7pm, Saturday 26th March 2005. If you count from the end of the television series, it’s over 15 years since the Doctor left our screens. It’s nine years since the TV movie. For me, it’s been just over five years since I’ve been enough of a Doctor Who fan to dream of the show’s return to television. It’s been 18 months since the announcement that Doctor Who was, finally, being regenerated for a new series. However you count it, we’ve waited a long time for this moment. But at last, it’s time…

One of the first things to strike me was the sheer breathless pace and energy of the story. The first few scenes quickly show us Rose’s life in a nutshell, though it then settles down to a more sensible speed. It’s still a million times zippier than the frequently slow plod of the long stories of Doctor Who from years gone by, and is quite an adjustment to make.

It’s been observed that the TV movie was a blend of Spearhead from Space, the story that saw both the debut of Jon Pertwee’s Doctor and of the sinister Autons, The Deadly Assassin, where the Doctor returned to his home planet to battle his old enemy the Master, and a bit of original material thrown in as well. But while the TV movie borrowed the Doctor’s alien physiology being discovered as he is treated in hospital, Rose takes the other, more exciting plotline that the TV movie left alone - the invasion of Earth by the delightfully scary Autons. Russell T Davies wisely chooses to define the Doctor by what he does - fight the monsters and save the world, rather than dull discoveries of two hearts and an odd body temperature.

Rose also jettisons any Gallifrey-bound backstory while popping in fun little moments that remind us that this is the very same Doctor and the very same show. Some hints about a new backstory are dropped, too. The references to a war in which the Doctor fought and planets which he was unable save are blatant signposts for the fans shouting “Start speculating here!” Robert Holmes, who created the Autons, had a knack of sketching in intriguing pointers to a wider universe, and Russell T Davies borrows this trick with intriguing and very cool sounding details such as the War and the Shadow Convention.

The actual invasion plot is rather slight, and there are some unexplained gaps in the plot, but part of the point of the story is to show events from the outside. For most people who encounter him, the Doctor is a mysterious figure who appears and disappears amid the confusion of bizarre and dangerous events. But through her curiosity and persistence, Rose manages to make her way into the Doctor’s world.

This sense of looking in from the outside is the point of the character of Clive. I loved the scenes with him. Just look at Russell’s other works like Dark Season and The Second Coming and you’ll see he does this apocalyptic style of dialogue so well, and Mark Benton pulls it off wonderfully. I thought the makers perhaps missed a trick by not craftily foreshadowing some of the later episodes set in the past. I was also half expecting Clive to produce a picture showing Rose accompanying the Doctor, which would have been an interesting complication. I think it also appealed because it was one of the few parts of the story which hadn’t been given away through spoilers or informed speculation, nor lifted from the Autons’ previous outings. It’s also a fun comment on the Internet-savvy age of the Fan. 

Speaking of fun, one of the best things about the show is the delicious sense of humour. I’d seen the clip from the wonderful wheelie-bin scene on Blue Peter on Monday. It had me in stitches then, and it was probably the single thing that most convinced me that the new series was going to be fun. It’s even better in the context of the story, being both hilariously funny and creepily disturbing. It’s not popular with those who think Doctor Who should be dark and serious and adult, but can you really imagine a show like that gripping the hearts and imaginations of children and adults up and down the country? I can’t, but the show as it is seems perfectly pitched to do just that.

Much of the magic lies in the two leads, the Doctor and Rose Tyler. Any concerns I might have had about Billie Piper just disappeared away as if they’d never existed, and I was too caught up in the story to be distracted by thoughts of her past career as a pop star. And as for the Doctor: Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor is energetic, funny, eccentric and scary, rather like the show itself. Russell T Davies’ interesting drama The Second Coming now seems like a dress rehearsal for the new series of Doctor Who, since it shares both writer, lead actor and composer. But although Eccleston’s turn as the Son of God had its light-hearted moments, as the Doctor he brings both the manic intensity and a much greater levity to the role. The structure of the story is more like a romance than anything else, and by the end I was desperately rooting for the Doctor and Rose to “get together” by her joining him on his journeys through time and space!

The TARDIS set is beautiful and impressive, and when Rose came in and the camera swung up and round to reveal it all to us, I wished I had a bigger television. It felt like watching cinematic spectacle on the small screen. The organic feel gives the impression of some alien force or creature with the merest crumbling veneer of technology. I’m not sure I like the way it enters directly into the control room - it makes the inside seem more exposed, more vulnerable. That’s probably a good thing, but it takes some getting used to.

Some people have slated the special effects, but if you want super-impressive (and super-expensive) effects, then Doctor Who is probably not the best place to look. They were just the job to tell the story, and didn’t need to be photorealistic to do this. They were of a good enough level not to detract at all, and to try and make them match the movies or American productions wouldn’t really have made the episode any better. It would simply have been a way for the BBC to shout “Look how much money we’re spending!” If people are put off because the show isn’t flaunting a big budget in this way, then I don’t think they’re much of a loss to fandom. Another prime target for criticism is the incidental music. I thought it was pretty good, myself, though for the most time I didn’t particularly notice it, which seems to me to be a good indicator of being unintrusive. 

The Autons themselves were suitably scary. I didn’t hide behind the sofa - it’s right back against the wall, and though my family discussed moving it forward to give us room, we didn’t get round to it. But I was hiding myself in my jumper as they began their attack, peeping out from between my fingers!

