Doctor Who Series 11: 10 Big Questions After 'The Woman Who Fell To Earth'
8. What Else Did It Remind Us Of?
In places, the episode felt more like other shows than Doctor Who. Most notably there is a clear Stranger Things vibe, both with the music and the opening scenarios of a missing person and Ryan encountering an alien object from another dimension. The uncompromising approach to death and loss is also very much a feature The Woman Who Fell to Earth shares with the popular Netflix show.
Segun Akinola’s excellent score, aside from a lovely throwback to the original Doctor Who theme when the Doctor first appears, channels a number of other shows from hints of The Six Million Dollar Man when the Doctor jumps from one crane to another (also used in Stranger Things), to the sustained single notes that call to mind some of the music from Chibnall’s Broadchurch.
While the villain of the piece is an all too obvious Predator clone, in terms of the world of cinema the key association is with 2016’s reimagined Ghostbusters movie. That scene where the Doctor is building her sonic calls to mind Kate McKinnon’s Holzmann, a feature of Whittaker’s performance as a whole - surely no coincidence given the respective gender changes.
Whilst some fans were suggesting a Sarah Jane Adventures vibe, the influence of the more adult Doctor Who spin-off, Torchwood, was far more readily apparent, a show that Chris Chibnall had worked on as lead writer and co-producer. The Stenza is very much a concept more naturally at home there than the CBBC series, particularly in the gruesome way in which they dispatch their victims and take their trophies. There is a grittiness to this opening episode that adds a surprisingly dark element to the family orientated show.