I’m going to stick my neck out and say my piece about yesterday’s new episode of Dr Who starring the new Doctor played by Jodie Whittaker. It’s not going to take as long as my review of Solo did, trust me – for I too am a doctor.
First thing to say is that the cast was good. I’m not going to pretend anyone had a stand-out performance or stole the show, but Bradley Walsh as the new Bernard Cribbens character came close. Whittaker was playing it like Christopher Ecclestone, which is going to wear thin if she continues to do so, but I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until the Doctor’s regeneration is complete.
I have not seen Whittaker in any other TV shows that I can remember and so seeing her was a new experience alongside the fact the Doctor is now a woman. I’m quite happy that this is the case, it has been a long time coming and I see no reason why the Timelord can’t be female.
Second thing to say was that the story was crap. An uninspired and badly written pile of tosh based very much it seems on the film Predator 2 mixed with the tooth fairy. It was so full of holes and poor editing choices it made some of Silvester McCoy’s episodes look good. Sure the writers had a lot to cover in a short space of time – introducing five new characters and bumping off one of them by the end of the episode.
The fact that the nurse was going to die somehow seemed pretty to obvious to everyone I’ve talked to today about it. It was more a case of when and how, rather than will she. She’s not featured in any of the trailers so, given how she was really keen about running toward the tooth-faced monster rather than away, it seemed inevitable she was going to die. Another one of those cheap, character-motivating deaths, that I don’t like. Also one that everyone seemed to get over rather quickly by the end of the episode.
Third thing was that the messaging about knives was good, but then we have a kid riding a bike without a cycling helmet. A kid I might add who knows that he’s got dyspraxia and so really should be investing in a helmet given that he keeps falling off it. If we’re going to get that Masters of the Universe style ‘…and remember kids always look both ways before shooting up heroin’ moralistic messaging at the end of every episode then I’m going to get annoyed.
That’s it really. I’m willing to wait and see what happens over the course of this season, but I’m concerned that the quality of the writing isn’t going to match the quality of the actors involved. Also, the teaser at the end of the show gave us a long list of actors who are going to be appearing and very little in the way of teasing the fun to be had any of the future episodes. I didn’t really understand why they did that.
Oh yeah, and here’s another Jazz/Jasmine character to add to the growing list, sigh… Although it’s Yazz/Yasmin in this instance.
The only way is up I guess…
(Image from Pixabay)
couchmagpie 