Doctor Who: Will Gompertz on the new series with Jodie Whittaker ★★★★ ☆

Relax! Take the afternoon off. You do not have to vacuum behind the sofa. The new Doctor Who is not that scary. It has its moments, of course, but a trip to the dentist is far worse – at least it would be if … well …

Let us take a step by step. Suffice it to say that in the opening of season 11 (starting from the 2005 re-boot) there are goodies and baddies and surprises (nice and not so nice) and some strange events and … a new Doctor.

That we already know. Because it's been everywhere.

What's more we put on the end of the last episode when Peter Capaldi regenerated into Jodie Whittaker who promptly fell out of the TARDIS and plummeted to who-knew-where.

Turns out she is heading to the whole unknowable universe of possible a gazillion planets where the inhabitants do not speak her native language, but do so in the same accent.

And so it is that the thirteenth Doctor Who gets to start her exciting stint of inter-galactic policing in this day Sheffield.

Unfortunately for a stroll around the city's expansive parkland, or to take a show at the Crucible Theater. She is thrown in the deep end with a life-threatening crisis to help warn.

From this we quickly learn that the new doctor is not one to panic.

No matter how serious the situation is, it has a witty attitude to quell the nerves and lighten the mood. These books with puckish dry humor and perfect timing. If Capaldi's Doctor had a little chilly edge, Whittaker's is warmer than a mug of Yorkshire tea.

She's a very talented actor, whose down-to-earth style plays cleverly with her character's otherworldly nature, in the way, say, Roger Moore's old-school charm subverted James Bond's cold-blooded ruthlessness.

Jodie Whittaker completely owns the part.

Any cat about gender is made wholly irrelevant before she is finished her first sentence.

She is Doctor Who, and that's it – some will love her Lord, others will not.

I'm in the camp, but not without one small reservation. These are early days, she has another nine episodes to fully flesh out her version of The Doctor, but this stage is a little too jolly and friendly, which makes building up dramatic tension almost impossible.

David Tennant, who strikes me in the face of a deadly serious galaxy-saving leader.

She is yet to show that tonal transition from light to dark.

On those occasions when it is dispensing with the flipper asides for a more profound thought, the doctor tends to come across as a masterful rhetorician who can inspire and intimidate in equal measure.

That could be a case of an experienced actor slowly developing the character of the audience in the race of the run. Now, it could be part of being written and directed.

Doctor Who is a massive entertainment brand, which like most global products, requires constant refreshing both to enlist new customers and to keep existing punters interested. In that respect a TV franchise is no different than a Premiership football club.

It's all showbiz; new faces are imperative: they all need to regenerate.

And with that new face to a new back-room team. This is the new Doctor Who, who sees Steven Moffat's exit show-runner, and Chris Chibnall's comeback (he worked with Whittaker on Broadchurch).

Hopefully they will turn out to be a dream team. Actually, they have to be the dream team, because it's only going to be something that will keep Doctor Who's TARDIS on the universe's super-highway.

It would be good to see them challenge the concept of science fiction and push it beyond the hackneyed and obvious, Charlie Brooker has re-thought the dystopian novel in the shape of his TV series Black Mirror, which focuses on 21st century concerns .

It's fine to be funny, but it should be unsettling too much minds we need to hide behind a sofa when they are revealed to us.

Doctor Who is on BBC on Saturday at 18:45 BST.

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