL it bad timing if you like, but how typical that the first female Doctor in this programme’s long history suffered a peculiarly cruel twist of scheduling fate last night.
Just like the opening episode of the BBC’s last monster Sunday night hit Bodyguard, the dramatic setting for the beginning of Jodie Whittaker’s first full shift was an incident on a speeding commuter train.
Talk about turning up to a party wearing the same dress as someone who’d arrived earlier and already grabbed all the attention.
This wasn’t Whittaker’s fault, of course. You do though have to wonder whether the Beeb’s drama teams ever talk to each other.
You could say it’s unfair to compare a kids’ show like Doctor Who to a bigbudget political thriller — and normally I’d agree. However, it wasn’t me that scheduled it on a Sunday evening and shifted Strictly Come Dancing and Countryfile around to accommodate it.
I couldn’t help thinking it would have been fairer if the BBC’s hype-stokers – who clearly believe this show is still as massive as it was in the
David Tennant era – had kept this slow-paced, low octane, Tardis-free, getting-to-know-you episode out of the primetime firing line.
Not that I disliked any of the people we did get to know. Whittaker did more than enough to confirm there should never have been any kind of fuss about the Doctor being played by a woman. Her quirky and enthusiastic take was an instant hit in our house. It was as if the spirit of Su Pollard’s Hi-DeHi chalet maid Peggy had possessed a particularly trendy primary school teacher for the night.
Speaking of which, it would have been nice to have seen Whittaker get into her charity shop chic costume a little sooner.
Sadly, we had to wait until the final scenes for that piece of the regeneration puzzle to slot into place.
That was followed by a neat cliffhanger which saw the Doctor and her three new
Do Beeb drama teams never talk to each other?
companions
Yaz (Mandip
Gill), Ryan
(Tosin Cole) and Graham (Bradley
Walsh, dressed as a young Alf
Garnett) floating in space.
It left you with the sense that the journey was only just getting started.
If the fresh and fun feel of this opener was the shape of things to come I’m totally up for the ride.
Maybe the BBC has finally realised that when it comes to Doctor Who we want adventures, not lectures.