My review of this and the next two episodes will be more retrospective than the following episodes as I started reviewing from Aliens of London onwards. These episodes have been reviewed upon rewatching them on DVD. So my comments will be based on my memories of the first time I watched this story and new observations in light of the series to date. I hope you bare with me.

I am a massive fan of the Who theme tune and can listen to it in any form (excluding season 23). I even quite like the McGann movie version. So I was thrilled that the new theme is spot on and could listen to it repeatedly (in fact I have the menu screen of the dvd playing in the background - where is the BBC produced single ?) The time tunnel raphic sequence is enjoyable (if that can be the case for title sequences) and I really like the TARDIS switching between the two tunnels midway.

So, to the episode. The point of Earth view was a good touch to start yet I remember initially suddenly feeling like I was in a program I didn't recognise. Watching the fast cut, speeded up opening shots reminded me first I was watching a Russel T Davies show like Queer as Folk or Casanova, much, much faster than ANY Doctor Who has ever been. But it didn't take me long to settle in.

The opening scenes, again fast paced but actually quite eery and menacing when the Autons first encounter Rose. Then the Doctor uttering probably one of the, if not the most iconic words in his 42 year history "Run". A quick run through some corridors and then a proper introduction before we see the first special effect of the new series, not quite perfect but an idea of what's to come. Terrific start.

After some Eccleston baiting in later reviews, looking back on this episode I found him to be quite entertaining, charming and not as grating as I remember. I do think however his insane grinning was more prolific in other episodes. This episode could end up being the most quotable. I can see all the Ninth Doctor T-shirts emblazoned with "FANTASTIC". But a tour de force for this opening show. Billie Piper as Rose hits the ground running right from the start. Again it's become common to praise her performance through the series but it's well deserved praise. Noel Clarke however, is just plain bad in this. But he will improve.

Being an opening episode (aka pilot) there is a lot of information to take in so is pretty much a fast paced episode. It is never drowned with exposition. This is cleverly left to snippets of data throughout the season. Yet all the Doctor Who icons are handled well and often with humour. Particular reference is made to Rose's first encounter with the TARDIS. The Auton invasion unfortunately, although well played is left to be the B plot and I do think they should have a better episode. But the pointis to introduce the Doctor and Rose and the new format so this can be forgiven.

It did beg the question would the format be too much for a 45 minute episode but, again after seeing more of the series, 45 minutes will be enough.

I liked the plastic Mickey (as opposed to the wooden one) and the wheelie bin ( but didn't understand why that particular one was activated)

The effects off the nestene was brilliant and much better effect than its been credited for. Again a throwaway quick fix but that is the nature of the episode. Best bit of the episode, and the series has got to be the Doctor and Rose in front of the Eye.

One continuity error I noticed, watch the gun-hands on the three Auton "brides". They are already open.

So to recap. A pretty first rate opening episode acted well by all (except one) and enough to whet my appetite for the rest of the season. It's still WHO and it's still FANTASTIC!

Rose is an OK introduction, suffering from a paper-thin plot and the need to re-introduce a sense of mystery and danger to the character of The Doctor. The special effects were hardly ground-breaking, and suffered a lot in places from being too 'obvious' (e.g. the signal emanating from a famous London landmark). The Nestene Consciousness was better realised than in Spearhead From Space (which could be interpreted as being damned with faint praise), and it was good to see The Doctor at least trying to interact with it rather than destroy it straight away. 

The main problem I feel is that the story blasts on through at 200mph. The forty-five minutes allotted passed in seemingly half that time, with nary a pause for breath. The few character moments we had ("I can feel the Earth turning in Space" and "There's a strange man in my bedroom") were good, but too few and far between. Rose would have benefited from another 15 minutes to give the plot more meat and the characters more room to breath. 

But there is plenty which is good: Eccleston's first outing shows promise, The Doctor being less certain of himself and more distant at times. When Rose chides him for not telling her that Mickey might be OK, we realise that this isn't the Doctor we're used to: not Jon, who would have had consoling words for Jo, nor Peter who would have tried to buck up Tegan with 'Brave Heart.' This is a more alien Doctor, one hurt and de-sensitised by the events of the War he has fought in. Eccleston has put a lot into creating this part, and it shows in his performance. From his first speech (“Run!”), he makes the part his own, in a way no incoming actor has done before. Only Hartnell, the original, showed such confidence and presence as The Doctor from the word go. 

