A new season a new Dr and what a return it was as Jodie Whittaker minus the famous TARDIS took to the streets of Sheffield to investigate some strange goings-on.

The episode started out with the feel of an early Smith/Tennant, a little offbeat and surrealist capturing the mood of the older shows beautifully. We were introduced to Ryan, Grace, and Graham. Here we see a close bond between Ryan and his grandmother, Grace and learn of Ryan’s dyspraxia which would be important later on. Ryan discovers a strange light in the forest shortly after Grace and Graham depart to catch a train.

Now every time a strange light appears in front of you the obvious thing to do is walk away as fast as you can, but this is TV so Ryan has to touch it and start off an alien hunt in Sheffield.

Another companion is introduced in Yas, a young police officer looking to do more than handle parking disputes, She gets her wish when she’s sent to the scene of Ryan’s light poking incident to discover an ice egg. Back with the oldies, they are returning home when their train is hit by a mysterious object. From this we get a wibbly wobbly wire-y alien thing ripping up a train and implanting bombs in people’s collarbones in a throwback to the more horror-infused stories of past seasons. The tension is high the fear is real and new entrant Carl is terrified until boom take a bow, Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor appears and what a stunning Doctor she is.

Within her opening five minutes on screen, she whips up the nostalgia feeling like Tennant with fallopian tubes but with the leftism of smiths Doctor.

She very quickly establishes herself as the centerpiece of the scene commanding the screen and cast like a veteran of the role in their third season not first episode. The scene is not smooth sailing as one would have hoped, and their alien escapes into the night.

We get to see the Doctor now in full. Irreverent humor, insane incoherent ramblings, and as with all regenerations the Doctor very unsure of who they are. Especially since this time the anatomy is very different. The Doctor has to be informed that what was thirty minutes ago “a white-haired Scottish man” is now a woman.

Returning to the scene of the ice egg, lo and behold it’s vanished. Because it’s TV and we need a good plot device to keep it moving but where has it gone? A young man has taken it in the hope it may help him find his long-lost sister but this doesn’t exactly work out well, but like River, there are no spoilers here.

This episode was less about the self-contained story and more about establishing the new Doctor and it was a huge success.

The villain – Tim Shaw we’ll call him – was gruesome, wearing his victim’s teeth on his face as a trophy. Even the smallest character’s death proved a little heart wrenching, bar maybe the drunk kebab eating hooligan. It felt like an homage to earlier Doctors trying to escape the Moffat/Capaldi era by returning to the mix that made the nineties reboot so well loved in the first place.

There was a clear nod also to other classic sci-fi giving the episode a feel of the original Predator movies, and visually the cinematography was more akin to a big budget movie then Sunday night BBC drama.

In conclusion, though this was a terrific debut for Jodie Whittaker and the viewing figures back that up, going forward I hope the show continues to build on her quirky charm and allow her the same growth of Smith or Tennant. The wait for episode 2 is going to be agonizing after we were left with a cliffhanger of epic proportions, as of now though I just want more Jodie! And maybe a fried egg sandwich. So roll on next Sunday.

Written by Drew Ward