New Who Jodie gets healthy ratings as dodgy doc
JODIE WHITTAKER helped to draw in viewers for new drama Trust Me, in which the incoming Doctor Who star took on the role of a deceitful medical professional.
She also received high praise from critics, who widely commended her for her portrayal of a desperate nurse masquerading as a doctor in the fraught programme.
The first episode of the four-part BBC One series drew in an average of 4.3 million viewers, and a peak of 4.4 million, when it aired at 9pm on Tuesday.
Trust Me’s overnight ratings were just over one million short of the final episode of the latest series of Doctor Who.
The sci-fi series’ finale, which saw outgoing Doctor Peter Capaldi begin to regenerate, aired on Saturday July 1 and saw an average of 5.5 million fans tune in.
Whittaker will be the 13th person to play the Doctor, and her outing in Trust Me left fans feeling increasingly excited at the prospect of seeing her as the Time Lord.
Critics were impressed with her portrayal of Cath Hardacre, a nurse driven to stealing her senior doctor friend’s identity after being fired from her job for whistleblowing, but the show itself did not garner such high praise.
Whittaker was praised by The Telegraph’s Ed Power for being ‘sublime’ in the role, despite the drama – penned by doctor and writer Dan Sefton – around her being ‘often as rickety as a dodgy nose job’.
The Guardian’s Sam Wollaston said that, while the part does not give away any clue as to what kind of Doctor she will be, she was ‘warm and watchable’.
Den Of Geek’s Louisa Mellor said that Whittaker was ‘luminous’, although the first episode was ‘just a bit dull’, due to viewers being so strongly on Cath’s side.
The actress, best known for Broadchurch and her roles in films including Attack The Block and One Day, is the first woman to play the Doctor in Doctor Who’s 54-year history.
Author: Ann Jones
