Rose

Doctor Who is back! And it’s being ridiculed by everyone I speak to. What went wrong?

Contrary to my initial fears, it wasn’t Billie Piper. Rose came across as likeable, capable and intelligent. Christopher Eccleston on the other hand, disappointed as our hero. His antics in Rose’s flat were silly (although his struggle with the Auton arm was played perfectly, since Rose was meant to think he was pratting about like Mickey before him) and his asides (such as the oft-quoted “run for your life” line) were delivered flatly and without conviction. I know Eccleston’s fantastic, ‘cos I own half his CV on video, but he does nothing to justify that reputation in this episode. The rest of the cast were great, with the sole exception of Mickey, whose idiotic grinning as an Auton replica just made Rose look stupid for not spotting him straightaway.

The plotting owed more to literary Who than any previous televised outing, with the Doctor in the thick of the action from the outset. Having Clive fill in his background was a very fannish idea, but was superbly handled, and I look forward to the Doctor’s upcoming adventures with Krakatoa, the Titanic and JFK. The pace was fantastic, and the plot holes (where does the intelligence get the plastic to recreate Mickey and how does it transport him to its lair?) barely showed as we were catapulted from scene to scene. Unlike the 1996 TVM, we actually had a decent monster tale this time round, but the Doctor’s speech with the Nestene was appalling. This was a chance to give Chris some great lines as he faces down the monster-of-the-week, but he’s just left stuttering about some war or other. Suddenly it felt we were watching a sequel to something we hadn’t seen, Silver Nemesis style, and as with that story, it just didn’t work.

The CGI effects were uniformly abysmal, from the failed attempt to blow up a department store convincingly, to the wheelie bin which makes the chair in Terror Of The Autons look good. The less said about the obvious green-screening at the end, the better. It’s as if the FX people were so worried about episode two that they didn’t pay any attention to this one.

The music was sterile and intrusive, and brought back memories of Time And The Rani. The Doctor’s speech about feeling the rotation of the earth would have been far more effective with a silent background. The theme tune – whilst not as bad as the McCoy or McGann variants – was also botched, with an irritating drumbeat destroying any menace or feeling possessed by the original arrangement. The time-tunnel looked OK, but it’s a very derivative idea which was executed with more style in the TVM. The 3D actors’ names look horrid, and I suspect they were only included to make the logo look better by comparison. The logo is still ghastly.

This isn’t to say that the entire episode was bad – the Auton massacre was well-handled, the dash across the bridge looked great, and there’s a wonderfully atmospheric moment when rose turns round and the TARDIS has vanished after she’s left her flat with the Doctor. 

There is much promise for the future, if Eccleston can calm down and inject some much-needed gravitas into the proceedings, and his debut is still a lot better than his two immediate predecessors’. The Next Time trailer looks stunning, and I look forward greatly to April 2nd. But I have to wonder how many of the general public will also tune in next week. The opening night may have garnered 10 million viewers with its remorseless hype, but I know half a dozen who’ll be switching back to Ant & Dec, and I fear they may not be the only ones.

5/10.