All my family watched the new show, and all of them enjoyed it. This includes my Dad, who doesn’t really like science fiction or fantasy type stuff, and my younger sisters aged 14 and 17. My younger sister usually considers herself too cool for things like Doctor Who. Her boyfriend loved it, so she’s now having to face the horrifying prospect that he might become a Doctor Who fan! The buzz from those I’ve talked to, in real life and over the Internet in various places, is one of genuine enjoyment and excitement. As the credits rolled, I grinned a big happy grin, knowing that up and down the country, a whole new generation had been enjoying Doctor Who for the first time.

Rose wasn’t the greatest piece of television in the world, which may disappoint some overexcited fans, but will probably please those doom-mongers who have convinced themselves the new series can never match the old. But it was one of the most exciting, energetic, confident and just plain enjoyable programmes on TV, and has all the humour, excitement and thrills for all the family to enjoy it. There’s nothing else like it on television, and it’s great to have Doctor Who back

‘Rose’ and its introduction of a very new style of Who seems to me to have overdone the modernisation of the programme, seeming like a disturbing parallel to the Blairite transformation of Labour: slick, soundbite-ish and full of spin (i.e. the trailers and RTD’s almost Stalinist grip on the series’ protocol and commercial representation). But I suppose, like New Labour, New Who still inevitably retains at least some vague traces of its Old ideology: chiefly a central character who – give or take a bit of pugilism here and a bit of unsubstantiated gadgetry there – still stands for brain over brawn. But in this first episode, this wasn’t enough. Eccleston presented us with a – fresh or blustery – break with past interpretations of the role with his ordinariness of appearance and very contemporary, Joe average vernacular. Yes, he displayed welcome eccentricity and Troughtonesque impishness, especially regarding his waving “Hello” when Rose repeated his name to him as they walked down a street. Eccleston retains some of the alienness of Tom Baker too. However, whilst an essentially working-class style Doctor with a pronounced – nay, even exaggerated – Northern accent is arguably a belated evolution of the character from his more middle-class, dilettante past selves, it is at least ostensibly nothing new: McCoy, the last substantial TV Doctor, pioneered this with his blatant, consonant-trammelling Scottish accent. I say ostensibly as McCoy did not in turn play on this as some sort of subtle inverted-snobbishness when up against aliens with received pronunciation: his occasional stumbling on lines was more to do with his own peculiar style of speech which was arguably a slight impediment. Eccleston’s Doctor seems to revel in his regional accent to such an extent that his articulation sounds sometimes a little lazy and self-consciously t-dropping which to me seems pointless and – whether we woolly-headed liberals like it or not – almost implausible, especially for a Gallifreyan (and I used to suspend disbelief with Drax’s cockney accent in Armageddon Factor). We can only assume the ninth Doctor has spent much time up north before coming to London – although he has also apparently recently regenerated (“well, could have been worse”; “look at the ears” etc.), quite muddling considering the revelations of his web-tracer that he has appeared in photographs from various times and places in the past and future in this incarnation!). His retort to Rose that “most planets have a north” in no way explains his blatant regional accent does it? Are we to assume that Northerners on Gallifrey, by some strange quirk of parallel linguistic evolution, developed Salford accents? To me this is just whimsical and sloppy scripting. The need for his accent to be picked up on in the narrative invites these sorts of criticisms when no believable explanation is forthcoming – again it seems simply symptomatic of the terrestrialisation of the show, which is needless.

As for the Doctor’s ‘look’. Whilst the toning down of previously embarrassing costumes (Colin Baker’s in particular; hideously self-parodying question mark accoutrements etc.) into a battered black leather jacket is welcome, the low-cut v-neck t-shirt is a big mistake in my opinion: it just puts too much emphasis on Eccleston’s neck and doesn’t look right, especially when coupled with his ludicrously short crew cut – frankly he looks like a Navvy on a night out. Toning the Doctor’s clothes down was good, refusing to keep him in a ‘costume’ JNT-style was also good (as although each Doctor prior JNT had a look, they did frequently change clothes while retaining the look – Pertwee wore variously different coloured smoking jackets etc. – and this really detracted from the believability of the JNT Doctors). But a v-neck t-shirt!? That was quite simply slack and absurdly ‘casual’ of the costume designer – why not a jumper or a shirt?

For me the strongest element of ‘Rose’ was the internet character and his photographic revelations about the Doctor which could – and should – have been further developed throughout the series. Instead he is killed off by a Top Shop manikin masquerading as an Auton. The incidental music makes Keff McCullouch’s almost bearable by comparison. In true Doctor Who tradition – and in spite, this time, of sufficient money and technology to do it justice – the Nestene Consciousness was, for the third time in the series, insubstantially and unimpressively manifest! Other than the admittedly topical and polemical line from the Doctor about the Nestene liking the planet for its pollutants, no other explanation was given for the Auton’s third invasion. Whatever explanation might have been given was conveniently disguised in indecipherable alien gurgles which the Doctor chose not to translate for us (obviously he had yet to install the TARDIS’s new translating mechanism revealed in the next episode) and we were meant to piece together some sort of background story from his very worrying mention of ‘the war’ which he ‘fought in’. This climax was extremely disappointing and frankly unforgivable for a series famed for its tying up of loose ends in each story (bar one or two McCoy Sapphire and Steel-esque outings). In fact, ‘Rose’ has no story whatsoever and is largely like a 45 minute trailer. Where RTD does succeed is in the dialogue between Doctor and companion, which is, on the whole, pretty good. But characters cannot totally replace storyline. Even Unearthly Child managed to weave a story together, in the first ever episode alone!

