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The viewing figures seem extremely promising based on this report from the Doctor Who News site; the best the shows done in ten years in fact:

Doctor Who: The Woman Who Fell to Earth was watched by 8.2 million viewers, a share of 40.1% of the total TV audience, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The audience grew throughout the episode, peaking at 8.52 million for the final fifteen minutes.

The rating makes Doctor Who the third highest rating of the week, just behind two editions of Strictly Come Dancing.

It is the highest overnight rating for the series for a regular episode for over ten years. The debut episode of the Twelfth Doctor, Deep Breath, had an overnight rating of 6.8 million viewers, while the debut episode of The Eleventh Doctor, The Eleventh Hour, had 7.7 million, with 0.3 million also watching on BBC HD, making a total of 8.0 million. The last regular episode to top this figure was Journey's End in 2008, with an overnight figure of 9.4 million.

People might not be surprised to hear I thought it er... wasn't very good.   Pretty much as I expected.  Gender politics masquerading as Dr Who

Sorry, but this is just patent nonsense. As I said in my first post on this thread, one of the things I really liked about this episode was how few mentions were made of the fact that the Doctor had changed genders, making for a clear signifier that this wasn't a big deal.

If I remember rightly, the only mentions of the Doctor's  change of gender amounted to her initial surprise at being referred to as madam whilst on the train, and admitting that she hadn't shopped for women's clothes in a long time when in the charity shop.

'I used to be a white haired Scotsman' is a line anyone playing the part would likely have been given, whether they were male, female, or otherwise.

Am I the only one who thought it was crap? The Dr can go anywhere in the whole of time and space, and her first adventure is in England in the present day? That's bollocks!

This is hardly unheard of: besides, the drunk bloke clearly said it was a month before Halloween, so this could very well have been set a couple of weeks ago and not the present day.

Thoughts on tonight's Doctor Who (Spoiler warning):

The new theme tune is absolutely brilliant. I think Delia Derbyshire would have approved of it, and she didn't approve of most of them.

Several of the plot beats were very clearly telegraphed - such as Grace's death and Karl being the focus of the threat - but that's not necessarily a problem for an opening episode. The plot is generally subsidiary to the character work in a first episode, and that was all very well handled. There were plenty of signs of promise for the series going forward, though I remain somewhat hesitant regarding Chris Chibnall being the man in charge. Still, I'm optimistic at the moment.

Jodie Whittaker's performance was extremely assured and displayed nothing which would led me to believe she will be anything other than a huge success in the role. The Doctor's change of gender was generally underplayed, and quite rightly in my opinion. If you can change your body then it stands to reason that changing genders would be no big deal.

Some of the press reports have reported the 13th Doctor as being dark and brooding in her portrayal. There was nothing like that on display here, though you can never judge a Doctor based on their regeneration story; if that were the case we'd all still think of Sylvester McCoy as having been a prat-falling buffoon.

It's about time the Doctor bought a new outfit from a charity shop; makes a change from stealing them from hospitals at any rate. Strangely, though, I thought she really suited Peter Capaldi's outfit, and could have seen her wearing that had it not already been established as the Twelfth Doctor's outfit. I did really enjoy the almost Colin Baker-era reaction of the companion to her new outfit - You're not wearing that.

Have zombies appeared in the Fiends world before?

They were used a few times in David Bishop's 'Fiends' novels, and later appeared in his 'Stalingrad' sequel comic in the Megazine.

As has been mentioned further up the thread, there is no artist more iconic in the history of 2000AD than Carlos Ezquerra. His legacy shall remain unsurpassed.

R.I.P

Sadly, todays news is the polar opposite of great.

R.I.P Carlos.

I'm wary of Chibnall (and basically anyone else within 100m of the Torchwood production office when they signed off "Cyberwoman"), but I stand to be pleasantly surprised.

To be fair, that WAS over a decade ago and Chibers has written some absolute gems since. 42 and The Power of Three are some of my favourite of the revived series.

This comment really just proves my earlier statement that one of the joys of Doctor Who is how every story is somebody's favourite, even the less successful ones. Both '42' and 'The Power of Three' were roundly panned by critics and fans alike - with 'The Power of Three' generally being considered to be one of the worst episodes of the revival - but they still have their champions.

To extend this to Classic Who, The Dominators is glorious, and Paradise Towers needs reevaluating.

I certainly agree with you in regards to 'Paradise Towers'. That story is really rather good and deserves pretty much none of the derision it receives. 'The Dominators' on the other hand is such a complete betrayal of the ethos of the entire show that it was no wonder the production team at the time decided to cut it short by an episode. Fortunately, the very next story was 'The Mind Robber', which is just about the most Doctor Who-y story there is.

I'm wary of Chibnall (and basically anyone else within 100m of the Torchwood production office when they signed off "Cyberwoman"), but I stand to be pleasantly surprised.

To be fair, that WAS over a decade ago and Chibers has written some absolute gems since. 42 and The Power of Three are some of my favourite of the revived series.

This comment really just proves my earlier statement that one of the joys of Doctor Who is how every story is somebody's favourite, even the less successful ones. Both '42' and 'The Power of Three' were roundly panned by critics and fans alike - with 'The Power of Three' generally being considered to be one of the worst episodes of the revival - but they still have their champions.

I have always felt that the 'multi-companion' phases have been the weakest - Harry Sullivan, Turlough, Nissa, Adric, Mickey - it's always best when it's one on one, and the Doctor HAS to be the strong, driving force.

Now, I've always considered the team of the 4th Doctor, Sarah, and Harry to be one of the definitive TARDIS teams, with Harry being an absolute delight. But that's one of the joys of Doctor Who; every character and story is somebody's favourite.

I hope that little snatch of music that plays at the very end of the video (after the 'please subscribe' message) is a sneak peek at the new theme tune, cos it sounded great.

Even in the short segments we see in the trailer Whittaker's Dr appears nowhere near as commanding as Capaldi's.  Is that a conscious decision to go with a differently gendered approach to 'crisis management' that ignores standard cliches about women in authority?  Is it a mistake on the part of writers who have fallen into cultural stereotypes? 

Chris Chibnall was quoted this week as saying that the scripts for this series were originally written for a male Doctor, so hopefully that won't be the case. Which should be proof, not that anyone around here needs it I'm sure, that the Doctor's gender makes zero difference to the essential character.

[Fenella Fielding]

She had a voice like marbled chocolate and the natural charisma to steal a scene without even having to utter a word. More than that, she seemed to belong to that very rare band of people who never really grow old, even as she entered into her nineties. I doubt we'll ever see another Fenella Fielding. R.I.P.

Dandridge was great - wish we'd got more of it, but maybe Tharg felt there were enough strips already doing the supernatural detective thing. (If he did, it should've been Ampney Crucis that got the dunt.)

And when was the last time we saw sight of Ampney Crucis?

Anyway those sure as heck make damned fine COMICS.Not at all sure what an audio adaptation would being to the party.

I imagine the main draw would be having Tom Baker actually playing the part.