Rose

Doctor Who works well when it emphasizes the contrast between our everyday world and the Doctor’s bizarre existence. “Rose” nails this contrast nicely in its opening shot; we begin with the vastness of space, zoom in on Earth, and run straight into a bleeping alarm clock. It’s time for Rose Tyler, ordinary teenager, to go to her boring retail job. We see that the universe is a vast place, but not for her—at least, not yet. 

The following montage establishes that Rose’s life is okay, but not exactly fulfilling. Her boyfriend Mickey is affectionate, and he does funny dances, but he’s not enough to compensate for the tedium of her daily routine. Rose’s mother Jackie, seen lounging on the couch in sweats and dialing up her gossipy friends, is not much of an inspiration either.

It’s a great way to introduce a new companion, at least in theory; Russell T. Davies is preparing us for Rose’s decision to abandon everything (and everyone) and run off in the TARDIS. But right from the start, Davies holds back and compromises his attempts at deeper characterization and drama; we get a hint of what Rose’s life is like, but only a hint. Jackie and Mickey are to become vital parts of the storyline, but they leave no impression here, with rushed and largely silent introductions. Clips of the bored Rose are unwisely paired with sped-up shots of London and Murray Gold’s cheerful music, which undermine the feeling of stagnation that the sequence is trying to create. 

I want more. Since Rose’s domestic life is so central to the series, it needs to be explored in greater detail here, before the aliens show up.

That said, the aliens get a great introduction. I have a poor overall impression of Keith Boak’s directing, but he nails the moment when the Autons emerge from the shadows to attack Rose. It’s a good horror scene—and, frankly, it’s also the first scene that feels like “proper” Doctor Who rather than a music video. The creaking plastic sound effects are a nice touch, and help to make the Autons seem more real.

The Doctor’s introduction is also perfect. He grabs Rose at the last moment, leads her in a flight down a corridor, and starts merrily spouting techno-babble as soon as they reach safety. It’s like the original series was never gone. Christopher Eccleston and Davies have modernized the character’s costume and speech, but, for now, this is still the heroic and wacky and brilliant Doctor of old. Though there is a glibness and artificiality to his rapid-fire exchanges with Rose, they are genuinely clever (I like the students routine), and thankfully they stay on the topic of Autons; in future episodes, Rose becomes so jaded that she flirts with the Doctor and makes stupid jokes in the midst of mortal peril, which is of course ridiculous.

After Rose escapes and returns home, we learn more about her mother, who has the Triple Crown of unpleasant traits—vanity, cupidity, and stupidity. Davies seems to have fun patronizing this character, yet later on he grants her enormous importance. Again, I’m not sure that he’s using the best methods to reach his goals—am I actually supposed to like someone as self-absorbed and shrill as Jackie Tyler? At best she’s a funny sideshow, but that’s not good enough if I’m supposed to feel genuine sympathy for her.

I do smile, however, during the scene when Jackie tries to seduce the Doctor. It works because it’s a new kind of humor for the show. Unfortunately, Davies overplays his hand in future episodes and goes overboard on the juvenile innuendo. In fact, he has a tendency to repeat all of his jokes, good or bad. But they’re fine in “Rose” because they’re still fresh. I don’t even mind the deliberate camp when the Doctor is attacked by a plastic arm. I went along with it on a first viewing because, again, it was something new, and it’s actually a funny bit of business. Little did I realize that Davies was establishing the silly and decidedly non-threatening tone that would poison the bulk of his episodes.

With the arm defeated, the Doctor and Rose start talking exposition again. It’s odd that I initially considered this episode too fast-paced because, during this particular stretch, it’s more leisurely than most episodes of the original series. There are interesting elements to this scene, though, particularly the Doctor’s condemnation of humans as TV-watching slugs who are ignorant of the war raging around them. He could mean the Time War, but I think Davies is slipping in an oblique reference to the War on Terror. In fact, I think he’s making fun of us all for sitting around on our backsides and watching Doctor Who while the world burns (a theme he returns to in “The End of the World”). I’m not sure what to make of this, but it’s fun to speculate about it. Notice how Gold is trying much too hard to make this scene exciting with his inappropriate “thump-thump-thump-thump” music.