Other criticisms: the inexcusable whimsy of the burping dustbin which would have inspired death threats in the JN-T days – this scene makes the sight of an old lady’s slipper peeping out from a Cleaner in Paradise Towers comparatively tame. Similarly pantomime-esque was the Doctor’s frantic struggle with the Auton arm while Rose blithely boiled the kettle in the foreground. His comment on a couple not lasting due to one being gay and one an alien while leafing through HEAT magazine was again needlessly contemporaneous and not even funny. Satire is good and welcome in the new series, polemic and political/social comment, but I hope cultural comment will not only be limited to the philistine popular sham whose protagonists try to convince themselves is ‘culture’, and which most people likely to watch Doctor Who desperately wish to switch off from. Isn’t that the point of escapism?

There seems to be a popular unanimity as to the near untouchable writing credentials of RTD. With exception to parts of the equally overly contemporaneous and highly camp Casanova, I can only ask, why? Not only was The Second Coming a very obvious sort of idea, it was, I felt, implausibly realised and actually very boring. Much as I was – and still am – an admirer of Eccleston’s outstanding acting talents (particularly in Jude and Our Friends in the North), I literally could not muster enough interest to finish watching the first episode of this 'acclaimed series', let alone tuning in for the second instalment. In my opinion, it was simply ordinary, when it could have been quite extraordinary given the theme. I have therefore, unlike most fans, been dreading the return of Doctor Who – as well as excitedly anticipating it on a purely superficial basis – and although I feel this Doctor has much potential, I am disappointed as to the weak writing of this first episode, the complete lack of any storyline (arguably for the first time ever in the show’s history) and a dramatically undermining attention to contemporary trendiness which is ultimately pervading and dogging RTD’s other TV output, Casanova. I feel RTD is imposing his own tastes too much and too early on, and that these tastes and stylistic trademarks of his are in essence geared towards two-dimensional, one-off viewing; a sort of gimmicky, ‘let’s not take things too seriously’ approach. Ring any bells from the past?

Another note is that I really think the new Who production team’s Stalinistic closed shop policy (i.e. not allowing any external scripts or ideas to be considered presently) will be the Achilees’ Heel of this reinvented programme: just look at the completely unimaginative episode titles for one – these writers need urgent help with their titles!!!

A few other moans: people keep talking of how unusual it is to have a feisty, independent-minded female assistant – so what was Ace then? The first non-RP Doctor – what about McCoy (and arguably even McGann with his slight Liverpudlian accent)? Later in the series: Daleks who fly! Does no one remember Remembrance? A new, bigger TARDIS set – the McGann one was bigger and far more interestingly designed (for what was admittedly an appalling film). A future story involving blue-faced zombies in dress of different periods emerging from smoke in the Second World War? Just a hint of Curse of Fenric there do you think?

But back to ‘Rose’ and my overall criticism: every single episode ever of Doctor Who before has been worthy of taping and re-watching at least three or four times over the years (even the clangers). I have decided on having watched Rose for a second time on video that it is not made for re-watching like the old stories: it simply doesn’t have enough meat to its threadbare script, there is nothing to get your teeth into or any subtexts to reinvestigate as in past stories (bar the internet man’s scene and the Doctor’s soliloquy about the Earth moving). Rose is still ultimately typical modern TV: superficial with pale flashes of depth here and there but not enough to warrant returning to after a second viewing. This is, sadly, the first Who story I can say this about, and I am not happy about that. I sincerely hope things improve and we finally get a story worthy of the canon.

Rose represents a very powerful beginning to the new Doctor Who series. There are lots of strong elements present, but I have also some misgivings, which I think, after viewing the second story, The End Of The World, are justified and will perhaps be entrenched within the series.

First, though, the good bits.

The pace of the story works incredibly well for what the serial set out to achieve. Essentially, this is a story introducing the Doctor and Rose, and giving the audience a taste of what the world of Doctor Who involves. In this it succeeds admirably, and so to quibble about a less than detailed subplot involving the Nestene invasion is really irrelevant. I’m actually quite surprised that some aspect of a story was told behind this introduction. It was clever of Russell T. Davies to involve the audience towards the end of the Nestene plot (and choosing a relatively straightforward invasion plan too), and we manage to get some semblance of a story with the impression that it has been going on for some time. For this story the pace worked brilliantly because of its aims, but I feel future episodes that are centred around story-telling rather than characters will suffer from the 43-or-so minute format.

The atmosphere built around the Nestene invasion and the mysteriousness of the Doctor was very effective. The initial sequence of Rose in department store’s basement is chilling; Clive’s elaboration on the Doctor slightly sinister and apocalyptic; and the denouement taking place in the Nestene base as well as the attack by Autons in the department store desperately exciting. That the Autons manage to pose a threat and gun down shoppers without a massive body count or gore being shown is a credit to the director.

The special effects are superb. Never has Doctor Who reached this height – and what a height! They’re so good, I’m not surprised the viewers that know Doctor Who of old don’t go dizzy for a bit wondering if this is still the same show. The Auton design is very realistic and their movements threatening, inhuman and still managing to convey the sense of being alive… yet not quite alive. The CGI rubbish bin has a great liquid quality and the Nestene Consciousness looks far better than the hairy tentacle monster from Spearhead From Space.

The inside of the TARDIS is magnificent in its scale. It has a creepy dark green glow that is perhaps more suited to the Master than the Doctor, and one has to wonder how he can see anything in there! I think the general design of the TARDIS is spot on, but its atmosphere has to be lightened somewhat – the Doctor isn’t a creepy alien who likes to skulk about in the dark and brood. At least, I hope not! The TARDIS, I believe, should have a homely feel, which is well lit and inviting. When Ace calls the TARDIS "home" in Survival, she isn't talking about anything that looks or feels like the new TARDIS design. The telemovie TARDIS, while less alien with the wood panelling and very Welsian, carries a more accurate spirit of what the interior should be like, even if the current design is better.

As for the characters, Rose shines as inspired, both actress and character meld beautifully together and she is really the star of the show. I shan’t go on about how good Billie Piper is as Rose – everyone else is saying that already, and rightly so! Hopefully she will continue as such a strong character throughout the series, and I’m glad she’s coming back for the second series.

Rose’s mother is wonderfully stereotypical and has some great lines about compensation and “skin like an old Bible”. Mickey is fairly lame and hopefully a character we don’t get to see again. Clive is well used for what he is there for. I must say his demise was rather touching, not emotionally, but in the sense that it gave a real presence of threat to the Autons.

Now to the Doctor. I both like and dislike him. This is appropriate for the character of the alien Time Lord, who is not one of us and should not always be seen as someone we can approve of continually, being far more complex than Superman. But unfortunately I think I dislike him for the wrong reasons. There are times when you can’t help but dislike or even loathe Hartnell’s, Colin Baker’s or even McCoy’s Doctor, but usually this is because of your human response to their seemingly inhuman actions: they act selfishly, or see the bigger picture and not the individual, or are dubious in their intentions, making them seem slightly evil. As an alien not part of the human species and foreign to human culture, this is all well and good. Yet this is not why I dislike Eccleston’s Doctor so much. I actually thought the scenes where he apparently forgot or disregarded Mickey because he was focused on the bigger picture were great. His alien aloofness too is depicted well. 

What I’m not liking about Doctor number nine – and from the look of the second story, what we are going to be stuck with – is that he seems to be a manic buffoon who wears broad, inane grins for no apparent reason and both makes and laughs at the lamest of jokes. Most of the attempts at comedy by Eccleston and Davies are misplaced: the slapstick with the Auton arm, the truly appalling “armless” joke (couldn’t they have come up with something both original and witty, like Tom Baker’s, “What a wonderful butler, he’s so violent!”?), the price war joke, etc. There are times when the silliness works: the mucking about with the cards, the Doctor’s child-like zeal at the prospect of danger when he pulls off Auton Mickey’s head, the “fantastic” line, etc. But there are other times when one has to wonder what the director or actor were thinking. It’s okay for the Doctor to crack jokes, laugh and be silly (and silly looking) but these actions should fit a relevant context (such as putting off an enemy) not just be put in here or there to make him look alien. Ultimately it makes him look laughable and ridiculous. (One reviewer rightly pointed out that one problem with Eccleston's approach is his attempting to show all the lust for life the Doctor has but doing so by shoving it down your throat even second.)

This Doctor’s total disgust with humanity is also very strange (he disparages humans three or four times in the episode). This may be only a trait he retains for this first episode, just to show that he isn’t “one of us”. Let’s hope so. I don’t mind a Doctor who occasionally puts humans in their place, but to constantly denigrate the species, well… one wonders why some with that attitude even bothers to help anyone. His thanks to Rose at the end of the story seems to suggest that his dislike for humanity is only temporary. (Indeed in The End Of The World, the Doctor only makes one jibe against human beings.)

I don’t have any problems with the Doctor’s northern accent. The colloquialisms and slang are fine, but a bit overused (too much “ya” instead of “yes”, etc.) and instead of being a medium through which the richness and beauty of the English language is explored (something a great writer like Robert Holmes handled only too well), Doctor Who now seems to be on the same level of pedestrian and unartistic dialogue that most shows on telly inhabit today. The sign of a lazy writer, Mr Davies. Perhaps most people won’t have a problem with this point; it’s probably the English teacher in me that is annoyed by it. Yet there is another issue that is more of a problem. The Doctor now has a northern accent because the actor playing him is from Manchester. Fine. But highlighting this difference in the story was a huge mistake. Invariably what the Doctor sounds like, as well as what he looks like, is going to be different all the time because of the different actors playing the role. There should be little differentiation, however, between the character based on the attributes of the actor. When you write the role of the Doctor you write it based on the character of the Doctor, not if the actor has a northern accent, is short, has gingivitis, etc. No character ever asked the Seventh Doctor why he sounded slightly Scots. In the telemovie the mistake was made:

Grace [trying to excuse the Doctor’s eccentric behaviour to the policeman]: “He’s British.”

Doctor: “Yes, I suppose I am.”

What crap. He only sounds British because he is being played by a British actor and for an American audience, which should be irrelevant. That is the universality of Doctor Who, that anyone can play the character. Similarly, if the Doctor regenerates into a woman, the fact shouldn’t be emphasised. That the new series made the same mistake when Rose asked the Doctor why he sounded like he came from the north suggests they haven’t really got a grip on things. Either that, or it was another attempt to score a cheap, lame joke. At least the “lots of planets have a north” was funny. (I’m getting the impression that this Doctor Who series is going to delight in cheap jokes – as Rose tells the Doctor in the second story when he says something - I think it was a joke! - about the “Deep South”.)

