As normal for major premieres, the SFB team present their own takes on Jodie Whittaker’s intro (Nick Joy’s spoiler-free review can be read here)

A group of variously connected people get their lives turned upside down by the sudden, simultaneous arrival of aliens and a young woman who seems to know exactly what’s going on while being pretty vague about everything else. Can they trust this odd new arrival, and will they solve the mystery of the aliens in time?

So this is it. This is the big one that we’ve waited for patiently for what feels like forever. Slowly but surely, we have been drip fed clips and interviews and soundbites these last few months and now finally, we have the first episode of Doctor Who with Jodie Whittaker as 13 on the books. So how did she do?

That’s a fairly patronising question when you think on it. Whittaker is a talented actress with a varied CV, but Who is special – even the vaunted Peter Capaldi had to be measured against the exacting standards of Whovians when it came down to it. Yes, he was an established actor and director, yes he’d won awards, yes he was a mega fan of the show, but until he’d picked up the sonic and grabbed the TARDIS controls, how could we be sure?

Whittaker’s baptism is even harsher – no TARDIS to speak of (it having thrown her out and exploded quite a bit as she first regenerated) and no Sonic either. None of the old reliable McGuffins, in fact, which tended to be used all-too-often by Steven Moffat to get him out of another one of those little walls he’d written himself into. Chibnall is brave here, throwing out all convention (and not just in terms of gadgets and the Doctor’s gender) and there’s so much that could have failed in different hands.

Thankfully, Whittaker might well have been born to play this role. The way her face lights up with sheer delight as she makes a connection; the strange, quixotic mix of scatter-brained forgetfulness and lightning quick wits; and the defiance in the face of anything she perceives as unfair, cheating or simply wrong. The Doctor is a complex role – playing a creature both massively old and weighed down by years of wisdom but simultaneously buoyed up by an irrepressible sense of adventure and a need to see the answers beyond the next horizon and the next. Whittaker nails it in every scene, from her first, discombobulated appearance to her last, actually also discombobulated appearance.

There’s also a quiet stillness to 13 which is at odds with every regeneration since Eccleston. No flailing arms, no loudly talking at or over everyone else who’s there and no condescending assurances that everyone else can just sit down and be quiet because the Doctor is here to sort everything out. This is a Doctor who, rather than announcing brashly that they’re here to save the day, instead earnestly takes you by the hand and promises they’ll do their best to help.

The supporting cast are simply fantastic as well. Tosin Cole as Ryan ends up being the audience’s main anchor, getting an opening monologue which 100% misleads the viewer and becomes infinitely more sad when it is completed near the close. He’s a warehouse worker who wants better for himself, but also a poor lad who can’t ride a bike because of his dyspraxia. What’s nice is that although his condition is noted, and affects him, it doesn’t define him. Mandip Gill as Yas also shines – a probationary copper craving more action and a surprisingly level head for such a young person. The connection between her and Ryan could have felt forced in the hands of lesser actors, but works absolutely here. Then there’s Bradley Walsh, often underestimated as a dramatic actor by anyone who hasn’t seen his sterling work in Law & Order UK. Here, as a retired bus driver and Ryan’s step-grandfather (about which Ryan himself isn’t all that happy) he’s a welcome note of old-fashioned scepticism. Where the younger folks simply accept what’s happening before their eyes, Graham takes a lot more convincing, but when he gets there, he’s as stoic as the rest in facing down what needs to be done.

It’s in the plot where things start to creak a little. It feels like Chibnall had a similar thought to one of the many thoughts that evidently passed through Shane Black’s mind when he sat down to piece together this year’s The Predator: what if we showed characters treating the monster for what he is – the equivalent of the sort of person who packs a high-powered sniper rifle to go and kill a lion from a mile away, rather than some badass intergalactic super hunter? The problem is, the explanation behind that train of thought starts to stall as soon as it begins, the reasoning and actions behind it all a little too convoluted and the meaning of literally grabbing a random human and taking them back to its home planet to be frozen forever unclear. It gives Whittaker’s Doctor a great opportunity to try out her dignified disgust face, but it’s a little weak on detail in and of itself.

It also leads to a higher body count than we are necessarily used to for a Who opener. Not that the show has been shy in the past about people being killed, but the deaths here somehow feel especially brutal and meaningless, though to its credit the script refrains from having the Doctor chew the scenery and wax lyrical for a few paragraphs about what a mighty defender of the cosmos she is and how sorry everyone will be. This Doctor is pragmatic and practical without being cruel, confident without the need to showboat, and there’s real steel in those eyes when stuff needs to be done.

