Doctor Who series 11: Meet the new Doctor - with a new gender and an updated sonic screwdriver

Alastair McKay5 October 2018

The list of things that can’t be revealed about this first episode of Jodie Whittaker-era Doctor is long.

There is one very large spoiler that will be news to nobody but which might have been exciting had it been kept secret. The Doctor is a woman. Perhaps you noticed. Perhaps it made this reboot of the show a little more interesting.

But is Doctor Who really about suspense? Possibly it is for viewers under 10 years old, for whom monsters are still real.

But for everyone else, the Who business is ruled by a battery-licking formula in which shocks are tickled by reassurance. It is an alien Halloween in which the Doctor bumbles to victory, haphazardly saving the universe.

Series 11: Jodie Whittaker's Doctor will be the first series to be shown on a Sunday
BBC / BBC Studios

Things to know. Whittaker is very good. Her character isn’t fully formed until the end of the episode so there’s a bit of actorly buffering to be endured. “Brain and body still rebooting, reformatting,” as the Doctor observes.

Whittaker is energetic and eccentric. She delivers the sci-fi cobblers with the right note of self-mockery. At first, she, the Doctor is not sure of her words. “That’s exciting,” she says. “No, not exciting. What do I mean? Worrying.”

Then there is the matter of gender. “Why are you calling me madam?! she asks. “Because you’re a woman,” comes the reply. “Half an hour ago I was a white-haired Scotsman,” says the Doctor. There is, if you listen closely, a hint that the Doctor has been a woman before. Or at least worn women’s clothing, which may not be the same thing.

Doctor Who Premiere

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Ah, costume. The clothes are important. It doesn’t do to think too hard about this but when she appears in the middle of contemporary Sheffield to thwart an alien thing the Doctor is dressed drably in a white shirt and waistcoat. Possibly they are Peter Capaldi’s old duds. By the end, she is in her new costume.

It is both very now, very retro and very Who. There are clumpy boots, a coat that hangs like a cape, hi-waister bags held up by braces and a rainbow jumper. It’s a bit skinhead, a bit Wigan Casino, a bit Bay City Rollers (in cult terms, Capaldi wasn’t far away from that, looking like an undertaker who had parked his hearse in the dead space between Showaddywaddy and two-tone). And the rest?

Well, I won’t spoil the monsters, except to say that they are both bright and dim, and one of them speaks perfect Robot Actor English. There are no Daleks. There is a bit of scientific mumbo-jumbo about weaponised biotech, a subplot about grief and a novel answer to the question of what to do about the role of the Doctor’s assistant. This supporting role used to be the feisty pin-up girl to coax the hetero dads out from behind the sofa but is now … well, wait and see.

In other news, the Doctor can’t remember where she parked the Tardis, the sonic screwdriver is upgraded, becoming a sonic Swiss Army Knife, and there’s a nice line about a fried-egg sandwich.

A word about Bradley Walsh. He plays Graham, a startled everyman in a West Ham scarf. He’s like a Gogglebox dad. “Are we supposed to understand anything you’re saying?” he asks the Doctor. “Why’s she running at another alien?”

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