In fact, Russell T. Davies seems to introduce a lot of lewd or sexual dialogue into his stories. Rose has more than it’s fair share: Mickey’s “any excuse to get you into the bedroom”, Rose’s mother trying to pick up the Doctor, the Doctor’s “his gay and she’s an alien”, the mention of breast implants, etc. While the world we live in is obviously sex obsessed to the point of ludicrousness, the world of Doctor Who should be relatively free from such tripe. I call it tripe because it is used cheaply, as either a poor joke or an attempt to seem “contemporary” and “relevant”. Some sexual jokes can work really well but only if they are in character and not forced. Thinking ahead to The End Of The World, it seems this trend continues however.

Regardless of these criticisms, Eccleston’s approach to the Doctor is fresh and full of energy. His intensity and sudden changes of expression from hardness to softness (for example, during the wonderful “world revolving” speech) add a lot to the character. The way the Doctor is introduced is perfect and the mystery as to his identity is kept up throughout the story. The Ninth Doctor’s ability for quick thinking is superb and while this might leave the audience in the dark for some time – since he doesn’t seem to explain anything he does, for example, what the sonic screwdriver is (which he uses way too much for my liking) – it adds tremendously to the intelligence of the character. It’s a real shame that Eccleston won’t be around for much longer as the Doctor because his character has real potential to be one of the best.

Apart from some misgivings to do with the Doctor’s character, dialogue and length of the episode, Rose begins the new series in style. It is atmospheric, exciting and effective in its intentions. Welcome back Doctor Who! 7.5/10

‘Hello, Rose. I’m the Doctor. Now run for your life!’ And so with those words, a new chapter in the Doctor Who canon begins. Almost a decade ago, when the TV movie aired and Paul McGann similarly declared that he was the Doctor, I boasted in a fanzine editorial that Doctor Who was back, bigger, better and bolder. Of course, the TV gods conspired to put Doctor Who back to rest before that somewhat idle boast could ever be validated!

I’m more mature now and less inclined to exaggerate, but after seeing Rose (and also The End of the World), I feel optimistic about the new program and its future beyond this year. It appears that Russell T Davies and the production team were very conscious of the importance of introducing the Doctor, Rose and the TARDIS in the first episode without alienating average television viewers (who after all are critical to the program’s success) and were not prepared to repeat some of the fundamental mistakes of the TV movie.

As much as I adored the drama and stylish direction of the TV movie, not to mention Paul McGann’s performance, it is easy to say in retrospect that perhaps the film's greatest failing was that it commenced with the assumption that the audience was already familiar with the characters of the Doctor, the Master and the TARDIS, not to mention the concept of regeneration and the overall mythos of the Time Lords. Nine years later, it seems the new Doctor Who production team has heeded the lesson. Rose tells the story largely from Rose Tyler’s perspective and it is a great introduction not only to the Doctor, but also a fantastic way of introducing friends or colleagues to the program without overloading their senses with the program's mythos.

Rose nevertheless crams in a lot for a first episode of Doctor Who: a new Doctor, a new companion, a revamped TARDIS and, for the first time since the 1970s, the Nestene Consciousness and the Autons. In someone else’s hands, this could have been a disaster, but by telling the story from Rose Tyler’s perspective, we first and foremost get an entertaining episode of television. Russell T Davies knows when to inject the right moments of quirkiness and humour (for instance, the attack of the disembodied Auton arm!), when to introduce elements of mystery and fascination (Clive’s conspiracy theory that this mythic Doctor has been seen throughout the centuries) and when to project menace and a sense of impending doom (the recreation of that classic Seventies moment when the Autons, disguised as shop window dummies, spring to life).

Although the episode is titled Rose and the bulk of the story and the action is seen from Rose’s eyes, it is also a great introduction to the new Doctor. Christopher Eccleston took absolutely no convincing that he was the Doctor. His contemporary look in production photos (compared to the Doctor’s traditional taste for Edwardian finery) initially threw me some months ago, but that is more than made up for in his performance. He manages to perfectly convey many contradictory features of the Doctor’s character: his sense of mischief (posing as a waiter in the restaurant scene between Rose and the ersatz Mickey), his naivety and innocence (failing to recognise the flirtatious advances of Rose’s mother!) and his timelessness (his speech about how he can feel the Earth’s rotation through the solar system and how insignificant one’s place can almost be to the size of the cosmic forces surrounding them was a gem of a speech). Russell T Davies clearly deserves some credit here for writing such a great part for Eccleston (particularly for the latter speech), but it is Eccleston who brings Davies’ dialogue to life and has us hooked from the moment the Doctor first appears. It is just such a great pity that Eccleston has already decided to move on!

Billie Piper also is a pleasant surprise as Rose. When she was first announced as the companion, I felt the same scepticism that many fans once felt about Bonnie Langford’s casting as Melanie. In Billie’s case, her past as a Britney wannabe seemed all the more ominous. However, to her credit, Billie has defied those expectations. She plays the part with zest and attitude, just what we would expect of a strong-minded 18-year old woman who is a little down on her luck in terms of her career aspirations (and with such an insipid boyfriend to boot!). She is easily identifiable amongst younger viewers and there is no doubt that for even older viewers, she symbolises our own desire to escape the shackles of our menial lives and take a trip around the galaxy in the TARDIS. It helps Billie enormously that Davies wrote her character to be independent and streetwise from the outset, but no amount of good writing can disguise the on-screen chemistry that Billie develops with Christopher Eccleston almost immediately; their banter and exchanges as the Doctor and Rose is delightful to watch.

It is a little difficult to judge the new program’s production values on the viewing of one episode (especially as the events of Rose are set in contemporary times), but the direction of Rose is slick and tightly edited, and the series looks great on film. It has a more natural, organic feel, compared to the combination of film and video sequences which Doctor Who was traditionally renowned for. The visual effects provided by the Mill (both for the title sequence and for the Nestene Consciousness) are so good that you really take them for granted (a good sign really because in a series such as this the effects should be never be so impressive Star Wars-style that they distract the viewer from the intrigue of the storytelling). It will be interesting to see, though, how the Mill realises the program’s demands when the Doctor and Rose travel to other worlds (although we see some promising signs in the subsequent episode The End of the World).

However, if the TARDIS interior is a sign of what we might expect to see of alien environments and possible futures, then again there is good cause for optimism. The design of the console and interior seems to pay homage to all the TARDIS sets that have gone before. Most notably, the design echoes the feel of the grand TARDIS set from the TV movie, but the interior police box double doors are also strongly reminiscent of the double doors used for the TARDIS interior in Peter Cushing’s Doctor Who and the Daleks as well. The metallic walls peppered with the customary TARDIS roundels also remind me of a TARDIS design that Doctor Who Magazine adopted in its comic strip for a time during the Nineties (which perhaps isn’t a surprise either as one of the men behind the concept drawings for the TARDIS interior is Bryan Hitch, an award-winning comic book artist on DC’s The Authority. Perhaps the interior is also a homage to fellow artist Lee Sullivan’s work on the DWM comic strip!).

That’s enough about the bells and whistles ... ‘What about the story?’ (or lack thereof) I hear you ask. I suspect that ‘older’ hardcore Doctor Who fans will pick holes in the storyline and bemoan the series’ new 45-minute, single-episode format (to the traditional 25-minute, four part tales of old). I can foresee some of the older fans accusing the series of being more ‘Doctor Who-lite’ in terms of storytelling and whinging that the latest Auton invasion is so secondary to the plot that they could almost have been any generic monster. Some fans are also likely to ask all sorts of mind-boggling silly questions like ‘Why was the Nestene Consciousness hiding in a sewer under the Thames?’ – in effect attempting to put things into context when it isn’t necessary! It really doesn’t matter. The episode is entertaining enough to hold its own without going into these finer details and as an introductory episode to a brand new series, it shouldn’t be expected to. It’s likely that the storylines will get more sophisticated as Rose, ‘our Earth point of view in space’, becomes more acquainted with the Doctor’s world. What most works about the episode is its quirkiness. Davies works a lot of humour into the drama very successfully (for instance, witness Rose’s reaction when she first enters the TARDIS while escaping the Auton replica of her boyfriend!) but not at the expense of the drama itself.

I also personally don’t think that the series’ new format will limit the potential for innovative stories and broader characterisation (as more cynical fans will attest). The single-episode stories (such as Rose) are more likely to be character-driven tales, while the double-episode stories (such as Aliens of London/World War Three) will be more action-orientated (although Rose also has its fair share of action for one episode, as we see with the opening sequence in the department store!). Indeed, some of the best examples in the runs of other series such as the various Star Trek and Stargate series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Smallville and even Who’s one-time stablemate Blake’s 7 have been character-driven single episode stories. I doubt Doctor Who will be an exception.

Doctor Who is at least back for the time being. Bigger, bolder, better? I’m not prepared to make an audacious statement at this early stage, but I think I have better reason to be optimistic about the good Doctor’s future exploits now than I ever had any reason to when Paul McGann's Doctor briefly graced our TV screens. Let’s hope the average viewer will embrace the new Doctor as warmly as Rose does in the episode and as the fans undoubtedly have.

I remember watching Doctor Who when I was a little kid. It was years ago, but I still remember hiding under the quilt on the couch watching “Planet of Evil”. The red outlined antimatter creatures scared the crap out of me. Even the opening music scared me. But I’d hold my ground and watch because the stories were really great — some of the most innovative science fiction ever on the television.

Although I wouldn’t classify myself as a hardcore fan, I’ve been watching Doctor Who for a long time. It was one of the original three sci-fi shows that got me hooked on the genre (the others being “Star Trek” and “Battlestar Galactica”). As television shows go, Doctor Who was somewhat ahead of it’s time, with strange stories about robots and aliens at a time when most fans still got their science fiction fix from cheap paperbacks and comics. The Classic Series became a cult hit after a while and ultimately played for a whopping 26 seasons.

Since I was totally into the creepy stories, I didn’t really notice at first the episodes I was watching were already some ten years old and the special effects were. . . well. . . kinda old. Lots of cheesy Chromakey stuff and guys in rubber suits. Pretty typical of British sci-fi and horror from that era I suppose.

Doctor Who had been off the air for around fifteen years and I had fairly low expectations of the new stuff, especially after seeing some of the saucy promotions. I’m not even sure why I formulated that opinion, since Russell T. Davies was responsible for the outstanding series “Queer as Folk”. Guess I figured that he was too much of a contemporary writer for sci-fi. And I must admit, another thing that crossed my mind was: Wow. Billie Piper. Kind of like a British Britney Spears. They must have hired her ‘cause she’s easy on the eyes. Christopher Eccleston got my interest up though — he’s a well known, serious actor. The last thing I saw him in was “28 Days Later…”, where he did outstanding job as the slightly crazy Major West.

Unlike the new Battlestar Galactica, which got to build up it’s season with a mini-series, the new Doctor Who must rely on it’s first episode, “Rose”, to serve as the introduction for the entire new series. In the minds of the audience, it sets the tone for the rest of the series and it will be the episode that hopefully brings in the viewers for more. And if that’s not enough, it has 26 years of previous material to live up to.

While it’s not perfect, I was surprised with just well “Rose” succeeded in introducing the new series. Pilot episodes are usually kind of boring, but “Rose” was actually quite entertaining. The storytelling is contemporary, light and fast, and it does a competent job of presenting the new versions of the main characters. The monsters in this one — it isn’t Doctor Who without monsters — are none other than the Autons, the animated mannequins featured in the classic episode “Spearhead From Space”. This tip of the hat to the classic series amused me greatly.

We have us now a contemporary, modern Doctor Who. Although I don’t have a good frame of reference for it, I never got the impression that previous Doctor Who seasons really cared if they were contemporary or not. This Doctor Who is very preoccupied with being current, from the way it is shot, to the curious, peppy music, to the snappy way that dialog is delivered. This is modern television, and every attempt has been made to make it accessible to new fans, something which will no doubt anger the hardcore ones. The half-hour mulit-part cliffhangers are now replaced with one hour stories (though apparently there will be multi-part ones).

Even though I suspect the producers knew it was going to be widely distributed outside of Britain, every attempt seems to have been made to deliver contemporary, almost trendy, British language and humour. North Americans like me are left to figure out the odd bit of it on our own, and that’s the way it should be. Doctor Who is a British hero, after all.

Unlike previous seasons, this new Doctor Who is a lot lighter in tone and this doesn’t come without a price. Certain technical details are overlooked in favour of this lightness, such as Rose’s inability to notice that her boyfriend is all of a sudden acting funny and looks kind of plastic. About half-way in I was reminded of “Shawn of the Dead”. Adopting this levity is to no doubt soften up the image of the show and appeal to a greater audience. Some of the humour is pretty silly, like the Doctor’s explanation that a deactivated Auton arm is now “armless”, but some of it is downright hysterical. They even fancifully explain Eccleston’s Lancashire accent:

Rose: So if you are an Alien, how come you sound like you come from the North?

Doctor: Lots of planets have a North.

Eccleston plays a more modern Doctor Who in this more modern show. Unlike Doctors before him, the Ninth Doctor has no long scarf, no funny hat, no question marks, and no velvet jacket. He’s got a black leather car-coat, Doc Martens and a buzzcut. In “Rose”, he’s energetic, almost manic. If anything, Eccleston plays it too manic. I’ll only be able to stand him saying, “Fantastic!” once per show. The Doctors before him tended to be whimsical, aloof, stiff upper lip and all that. This Doctor is in your face. He’s a man of ACTION. He doesn’t just walk places, he runs.

In fact, all of the supporting characters are a bit on the wacky side, almost like they were caricatures. On comedic characters like Rose’s useless boyfriend Mickey, or her scatty mum, this works. Mickey annoyed the hell out me, just as the writer had hoped. But for some reason I found that this didn’t translate quite as well to the Doctor himself. I wanted more from Eccleston’s performance, like he was holding back or something. You get little bits of it here or there. His frustrations with humanity’s lack of awareness brim over occasionally. He snaps at Rose: “If I did forgot some kid called Mickey it’s because I’m trying to save the life of every stupid ape blundering about on top of this planet, alright?” He insults humans a lot, actually.

And despite the manicness, every now and again there is an earnesty to Eccleston’s performance. He pleads with the Nestene Consciousness to do the right thing: “That’s not true. I should know, I was there. I fought in the War. I wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t save your world, I couldn’t save any of them!” He’s forcing it out a bit, to be sure, but I’m not cringing, either. There’s some interesting history to this character.

But the real story here is Billie Piper. Her performance as Rose is, frankly, brilliant. I expected so little from the companion character but was given so much more. Of all the characters hers is the most normal, yet the most interesting. She completely nails the twenty-year-old, directionless working girl. Her bored, post-high school look barely conceals a curiosity and intelligence on par with the Doctor’s. The wackiness of the rest of the supporting cast plays well against her straightforward, honest portrayal.

Never once during the show did I not buy into her performance. When called upon, her comedic timing is right on, and her grasp of her character is clearly evident. She even gets to be smug:

Rose: You were useless in there! You’d be dead if it weren’t for me.

Doctor: Yes, I would. Thank you.

Really, Piper steals nearly every scene that she’s in. And, well. . . she is easy on the eyes, too.

So I’m thinking that the hardcore fans aren’t going to be all that impressed because the pace, the tone and the characters deviate somewhat from the classic series. But these are the same folks who filled the forums with jive when they found out that the new Starbuck in the new Battlestar Galactica was going to be a girl. But all of the basic Doctor Who elements are still there: The Doctor is still odd, the companion is still down to earth, the monsters are still weird, and the TARDIS is still bigger on the inside, than it is on the outside. So the rest of us more “casual” fans can relax and enjoy Russell T. Davies’ modern, fast, humorous and thoroughly entertaining take on a classic British science fiction series.

The Doctor: “Fantastic!”

Jabe the Tree: “I don’t understand. Just what is fantastic about that?”

Just about everything I’d say. 

THE END OF THE WORLD is just what the series needed after the manic introduction to the new Doctor Who in ROSE. 