Billie Piper as Rose is a revelation. She can act. Not only that, she can act well, and makes one believe in the part. She is a shop-girl with a nose for trouble, she is a humanising influence on The Doctor, she could be our new best friend. Giving Rose the limelight for the first story was a bold decision, but it worked. For the first time since An Unearthly Child we get to meet The Doctor through the eyes of a real person, one not used to Time Travel and alien invasions. It was a masterstroke, and one we should applaud Russell T Davies for. 

The Auton dummies are reasonably well realised, and we finally get to see them smash out from the windows in which they are displayed. What was missing was the “first part” of the story, showing how the Autons were made (I’m assuming there is a factory somewhere in Kent where the owner has been supplanted by an Auton duplicate) and insinuated into so many shop windows in such a casual fashion.

Indeed, when Rose (we) get into the story, the adventure is half over. The Doctor is in the process of making Henrik’s department store ‘safe’ and has (presumably) dealt with other Auton outposts. There is something unsatisfying in this, a sense that there is more to be told, that we don’t have all the facts. 

Who does have all the facts? Clive doesn’t, but he has a lot of them. He’s the 21st-Century Doctor Who fan, all internet-savvy and anal retentive geeky. Why is he obsessive about The Doctor? We aren’t really told. But he has amassed lots of information and sightings about the Ninth Doctor (without ever really picking up on the trail left by his predecessors) and shows Rose that this is someone special. There are a couple of nice in-jokes there, including his presence at the Kennedy Assassination (22nd November 1963, of course) and more of these are included on the website (unpromoted) which the BBC have set up. It can be accessed via the BBC Doctor Who site, and is a clever piece of fluff to demonstrate how the series has moved into the Computer Age. 

The rest of Rose’s life is well detailed, from her slightly flirty mother to her deadbeat boyfriend. Noel Clarke plays the part well, and it is easy to see why Rose, given the choice of staying with him or travelling with The Doctor, would jump into the TARDIS. It’s a nice touch that Rose is stronger than Mickey, and shows both how capable she is and how much of a foil for The Doctor she will be. 

No review of Rose would be complete without mention of the infamous ‘wheelie-bin’ scene. Suffice to say that, as a tension-breaker for the little ones (who might not have ventured near bins ever again if traumatised by the shot) it worked well. It wasn’t overdone (as the farting was to some extent in Aliens of London), and there could be a plausible reason why the burp occurred (which I’ll leave out in the spoiler-free environment we still have). One scene does not deserve to be held up to ridicule this show, when there were entire stories in the 1980’s with more childish stupidity than in the two seconds of television shown here. Deriding the entire show because of this is truly clutching at straws. 

If this is Doctor Who for the 21st Century, then I like it. It is bold it is witty , it has great special effects and it is able to attract great actors to appear in it. Despite the shortcomings in the plot and structure of Rose, its sheer bravado carries it above much of the lacklustre, by-the numbers episodes of Doctor Who seen in its declining years. 

Overall: bold and beautiful.

Rose Tyler is just your ordinary shop assistant, working in the London branch of Henricks. As she is finishing work one day, she heads down to the shop's basement to deliver the week's lottery money to a fellow worker. Unable to find him, she discovers she is not alone in the basement. Before too long, however, she is being attacked by shop dummies which seem to be alive. Thankfully, she is saved by a guy in a scummy leather coat, who then proceeds to blow up her place of work. Who is this mysterious Doctor that saved her life? Just why are ordinary shop dummies coming to life? And why is it that anywhere Rose sees this Doctor fellow, there's a strange looking blue box on a nearby street corner? Before too long, the Doctor and Rose will be thrown together in one of the most bizarre occurrences to ever face the human race, and this is one that will have dire consequences for humanity...

As you can see, the new series gets off to a flying start, with none of the 1996 TV Movie's introspection and useless continuity. The episode starts with action, and ends with action. In fact, there's quite a lot of fast-paced action going on right throughout the episode, but is nicely balanced with some really rather sedate moments. Russel T Davies' script is perfect material for a pilot episode, and watching this makes one wonder what the 1996 TV Movie might have been like if it's first 45 minutes were like this.