There’s also a great sense of place to the episode – this opener is set in Sheffield and boy, does it want you to know it. From the various areas of the city and surrounding fields where scenes are shot, to the Doctor’s triumphant declaration that her new sonic is welded ‘with Sheffield Steel’, it’s clear that the setting, as with everything else, is distancing itself from previous incarnations.

In fairness to Chibnall, though I’ve always enjoyed the openers for new Doctors, they’ve never been plots that especially held up to forensic scrutiny, because that’s never been the point. The point has been to introduce our new Doctor, meet their new companions, and see what sort of person this new regeneration will be, from the whimsical darkness of 9 to the Gruff formality and alien-ness of 12. They’ve also been jumping-on points, there to ease in people who perhaps haven’t watched the show before as much as they are to invite established fans to take a leap again with a new person playing their hero. In this, the episode succeeds brilliantly, explaining without stalling or patronising, delivering a Doctor who is a joy to watch in every scene with companions who promise great arcs and a sense that all bets are off in regards to what happens next.

Verdict: Though a bit wobbly in terms of actual plot details, this is a stunning debut for the Thirteenth Doctor. Whittaker steals every scene in which she appears and is a genuine joy to watch. The supporting cast match her ably, and this has all the makings of being something truly special. 9/10

Greg D. Smith

Was this the breath of fresh air that Doctor Who needed? I think so – in much the same way that the arrival of Bill Potts refreshed the Capaldi era, and led to a re-evaluation of the 12th Doctor, so this tale from Chris Chibnall didn’t do anything totally original with the show, but did everything differently. And sometimes that sort of change is all that’s needed to make it all feel new.

Let’s deal with the core issue first – and yes, to me, Jodie Whittaker was the Doctor pretty much from the word go. Barring the one exchange we’d all seen beforehand (legally in the trailer or otherwise), and a comment about buying women’s clothing, point to one line that couldn’t have been said by or of any of the other Doctors (pronouns, for obvious reasons, exchanged as necessary). Perhaps she was overly manic, but that’s nothing new, and let’s see what she’s like in the next story. Did she feel like the Doctor? Yes, in a way that not every one of her predecessors did from the start.

Having lived with these characters to an extent through my editing work in recent months, it’s great to see them all on screen. The relationships between the companions was a nice throwback to the 1960s – three people who knew each other before the Doctor descended into their lives (tweaked a bit, of course). And the Doctor’s presence at Grace’s funeral was a very different sort of Time Lord from those we’ve seen before (remember Remembrance of the Daleks, where the Seventh Doctor prevented Ace from entering the church?).

The episode was beautifully shot and the music by Segun Akinola came as a pleasant surprise – the use of the theme as the Doctor landed was nicely done, and I loved the section for the creation of the sonic. As for the end titles and reinvention of the theme – much as I loved Murray Gold’s orchestral versions (as I also like the John Debney TV Movie variant), this, more than anything else almost, felt like the show connecting with its roots.

The not so good – the rather generic Predator-meets-Channel–Zero/Jem’Hadar (delete as applicable) creature. But then, I had to think hard to remember who it was that the 12th Doctor met in his opener… The key thing about this episode is bringing in the new incarnation and the new take on the show. And in that this succeeded.

Verdict: The third major reboot for the 21st century has all the potential to lead into one of the best seasons yet. A highly enjoyable hour. 9/10

Paul Simpson

Shortest version: YES PLEASE MUCH MORE OF HER THANK YOU.

Short Version: This feels like a brand new version of an old show in every single way. There is nothing here, at all, that hasn’t been in the show for decades. There’s just much more as well.

Long Version: The term ‘bravura’ springs to mind as the 13th Doctor kicks the door in on a group of companions who know each other, make sensible life choices and still get caught in the line of fire.

From the opening moments with Ryan and his grandparents to the closing cliffhanger and unveiling of the theme tune this is an immensely confident hour or so of TV. Whittaker owns the role before you see her speak and her combination of chirpy and joyously erratic tempered with Sheffield Steel (literally, not a metaphor) is a delight. Better still she’s dropped into the middle of a group of companions who know each other prior to her arrival and have meaty plot arcs all their own.

And it’s set in the North. Fearlessly, unapologetically so. Sheffield is a major player in this episode as a distinctly Northern version of The Predator, just with far better cinematography and no misogyny unfolds. This feels completely different. Weirdly, a big part of that is because this is exactly the sort of thing the show’s done before but never in this way. Well, not for a very long time. After all, as the Doctor says it’s been a very long time since they dressed like a woman…

Funny, brutal and fundamentally kind in a way the show, bluntly, hasn’t been for years. The Woman Who Fell to Earth can take its place in the top tier of regeneration stories.

Verdict: Welcome back, Doctor. You’ve rarely been needed, or missed, this much. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart