The Woman Who Fell to Earth (TV story)

The Woman Who Fell to Earth was the first episode of series 11 of Doctor Who. In the United Kingdom, it earned the highest overnight ratings for a regular episode of Doctor Who since 2008's Partners in Crime and was the most-watched debut for a Doctor — again, in terms of overnights — since Christopher Eccleston's initial turn in Rose.

Woman was widely marketed as a landmark Doctor Who episode because it was the first to star a female Doctor. It was further notable for introducing an all-new regular cast — the largest since 1983's Terminus — and a new production team under show runner Chris Chibnall. As a result, this episode had the biggest crew shift since 2010's The Eleventh Hour.

Unusually, it had a global premiere, with many markets around the world having at least the same start time. Oddly, though, it was initially broadcast in an altered visual form in some markets. Although it was the first episode of the programme filmed in a 2:1 aspect ratio, its global premiere on networks like BBC America and Space was actually in the previous standard of 16:9. This had the effect of truncating some of the frame.

It did not include a title sequence and was the second episode of Doctor Who to have its title given in the end credits after Sleep No More three years earlier. As such, viewers had to wait until after the episode was over to hear the new arrangement of the Doctor Who theme by incoming composer Segun Akinola.

Synopsis
A newly-regenerated Doctor must rally her newfound friends to defeat an alien attack upon a northern city — without the TARDIS to help her.

Plot
Ryan Sinclair is making a YouTube video about the 'greatest woman he ever met' and recounts a recent event. He recalls trying trying to ride a bicycle with his grandmother Grace and her husband Graham O'Brien, on a hill side in Sheffield. Ryan struggles because of his dyspraxia, and falls off the bike. Frustrated, he throws the bike into a forest. Grace and Graham comfort him, though insist Ryan collect the bike to try again another time while they head off to the train station. As Ryan ventures to retrieve it, he sees glowing golden lines suspended in the air. He taps one and a purple coloured, plant-like pod emerges. Ryan calls the police.

Yasmin Khan, probation police officer, settles a petty dispute between two women, before calling a superior. She asks for more demanding opportunities, and after much pestering, her superior gives her Ryan's case. As she arrives, she and Ryan quickly realise that they knew each other at primary school. Yasmin presumes Ryan's just pulling a prank but Ryan remarks he can't even touch the entity, as it is freezing. Yasmin touches finding it burns her hand. Bewildered, she continues questioning Ryan.

Meanwhile, Grace and Graham are riding on a train with a man named Karl when there is a disturbance which causes the train to come to a screeching halt. Grace checks through the window, finding the passengers have fled the train. However, she finds the doors locked, meaning that they are unable to do the same. They call for Ryan and Yasmin, before being encroached by an erratic, electrified tentacle creature. Grace calls Ryan, who rushes to the scene with Yasmin. Graham orders Grace and Karl to the back of the carriage but finds it locked. Before the creature can reach them, they are temporarily saved as the Thirteenth Doctor comes crashing down through the ceiling and electrocutes the creature with a metal pipe. She turns to them, insisting she can help however she finds her pockets empty meaning she can't use her sonic screwdriver to open the door. The creature awakens and pins down Karl, who panics. The Doctor insists he remain calm as it hasn't killed them yet so won't kill them now. Yasmin and Ryan enter the train, standing in shock at the creature. The creature scans him then sends a surge of electricity through the passengers before fleeing.

The Doctor begins to take charge of the situation only for Yasmin to ask who she is. The Doctor, bewildered by the use of "she", realises that she has regenerated into a woman. She starts explaining as such but returns to her investigating. She enters the driver's cart, the train's driver dead. Yasmin initially thinks the woman was murdered but the Doctor corrects that she actually died from shock. Returning to the others, Yaz insists the Doctor stop, claiming she will call back up but the Doctor convinces her to hold off on such until they figure out exactly what the alien was.