The first thing you realise when watching this episode is just how expensive everything looks. This is a million miles away from the original series, which always had that air of "cheap & cheerful" about it. Well, this new episode is definitely cheerful, but there's nothing cheap about it. The visuals we are greeted with are nicely filmed, with a great style to them which is very cinematic. You can all rest assured that visually this series certainly cuts the mustard.

The second thing you notice about this series is Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper. They both have an amazing chemistry together, which works wonderfully. Christopher absolutely relishes the chance to play the Doctor, and this shows on screen. One minute he's cracking jokes about "armless" Autons, and the next he's deeply depressed about the fate of the human race. Similarly, Rose Tyler comes across as believeable - a young woman thrown into the Doc's crazy land.

The supporting cast all do terrific work, with Noel Clarke playing Mickey with just the right level of comic timing to ensure he never becomes too much like a smart-arse. Camille Coduri does really well as Rose's mum, and she shares a wonderful scene with Chris Eccleston as she tries to seduce the Doctor into bed. His reaction is priceless! Mark Benton has a great cameo appearance as Clive, the Max Eddison of the new series. All up, the cast seem to enjoy their job.

I suppose really the next thing I need to talk about is the new TARDIS console room. To be honest, it's gonna take some getting used to. It's a very different design to what we've seen previously, but in a good way. It'a a heck of a lot closer to the original description (not depiction) from 1963, and has a lot of alien charm about it. In terms of size, it's on par with the Hartnell console room, which is good. Oh, and everyone's favourite hat stand is back!

The special effects are pretty good for the most part, with physical effects and stunt work coming off best. The CGI work, while impressive, looks somewhat naff in places (the blowing up on Henrick's department store is a case in point). While the stand-out CGI creation has to be the Nestene itself (voiced by Nick "Big Finish" Briggs, no less!), the other CGI elements are on par with the sort of stuff we've seen in the better Star Wars fan films on the Internet.

Another stand-out element has to be Murray Gold's incidental score, which is absolutely fantastic. In fact, musically this series is superb, with a variety of styles used in a variety of different ways, but all to great effect. We even get to retain the original Delia theme tune, although it has presumably been re-scored and re-jigged by Gold. The incidental score is the best we've ever had on the series, and instantly ensures you get sucked right into what's happening on screen.

Overall, I have to admit that 'Rose' is a triumph for small-screen "Doctor Who", and sets this new run of adventures off in just the right direction. The Doctor and Rose are going to make a fantastic team, and I look forward to joining them each week on their adventures. We're certainly going to be in for one hell of a ride, that's for sure. With this production team at the healm, anything can happen - and I am somehow sure it will. Watch out monsters - the Doctor's back!

Overall Score: 5 / 5 (Very Good)

The Edge of Destruction is probably as important as An Unearthly Child and the Daleks. The first story introduced to the characters and set the perimeters of the show, the Daleks continued the relationship and introduced the most loved monster. The Edge of Destruction meanwhile builds upon the relationship and solidifies it for future stories.

Although the plot is a bit daft with a spring being the cause of all the troubles, it is how the story is told by David Whitaker that helps cover up the plot. 

The best part of the whole story is in the last few minutes where the Doctor apologises to Barbara and says ‘says we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves’ The relationship immediately changes with one line and really defines Hartnell’s Doctor.

Barbara too develops in this story and shows her intelligence and determination to escape the situation. She has changed so much since the screaming, frightened women in the cave of skulls and on Skaro.

Although Susan acts oddly – especially with the scissors, Carole Anne Ford does play her wonderfully, although still like a young child and not as the women she would later develop into.

Ian too develops and Russell plays him with his usual style and willingness to fight against the Doctor if he thinks he is right.