Davies’ silly sense of humor returns in full force with the introduction of Clive, a spoof of tubby Doctor Who fans who obsess too much about the series. There’s something annoying about this kind of in-joke; surely Davies qualifies as a Doctor Who obsessive himself, and, like a nasty troll on an Internet message board, he seems all the more pathetic for declaring his superiority to other fans. But I’m just talking trash now, because I actually like Clive. He serves his purpose of building up an aura of mystery around the Doctor. Some of his lines are heavy-handed and melodramatic, but that’s what Doctor Who is all about. Hands up everybody who wanted him to show Rose photos of previous Doctors…

Clive’s monologue about the Doctor as a harbinger of death is cleverly intercut with Mickey’s deadly struggle against the trashcan. Since I’m a Doctor Who nerd, though, I’m obliged to compare this scene to the one that inspired it—the infamous Auton couch murder from “Terror of the Autons.” That scene is played straight, and it’s fairly harrowing in its depiction of a nice character’s brutal death. In “Rose,” by way of contrast, we get a goofy Auton trash bin that belches after gobbling up its prey. While I don’t hate the burping bin as much as some fans, I don’t respect it either. It’s a bit funny and mildly creepy, but when the original series was at its best (as in both Auton episodes), it could be exceptionally creepy.

Once Mickey has been digested by the bin, he reappears as an obvious Auton duplicate. Why doesn’t Rose notice? On this point, I have no trouble suspending my disbelief. Mickey’s Auton makeup is exaggerated for effect, which is fine, and there’s really no reason why Rose should suspect he’s been replaced by a plastic clone. I also have no problem with the subsequent hi-jinks in the restaurant. Here, I think, Davies’ humor works; the short-circuiting Mickey and the Doctor’s fiddling with the champagne bottle are genuinely funny. I particularly love the moment when the Doctor, grinning like a maniac, holds out Mickey’s talking, disembodied head to a pair of clearly horrified witnesses. The Doctor is reveling in the freakishness of it all, and so am I.

The episode takes another downturn, though, when Rose enters the TARDIS. Producer Phil Collinson claimed that the new TARDIS interior would eclipse the obvious studio sets featured in the original series, but I’m afraid he was bragging without foundation. The new TARDIS still looks like a set, and it’s an ugly set to boot. I was intrigued by rumors that the interior would have an organic look (it was even suggested that it would be coral), but ultimately the production team went with a traditional metallic design, twisted into shapes that merely resemble something organic. I hate it. The console and its surrounding columns are like some freakish octopus-thing. And the color scheme is horrible—black, green, and orange? Paul McGann’s TARDIS set, though overdone, had a warmth and grandeur that this TARDIS can’t begin to approach. And, since the new TARDIS is obviously smaller than McGann’s, it hammers home that the 2005 series is a lower-budget production than the TV Movie. Terribly disappointing, I’m afraid, and we’re likely to be stuck with it for a long while.

On the subject of bragging, Davies said that Rose’s first look at the TARDIS was one of his favorite scenes in the series. While I can appreciate why he said this—her stunned reaction is dramatic—the scene is definitely too rushed to have the impact he attaches to it.

Fortunately, there’s another upswing in quality once the TARDIS lands on Tower Bridge. Eccleston plays the character with authority here, and even on a first viewing I was able to laugh at anti-plastic because I intuited that Davies was having fun with his little plot contrivance. I never believed, for a moment, that he would produce such tidy solutions to all of the Doctor’s future conflicts. In such a hectic episode as this, the anti-plastic is just a necessary step to keep things moving. One could hope for something better, of course, but then again the Doctor never comes up with a compelling or credible way to defeat the Autons, does he?