Yasmin takes to questioning Karl instead, getting his phone number to keep in touch for further inquiries. The Doctor is asked after by Grace and she goes into a slight panic after realising that she's lost her TARDIS. She presses on to other matters though, insisting the group needs to think of ways to learn more about the alien. Graham is sceptical that it was alien in origin, though Grace and Ryan voice they believe the Doctor. Karl, siding with Graham, backs away, wanting to leave for work and just forget about the incident. Letting him go, the Doctor asks the others for information about the creature. Ryan voices the pod he found earlier, which Yaz agrees to take the group to. However, when they get there, they find it has already been taken.

Meanwhile, Andy, who has the pod in the back of his van, is delivering it to Rahul. On arriving, he expresses some concern for Rahul's well-being before reluctantly leaving when he pays him. Rahul surrounds the pod with video cameras to record it, then sits down and watches it intently.

Elsewhere, the Doctor asks the others to figure out if anyone in town has knowledge regarding strange alien activity. Yaz returns to her police station to ask her boss but he dismisses her given her history of moaning for more work. Grace checks in with friends from when she was a chemotherapy nurse but similarly turns up nothing. Graham offers to go and ask some bus driver friends about it.

The Doctor gets frustrated about not knowing when she suddenly loses consciousness, being caught by Ryan. While Yaz speaks to her superior, learning nothing of interest, Graham tries to ask his friends from the bus station he used to work at but one, Gabriel, just makes a joke about his wife and her friends playing bingo. Grace and Ryan take the Doctor back home; while Ryan checks on social media, Grace notices the Doctor's body coursing with and exhaling regeneration energy, intriguing them both. Grace checks the Doctor's pulse and finds two separate ones.

Still filming the pod, it suddenly becomes active, breaking open and exploding all of Rahul's cameras. He arms himself with a crowbar and readies himself to defend. Elsewhere, Yaz and Graham have returned to the house when the Doctor regains consciousness. She notices red, pulsating lights shining of her friends' collarbones as well as her own. She realises that the strange electric alien from the train embedded them with DNA bombs, explosive devices that melt the victim's DNA. Reformatting Ryan's phone, the Doctor manages to track the source of the disruption and they go after it.

A large, biomechanical creature emerges from the broken pod; Rahul demands to know about his sister, who had previously gone missing, when it kills him by freezing his face. Arriving on the scene as the alien flees, the Doctor and Yaz chase after it but lose it in the mist. The other's find Rahul's body in the warehouse and the Doctor notices the absence of one of his teeth. Ryan spots the empty pod and the Doctor inspects it, identifying it as a transport pod. Ryan reveals it's origins after he touched the lines in the air while retrieving his bike.

While Yaz and Ryan go to investigate the warehouse, the Doctor continues to examine the pod; she then decides to build herself a new sonic screwdriver. Yaz tries to reassure Ryan that none of the deaths are on him and they both wonder whether or not the Doctor is really an alien. They then search small room and find files of various missing people and a video on Rahul's computer titled 'IF I DIE CLICK HERE'. While gathering materials from around the warehouse and the transport pod, the Doctor tells Graham and Grace about her experiences with regeneration before proceeding to construct her new screwdriver. After she finishes, Ryan and Yaz show them Rahul's video in which he talks about his sister Asha's disappearance and his desire to find out the truth in the knowledge that it may kill him.

Scanning the pod again and finding the recall circuit, the Doctor deuces the aliens from the train and the pod are at war and are looking to fight on Earth. Gathering some equipment, Graham gets a call from his friend Kevin, who has information about the alien's whereabouts. The alien from the pod kills a drunk male throwing his salad at it and takes a tooth from him as well. when it sees the electric alien discharge lightning from a tall building in the distance and goes after it. The Doctor and the others reach the electric alien first and nullify it; scanning it again, the Doctor identifies it as a mass of Gathering Coils, a species which collects and correlates information, biologically engineered and augmented. She checks the data it's collected, all of it information about Karl from the train.

The pod alien arrives behind them and, removing his mask to reveal his face implanted with his victim's teeth, identifies himself as Tzim-Sha (mispronounced as 'Tim Shaw' by the Doctor) of the Stenza warrior race. He had been sent to Earth on a hunt to seek out a randomly selected human without technology or assistance to bring him back home. However, the Doctor deduces he secretly sent the Gathering Coils ahead in advance and thus has broken the rules. Tzim-Sha takes the information from the Coil into himself via physical connection and goes to hunt Karl. There, he kills the security guard and proceeds to climb the crane to reach Karl.