This story is unique in the way it is told and is therefore special in the show’s history. It ranks as one of the best Hartnell stories and certainly helps in the development of the program. 8/10

People often complain about the contrivances and plot holes in ‘Earthshock,’ and first off I’ll acknowledge that they’re there. The suggestion that the Cybermen’s computer can be ‘code-cracked’ to make another vehicle travel in time is particularly bothersome, and I’m always troubled by the implication that the Doctor’s (and Adric’s) interference caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and set Earth’s history on a radically different evolutionary track. I’m reassured by fans that this is not actually a paradox, but it still seems to me to create a circular timeline (Adric crashes freighter, which causes Earth to evolve differently, which [presumably] causes the Doctor to become fond of it, which causes the Doctor to become involved in Cyberman gambit in the first place, which causes the freighter to travel in time and crash in the first place, etc.) that, if not technically impossible or ‘rule-breaking,’ is still more annoying than clever. In my view, anyway.

But I won’t say anything more about that, and truly, it’s not the plot holes that bother me so much about this story. Generally speaking, I’m much happier with a Doctor Who plot that *seems* to make sense when it doesn’t, as opposed to one that works the other way round, and ‘Earthshock’s’ storyline is definitely the former. But even with a tolerant attitude towards sloppy plotting, ‘Earthshock’ isn’t really all that good. Eric Saward’s writing is a big part of the problem here – his unrelenting ‘badass’ dialogue wants desperately to be serious and adult, but instead comes off as just macho and dull and comic-book-ish. Saward’s story is obviously influenced by ‘Alien,’ but in its scripting it actually more anticipates James Cameron’s (much-overrated, in my view) sequel ‘Aliens’ – like that film, ‘Earthshock’ is also dominated by mock-American war-movie clichйs, and they’re not even well fleshed out or entertaining ones at that. It doesn’t help that the supporting cast is uniformly uncharismatic, with the obvious exception of Beryl Reid, who makes a surprisingly sporting attempt, despite being impossibly miscast. (It’s not really a successful attempt, but it’s appreciated for its sheer oddity, if nothing else.) And of course there’s David Banks’s booming portrayal of the Cyber Leader – how funny that this character turns out to be one of the script’s most human characters!

But even all this might not be such a problem, if Saward’s tough-as-nails style didn’t also extend to his characterization of the Doctor, both in terms of dialogue and concept. To be fair, Peter Davison, bless his heart, acts himself into a frenzy here – scowling, snickering, squeaking, and displaying all the little tics that make his Doctor unique – but it still can’t save a writing approach that seems so false to the character. For instance, when Adric asks the Doctor how much damage will be inflicted by the bomb, and he responds “Enough to make life intolerable for the few who survived,” it’s an odd moment: this is evidently Saward’s stab at Doctorish wit, but it almost makes the Doctor sound impressed, as if he’s bragging about the weapon’s capacity for destruction. Similarly, when he casually describes the victims not as dead but rather “finished,” he sounds more like a war-hardened general than an appalled humanist. And the sight of the Fifth Doctor pressing a gun into someone’s chest, even a Cyberman’s, and repeatedly firing, is extremely unpleasant, and justly criticized by some critics of this story. There really is no other way to put it, except to say that, at moments like these, one really does feel that the series is going horribly wrong.

That’s not to say that everything is bad here. Peter Grimwade’s direction is actually very good throughout, with the android scenes in Episode One being especially well handled – when those dark shapes approach from the shadows, we can’t be sure if they’re friendly troopers or something else, and it’s genuinely scary. Later on, things become more routine, but it’s all still well done enough, and there are occasional nice touches throughout (e.g. when the Cybermen’s shadows appear around the corner before they do). Matthew Waterhouse is a controversial figure, of course, but personally I don’t find his acting all that bad – I actually think a lot of fans project their dislike of Adric’s *character* onto the performer, and that’s never entirely fair. At any rate, I find him pretty convincing here, with his final moment as he breathes heavily while gripping the belt suitably underplayed. (What would people rather he did, start screaming for help, or banging wildly on the controls?) Tegan and Nyssa aren’t given much to do, but that’s appropriate enough given the story is Adric’s swan song, and at least Tegan provides the inspiration for that fine exchange between the Doctor and the Cyber Leader – it’s one of the few points in this story where the Doctor really seems like himself. 

And I suppose I must also mention that world events since this story have added a truly frightening resonance to the terrorist tactics attempted by the Cybermen here, and this fact, while accidental, undeniably contributes to the overall effect of ‘Earthshock.’ Unfortunately, it’s not enough to save the story.