The Doctor and Rose descend into the Auton base, clearly one of Doctor Who’s most impressive locations. I’m not so enamored of the Nestene Consciousness, however, which is portrayed as a CGI lava face. Davies seems to have a fondness for CGI villains, but I don’t think they work. The Autons, like other rubber Doctor Who monsters, come across best with a human spokesperson as their leader, not a visual effect. It certainly doesn’t help that the Nestene’s dialogue is gibberish. I get the feeling that Davies was cutting corners here, saving himself the trouble of writing hardcore science fiction dialogue. All we hear is the Doctor’s end of the conversation, and much of what he says—some guff about warp shunt technology and constitutional rights—falls flat. How many of these lines are actually that interesting?

Negotiations with the Nestene Consciousness break down so quickly that the Doctor looks foolish for trusting it. He also looks ill prepared for the confrontation, as he is quickly incapacitated by just two Autons. I must admit, though, that it’s exciting when the Nestene sends out the invasion signal. The electrified Ferris wheel is a great image, right up there with the best surreal visuals from the original series.

Commence the Auton rampage. It’s a decent sequence, but again I have trouble with Gold’s music, which is catchy but over-the-top. Clive’s death has impact since he’s likable, and because it’s wonderfully ironic that the one man who was smart enough to notice the danger is the first to die when the aliens attack. Once he’s gone, though, it’s hard to care about what happens in or outside the mall. Boak does all right when he shows the mannequins smashing windows, but once they’re free, he resorts to fast cutting to conceal the fact that they’re not doing anything interesting. No one is shown being killed (not even Clive) and nothing really impressive is destroyed. And Jackie Tyler, that least sympathetic of characters, keeps screaming in close-up until you start rooting for the Autons to get her. Again, I’m forced to conclude that the parallel segment in the original series is much better—it’s better directed, better scored, more violent and more effective. I also don’t see much of a difference in budget between the original and the new series, since in both stories we only see the Autons on the march in a single location.

The Doctor continues to fare poorly as Boak cuts to him struggling vainly against the Autons—several times. Eccleston looks weak and desperate, which is not how I want to see the Doctor portrayed, even in a situation like this (especially in a situation like this, I should say). He is made to look impotent, of course, so Rose can become an action heroine and save the day herself. This is very reminiscent of the TV Movie, when Grace averts the end of the world by fiddling with wires as the Doctor bugs out under a blue spotlight. It’s bad writing in both cases, since neither resolution is satisfying. The trouble is that companions—including Rose—are not impressive or capable when compared to the Doctor, so it’s hard to contrive a way for them to excel. Here, we get Rose swinging on a chain like she’s Tarzan’s mate and knocking a couple of Autons into a vat of molten plastic. Like the anti-plastic contrivance, it’s fine, but not actually good.

The final scene sees Mickey, freshly rescued from the Nestenes, cringing at Rose’s feet like a dog. It’s one of many indignities the character must suffer; in later episodes, he can’t even walk down the street without tripping over his own feet. That’s a shame, because he’s infinitely more sympathetic than Jackie, and he deserves better treatment. Rose spurns him rather cruelly, essentially telling him “thanks for nothing” before she vanishes back into the TARDIS. It’s not a pleasant scene, despite her huge smile and dramatic slow-mo dash into the Doctor’s world. But, you know, I respect it—Davies allows me to feel uncomfortable at Rose’s treatment of Mickey and her mother, and I like that. Uncomfortable is definitely a new feeling for Doctor Who, and it’s good for the drama.

But there’s a lot going on here that’s not so good for the drama. Ultimately, “Rose” is too silly and rushed to succeed on a human-interest level. It works only as a fast-paced and fun introduction to some basic Doctor Who concepts and equally basic characters. Future episodes do build on its foundation, but not effectively; in fact, the problems with “Rose” only get worse, as the regular characters become gradually more developed but far less likeable. Still, for an action pilot, this hits close to mark. It’s not my idea of Doctor Who, but it is a reasonably good idea of Doctor Who. It’s just a shame that the rest of the season doesn’t live up to its promise.