The Empty Child

At the very end of my review of "Father's Day", I said that Chris Eccleston's Doctor is "probably the best one in 900 years."

"The Empty Child" gave me no reason to change that view. Indeed, in this episode there was a maturity in the Doctor's character, for which I have waited for some time to manifest itself in such depth.

After what seemed to be a rough ride in the Tardis following the piece of space hardware to the centre of London, and materialising in what was a very convincing looking wartime setting, the Doctor's bumbling entry into the bar asking if anything had fallen out of the sky recently, was the only alusion to the grinning loon of earlier episodes. Injecting humour into such settings is a subtle art in itself, and this is a masterpiece.

After that, when the air-raid siren sounded and the Doctor saw the poster announcing "Hitler will send no warning", we then began to see a Doctor who had sympathy with his surroundings, and a real sense of the seriousness of the circumstances in which the inhabitants of the London of 1941 would have been.

From the initial puzzlement of the "telephone that shouldn't ring", and the first appearance of Nancy (superbly played by Florence Hoath), we see none of the attitude of past stories, but a Doctor who tries to find out about the fallen object without freaking out the people he meets. A Doctor who remains patient with the group of homeless children he meets, having followed Nancy who acquires food for them. And when the mysterious "child" appears prompting Nancy to go into maternal mode, the Doctor remains calm, asking questions and being concerned for the "child" who is outside constantly calling out "Muuummy!", but still respecting the circumstances, knowing from 900 years of time travel that something is evidently not right.

But, we must not forget Rose, who unbeknown to the Doctor has also seen this mysterious "child", and ends up hanging around in quite a different way than the Doctor thought she was.

One can almost feel Rose's hands becoming more sore and cramped, as she tries to hold on to the rope (attached to a barrage balloon) for dear life, until she finally falls, letting rip with a scream (for which she had a practice run in "Father's Day") and just when it seems like Rose is going the same way as the bombs from the very convincing Heinkel HE111s, - enter "Captain Jack Harkness", complete with attractor beam, light field, invisible space ship, psychic paper, and a sexy computer (voiced by Dian Perry). But before Captain Jack (nicely played by John Barrowman) completes the rescue, he asks Rose to switch off her cell phone because it interferes with his instruments, - a nice touch.

Then, Captain Jack begins to reveal his purpose, and is surprised by Rose's knowledge of his psychic paper and other technology, and so surmises that she must be a time agent with whom he might negotiate terms regarding the afore mentioned piece of space junk.

So, is Captain Jack going to be the one who wins Rose from the Doctor? As the Doctor never seems to break from Earth's orbit, will Rose end up flying off into space with Captain Jack in Series Two, thus explaining the reports that Billie Piper is leaving? Or am I jumping to conclusions here maybe?

Regardless of all this supposition, Captain Jack is an effective character, almost like a male - and less feisty - version of Jackie Tyler, but with a dash of Arthur Daley or Del Boy thrown in. If he is going to be a companion to the Doctor and Rose for the remaining episodes, then I only hope that Russell T. Davies has allowed for the character to really develop in his scripts, because up to now that has been my only criticism of the series as a whole.

Some of the secondary characters in RTDs writing have been seen and heard alright, but we haven't been able to get to know them beyond being incidental to the story. Although, I do acknowledge - as have many other reviewers - that without Russell T. Davies we would probably not be having the enormous privilege of seeing Doctor Who at all, considering the whole thing started in 1963, when television, special effects, and the equally wobbly budget allowed at the time were a far cry from what we have today, and made it a miracle that it ever took off anyway.

The stories not written by RTD (Steven Moffat deserves every credit for this one) have been absolute crackers in my opinion, attaining 110 per cent consistently in terms of strength of story, character development, (including primary and secondary characters) direction, and also because we have been able to not only know the characters, but also be deeply drawn into their circumstances, our heart strings pulled in twangs of raw emotion.

Examples; Gwyneth, about to strike the match in "The Unquiet Dead"; The Dalek asking Rose if she is frightened, and answering her "yeah" with "So am I".

And so it was with Doctor Constantine.

The Doctor's (Eccleston) all too brief meeting with the Doctor, played by the brilliant Richard Wilson was perfection. Doctor Constantine was so evidently a character who we were not to know for long. Yet, in only a few moments we saw his knowledge, his confusion and his fear, that what had befallen the people in the beds around him, would happen to him. I wonder how many people really did hide behind the sofa as Doctor Constantine began to change into a dead but not dead thing, calling out "Are - you my - Mummy?"

I know there has been some controversy about some scenes in Doctor Who being too scary for children, with some areas of the press fuelling the negativism, including one of the TV/radio magazines who very helpfully wrote in their choices page, "contains nightmarish imagery (including a grotesque morphing sequence) that's probably too much for little ones." Well. excuse me, but weren't the Zarbi's too much for the little ones back in the sixties? I remember having bad dreams of being chased by them, but I still watched. This is the stuff of dreams. This is the very essence of science fiction of the Doctor Who genre. This is not only science fiction, it is cutting edge drama, the like of which we did not dream that science fiction was capable of attaining. But it has, and I believe it will continue to do so, now that the mould has been broken forever.

Finally, I was impressed by the "cliffhanger" ending, this being a two part story, and this time (unlike with AOL/WW3) the BBC saw fit to listen to Doctor Who fans by getting the presenter to helpfully tell us to "look away now" if you don't want to see the preview of the next part.

But I didn't look away, because I just couldn't resist looking anyway.

The concept of the Doctor and his friends being cornered by a herd of undead/notdead zombies, made more eerie in those gasmasks was brilliant Doctor Who at its best. 10/10.