Oscar Wilde once asserted that “consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative”. By implication, then, Doctor Who 2005 has been distinctly unprosaic up to this point. Audiences have been presented with the plotless Rose; the surreal sci-fi-whodunit emotional sandwich, The End of the World; and the pre-watershed The Unquiet Dead. We’ve never known quite what to expect – primarily due to the water-tight production. Now, the Aliens of London and World War Three two-parter prolong this trend, targeting younger viewers and the juvenile with instantly tedious and trite flatulence ‘gags’.

The Doc (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) return to ‘the present’, – a requirement of the new soap opera format - to be both greeted and castigated by the perturbed Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri) and a now-ostracized Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke). In-between this impromptu reunion, an extraterrestrial space-craft crashes into the Thames. The Doctor must consequently defend Earth from… the Slitheen family from Raxacoricofallapatorius (… and a squealing space-pig).

Let me clarify my position on writer Russell T. Davies: my ‘loyalties’ are divided. He has reinvented Doctor Who with four fast-paced and enjoyable efforts…, if you refrain from bordering cognition. However, he seems to be failing on the flip side of the coin to where the classic series failed: he promotes character, but plot is barely an afterthought. Sadly, character so far refers only to The Doctor and Rose. Supporting cast-members equate with cardboard cut-outs, despite some praise-worthy performances. Furthermore, Rose, The End of the World and the present storyline sway toward the absurd and superficial. Consider The Doctor’s flowery tripe in Rose:

D'you know like we were saying? About the Earth revolving? It's like when you're a kid: the first time they tell you that the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it because everything looks like it's standing still. I can feel it - the turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour; the entire planet is hurtling around the Sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour; and I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me. Clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go... That's who I am.

To some it may sound impressive (myself excluded), but ultimately it’s soulless gorgonzola – a perfect example. There’re vestiges of plot, this time, though, if one overlooks a lot of typical-being-chased-down-corridors padding in World War Three. Anyhow, moving on… !

Eccleston is on form, especially in his solo scenes inside the TARDIS, although his ‘hitching a lift’ in escape from the military elicts a groan. Rose is less intregal, here.

The Slitheen… Well, they’re now infamous among Whovians. This isn’t abetted by their coarse and frequent need to relieve themselves. Episode one’s cliffhanger would’ve been superb had they been significantly different. I won’t dwell. They do get a few good lines: “… I was busy!” and “Oh, boll-” being most memorable ;-)! For some reason, I thoroughly enjoyed David Verrey’s hammed performance as the PM Joseph Green Slitheen. Annette Badland is unsettling as the Margaret Blaine Slitheen from MI5, and the others were admittedly well-cast: Rupert Vanisittart (Gen. Asquith), Eric Potts (Oliver Charles), Steve Speirs (Strickland), Elizabeth Frost, Paul Kasey and Alan Ruscoe. Jimmy Vee returns, this time providing the alien voices. The space-pig is amusing… before we discover ‘he’ isn’t the villain of the piece.

“Rickey” is amusing, if amateurish, whilst Coduri stands around looking anxious and wide-eyed a lot. Penelope Wilton portrays Harriet Jones, from Flydale North, we’re persistently reminded. I don’t particularly care for the character, but the MP has a fan base – possibly deserved.

Andrew Marr and Matt Baker provide media coverage of the alien invasion – a nice touch, but again overused in the second episode. Jack Tarlton plays an emotionally-involved OTT reporter (!).

Other notable performances include Navin Chowdhry (junior secretary, Indra Ganesh) and Naoko Mori (the pathologist, Dr. Sato).

Keith Boak, director of Rose, takes over the reins from Euros Lyn. It shows.

Curiously, throughout the proceedings, a child (Corey Doabe) spray-paints the words “Bad Wolf” on the TARDIS… and the American reporter (Lachele Carl) was originally named “Mal Loup”… Curiouser and curiouser.

Overall, it’s remotely entertaining and watchable; and that’s the main thing. For youngsters, here, I suppose. I guess we can’t always expect another Unquiet Dead. Or Dalek… **1/2[5]