Chasing Tzim-Sha to Karl's job at a crane yard, the Doctor sends Graham and Grace to evacuate the site while she, Yaz and Ryan make for the top of the crane to save Karl from the impending Stenza. Even with Ryan's dyspraxia causing him difficulties, the trio make it to the top. The Doctor orchestrates a plan in which Yaz and Ryan move the crane arm around to meet Karl's crane and he can jump across. Before he has a chance to do so, however, Tzim-Sha catches him and the Doctor takes a running jump over to the other crane instead.

Meanwhile, the Gathering Coil has restored itself and is attacking the other crane, so Grace forms to stop it by electrocuting it with power from the site's mains. Catching up with Tzim-Sha, the Doctor holds him an ultimatum; having taken his pod's recall circuit, he can either leave of kill her and her friends and destroy the circuit. Making his choice, Tzim-Sha detonates the DNA bombs, but the Doctor had implanted them back into the Gathering Coil with her sonic screwdriver, so he receives the physical effects instead, having taken the bombs into himself when he absorbed the data from the Coil. Throwing the circuit back to him, Karl kicks him off the crane as he teleports away, much to the Doctor's anger.

Grace holds the pylons to the Coil as Graham opens the mains; the Coil is overloaded by the shock, but the kickback shocks Grace and throws her from the crane, severely injuring her. Knowing her injuries are too severe from recovery, she tells Graham not to be afraid and dies just as the Doctor, Yaz and Ryan arrive, leaving Ryan and Graham grief-stricken.

The episode goes back to Ryan's video, revealing he was talking about Grace the entire time. At Grace's funeral, the Doctor approaches Ryan, who had been awaiting his father's arrival for two hours but has still not appeared. Later, with the others in attendance, Graham gives a heartfelt speech about Grace. Later that evening, he reveals that he met Grace while being treated for cancer and Yaz asks the Doctor about her own family. Realising she had stayed too long, she decides to go and look for her TARDIS, when Yaz suggests that she change her clothes first.

With a new outfit selected, the Doctor lashes up a rudimentary teleport out of Tzim-Sha's technology, which she had programmed to track the TARDIS' trail of Artron energy and prepares to leave. Saying her goodbyes to Graham, Ryan and Yaz, the Doctor sonics the devices and readies for departure, but the device teleports all four of them instead. On the other end, the Doctor is shocked to see her friends floating behind her all of them suspended and stranded in deep space...

Cast

 * The Doctor - Jodie Whittaker
 * Graham O'Brien - Bradley Walsh
 * Ryan Sinclair - Tosin Cole
 * Yasmin Khan - Mandip Gill
 * Grace - Sharon D Clarke
 * Tim Shaw - Samuel Oatley
 * Karl - Jonny Dixon
 * Rahul - Amit Shah
 * Sonia - Asha Kingsley
 * Janey - Janine Mellor
 * Ramesh Sunder - Asif Khan
 * Andy - James Thackeray
 * Dean - Philip Abiodun
 * Dennis - Stephen MacKenna
 * Gabriel - Everal A Walsh

The Doctor

 * The Doctor has recently regenerated from her twelfth incarnation.
 * Before remembering her name, the Doctor states she is looking for a doctor.
 * Grace discovers that the Doctor has two separate pulses.
 * Recovering from her regeneration, the Doctor needs time to recuperate. Grace and Ryan see her hands and face glow with regeneration energy.
 * The Doctor says she's good at building things, "probably".
 * The Doctor recalls having had longer legs.
 * The Doctor has not bought women's clothes in "a while".

TARDIS

 * The Doctor attempts to track the trail of artron energy from the TARDIS. She teleports to its approximate coordinates, but accidentally transports Ryan, Yasmin and Graham with her.

People

 * Graham O'Brien was once a bus driver.
 * Yasmin Khan is a police officer.
 * Ryan Sinclair is a warehouse worker, while training to be a mechanic.
 * Ryan has dyspraxia.
 * Grace O'Brien was once a chemotherapy nurse.
 * Tim Shaw is a Stenza warrior with plans to become their leader.
 * Karl Wright has been randomly selected for hunting by the Stenza.
 * Karl works as a crane operator for his father's company, Skylark Building Services.
 * Graham asks his friend Gabriel if he's seen anything strange lately. Gabriel responds about his wife going to karaoke with her friends.
 * Graham's friend Kevin locates the Gathering Coil.
 * Rahul lost his sister, Asha Chandra, to the Stenza.
 * Rahul pays Andy to transport the pod in his lorry.
 * Dennis, the security officer, has a granddaughter named Daisy. He video chats with her just before he's killed.

Technology

 * Ryan tries to learn to ride a bicycle.
 * Yasmin feels compelled to check CCTV footage, but the Doctor questions why she won't trust her own eyes.
 * DNA bombs are planted on the Doctor and her new friends.
 * The Doctor tracks the origin signal with Ryan's mobile phone, which she's recalibrated for this function.
 * Some of the Doctor's new sonic screwdriver is made from Sheffield steel.
 * The Doctor can make a new sonic screwdriver from scrap, using both Earth and alien technology.
 * Rahul has a Logitech keyboard, and a Samsung monitor.
 * Tim Shaw uses a short-range teleport.

Culture

 * Ryan uploads a vlog of himself talking about his late grandmother to YouTube. The video is simply titled "Hey", and his YouTube channel is called RyanS.
 * The number of likes and dislikes on Ryan's video equals thirteen.
 * Ryan searches Twitter.
 * Grace uses WhatsApp to communicate with her fellow nurses.
 * Karl listens to You Are Valued, a motivational series.
 * Graham supports West Ham United.

Food and beverages

 * The Doctor is craving a fried egg sandwich, and promises they'll all have a cuppa', as well as the sandwich.
 * Dean was littering by throwing bits of salad on the floor.

Organisations

 * Yasmin works for Hallamshire Police.
 * Karl and Dennis work for Skylark Building Services.
 * Hallamshire Online posts on Twitter about a community hall exhibition which might interest UFO fans.
 * There is an advert aboard the train for the University of South Yorkshire, which lists the phone number as 03069 990 181.

Species

 * The Stenza are a warrior race and self-proclaimed conquerors of the Nine Systems.
 * The Gathering Coil is an engineered bio-tech weapon, described as a "semi-species" by the Doctor.

Science

 * According to one of the newspaper clippings collected by Rahul, a solar storm recently passed the UK without incident.

Biology

 * The Doctor can't remember the name of her tongue, until prompted by Ryan.
 * The Doctor uses her nose to time when she will lose consciousness.
 * The DNA bombs appear as lights on their victims' collarbones.
 * The Stenza keep the teeth of those they kill, as trophies.

Medicine

 * Graham has cancer, which is now in remission.
 * Grace suggests that the Doctor go to A&E, but the Doctor says she "never [goes] anywhere that's just initials".

Locations

 * The episode heavily features in and around Sheffield, only leaving the city for the cliffhanger.
 * The train stops between Hathersage station and Grindleford station.
 * Karl lives at 52 Northover Street, and works in Sheffield.
 * A 98 bus which passes the bus station is headed for Totley Brook.
 * Rahul has a pennant flag for Upper Canada Village up on the wall, on the cork board behind his computer.

Story notes

 * The episode doesn't feature an opening title sequence, but the new Doctor Who theme, composed by Segun Akinola, is partially played in the scene in which we are introduced to the Doctor, and then over the closing credits, which have returned to a scrolling sequence, not seen since TV: The Time of the Doctor.
 * The episode title, while at first glance appears to reference the Doctor's fall from her TARDIS, is also potentially a reference to Grace's death since the episode is framed as a story that Ryan Sinclair is telling about the greatest woman he ever knew, his grandmother Grace.
 * This is the first Doctor Who episode not to be scored by Murray Gold since the start of the revived era in 2005.
 * This is the third post-regeneration story to feature no scenes inside the TARDIS, following TV: Spearhead from Space and TV: Robot, and the first in which the TARDIS does not appear at all.
 * It is also the tenth television story in which the TARDIS does not appear at all, following Mission to the Unknown, Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Mind of Evil, The Dæmons, The Sea Devils, The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, Midnight, and The Lie of the Land.
 * Similarly to TV: Sleep No More, the episode title as well as the writer, producer and director credits are shown at the beginning of the end credits instead of having a regular opening title sequence.
 * The end credits feature a preview of the remainder of the season, similar to TV: The Eleventh Hour and TV: The Pilot, including the names of several upcoming guest stars.
 * The initial two broadcasts on BBC America did not feature even the end credits. Viewers in America had to wait until the episode was available on demand to hear the full, new theme arrangement. Instead, BBCA ran a live "after party" celebrity analysis of the episode beginning immediately after the final scene.
 * This is the first non-special episode not to air on a Saturday since TV: Survival.
 * The Doctor's scream as she falls through the roof of the train is reused from TV: Twice Upon a Time.
 * At the premiere of the episode in Sheffield on the 24 September, Jodie revealed that for this episode only, she did all of her own stunts. Tosin Cole additionally added that he acted being bad at riding a bike. This would prove to be because Ryan has dyspraxia.
 * At the same event, Bradley Walsh revealed that he's wearing a wig for the entire series, due to his character's requirement to look older, and him not being that old, and because he's hosting The Chase too.

Ratings

 * 8.2 million (UK overnight)

Filming locations

 * Sheffield, England
 * Peak District
 * Hunter House Road - parking dispute
 * , bus stand C (Harmer Lane entrance) - bus station
 * HTC plant (near Meadowhall) - Skylark construction site
 * Cardiff - filling in for Sheffield
 * Police station, exterior - Hallamshire Police HQ
 * Roath Lock Studios
 * South Wales - train scenes

Production errors
to be added

Myths

 * There would be a funeral for Graham's son David. The funeral was for Grace, and no reference was made to Graham having a son.

Continuity

 * The Doctor makes her entrance by crashing through the ceiling of the stopped train, after having been dropped from the TARDIS. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)
 * The Doctor exhibits a northern English accent. She previously had one in her eighth (TV: Doctor Who) and ninth incarnations. (TV: Rose, et al.)
 * The Doctor recalls having just been a "white-haired Scotsman", and that her TARDIS is now missing. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)
 * The Doctor emits regeneration energy while resting. (TV: The Christmas Invasion, The Eleventh Hour)
 * The Doctor mentions an exploding TARDIS could be the end of the world. (TV: The Pandorica Opens, The Big Bang)
 * The Doctor spends almost the entire episode wearing her predecessor's clothes, as the Eleventh Doctor had done. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)
 * While making her sonic screwdriver, the Doctor holds up a spoon excitedly, as her predecessor had done. (TV: Robot of Sherwood, Heaven Sent, Hell Bent)
 * The Doctor previously fell from a great height and survived, (TV: The End of Time) albeit once by regenerating. (TV: Logopolis)
 * The Doctor once again suffers from post-regenerative memory loss (TV: Doctor Who, The Time of the Doctor) and loses consciousness because of the process. (TV: The Christmas Invasion, Deep Breath)
 * Earth has been used as a hunting ground before. (AUDIO: Moving Target, COMIC: Bloodsport)
 * The Doctor makes her own sonic screwdriver. Amy Pond once similarly created a sonic probe. (TV: The Girl Who Waited)
 * The Gathering Coil plants DNA bombs, albeit of a different design to that which afflicted John Hart. (TV: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)
 * The Doctor admits to craving a fried egg sandwich. The Eleventh Doctor also experienced cravings after regenerating. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)
 * The Doctor wears similar safety goggles to the ones the Eleventh Doctor once used. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
 * The Doctor confronts Tim Shaw on a rooftop with her companions. He also mentions that she is not human. The Eleventh Doctor had a similar confrontation with the Atraxi immediately after his regeneration. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)
 * Before jumping from the crane, the Doctor says "If you want something done" without finishing. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)

DVD releases
to be added

Blu-ray releases
to be added

Digital releases
to be added