I will confess, on first viewing, I was hugely disappointed by the opening episode. For me the anticipation of the first instalment in a new series after sixteen years absence had built up to gigantic proportions. As the 45 minutes of ROSE came to an end, I was left sitting on the sofa in bewilderment. Is that it? What was it all about? Did it make sense? What was with the soundtrack? Will it get better? 

However, I left it a few days and watched it again. And again. And each time it got better. So much so, by the time of THE END OF THE WORLD, I was again looking forward to the rest of the series, but with more realistic expectations. I am not saying the second episode only works for those with low expectations though, because this is a truly great episode which not only screams Doctor Who is back, but this is well and truly Doctor Who for 2005. 

With a brief re-cap of how Rose came to be with the Doctor, we find ourselves following the story immediately after her slow-motion run into the TARDIS, reminiscent of the days of the Hartnell and Troughton series, when one story ran almost immediately into another, and the characters didn’t even have time to catch their breath before they began their next adventure. With Rose’s excitement piqued by the Doctor mischievously enticing her to an exciting period in the future, they arrive on Platform One - a mile-long observation deck in orbit around the Earth – just in time to witness the devastating expansion of the Sun, half an hour or so before the world explodes.

Also assembled on Platform One to watch the destruction of the Earth are “the great and the good”, or as the Doctor points out “the rich”; an assortment of aliens such as the Moxx of Balhoon and the Face of Boe, and multiforms that originated on the planet, such as the Trees from the Forest of Cheam and the last ‘pure’ human, Cassandra. However, one of the guests has hatched a murderous plot, one which sees the station’s crew bumped off, and threatens the whole space station. 

One of the noticeable aspects of this second episode is the pace. Gone is the quick-MTV style editing of the previous instalment, to be replaced with a slower, slightly more gradual story. The main benefit of this is that it allows time to build up the tension which was rather lacking in ROSE, while giving the viewer a chance to keep track of the plot and follow all the rather wonderful jokes which Russell T Davies has littered the script with.

And what a script! Its an amusing tale told against a fantastic back-drop, with wonderfully odd characters and touches of social satire, from the ultimate personification of human greed and vanity in Cassandra, whose hundreds of surgical enhancements have left her nothing more than a stretched flap of skin with eyes and a mouth who needs frequent moisturising, to the ecological considerations of man’s total inconsideration of his environment. As Rose herself comments after the Earth has exploded in a massive ball of flame, “we were all too busy saving ourselves to notice it go.” There are also hints of what is to come, as the Doctor reluctantly tells Rose of a devastating event that happened in the years since he has been off screen, and which will have major implications for our hero.

This episode continues to show why the casting of the two leads was spot-on. The new Doctor develops quickly, with Eccleston settling down into the role very comfortably. I wouldn’t be surprised if future polls show the ninth Doctor to be one of the most popular incarnations. His manic grins capture a sense of Tom Baker’s alien barminess while McGann’s love of life is demonstrated by the glee with which he welcomes the arrival of the assembled multiforms and what is more, he clearly enjoys flirting with Jabe the Tree. Thankfully the goofiness is toned-down and we see flashes of Hartnell’s touchiness, especially when Rose quizzes him about his origins. 

Significantly though, this Doctor displays some human emotions rarely seen in any of his other incarnations. We see him shed a tear - a first, in the shows 41 year history (?) - when Jabe talks of how remarkable it is that he even exists, and then later he displays a surprisingly vengeful side to his character, when he allows his actions, regardless of Rose’ plea, to end the villain’s life. Eccleston’s powerful performance in these scenes and then later in the last scene, surpasses anything from the classic series, with only Baker’s ‘Do I have the right?’ speech from GENESIS OF THE DALEKS coming anywhere close. With the announcement that Eccleston will not be returning for a second series coming days before transmission, it is very disappointing that the show is to lose one of the best talents it has ever had.

Billie Piper demonstrates why she is perfectly cast as Rose. After the break-neck speed of the first episode, she captures Rose’s sense of suddenly being overwhelmed by her situation and the realisation of what she has done in so quickly abandoning her old life and rushing to join this stranger about which she knows nothing. Not only is this questioning of her actions refreshing – how many of the Doctor’s previous companions displayed this very human of reactions – but also allows the audience to learn more about the Doctor, without a jarringly obvious info-dump. 

Of the other characters, it is Cassandra who is the most engaging. The last of the ‘pure’ humans, Lady Cassandra O’Brien.delta.17 is a wonderfully acidic and self-centred individual, a testament to some of the worst excesses of human nature, displaying vanity, greed and a disregard for life that may stand between her and her goal. While Rose’s references to her as a bitchy trampoline and Michael Jackson illustrate RTD’s wit, her demise is truly fitting of a Who ‘monster’ with a gloriously gory pop. That Cassandra leaves a lasting-impression which would usually be undeserved from the four or so minutes of the screen time that she has, is testament to both Zoe Wannamaker and RTD for such a wonderful creation, although the real honours must go to The Mill. When I first heard about Doctor Who’s first fully CGI human character, I had reservations. I thought the potential for her to descend into an unrealistic cartoon so badly rendered that it would float on screen, was enormous, but The Mill have pulled it off brilliantly. 

In fact, The Mill have done a great job with all the visual effects for this episode, surpassing those seen in ROSE, although I believe the story’s futuristic setting helps. It is harder to escape criticism of special effects when they are used in the context of a contemporary setting, as opposed to the more fantasy-based settings. That is not to demean their achievement in anyway though, as the high level of CGI is maintained throughout the episode, only occasionally faltering, such as when the Doctor places an spider saboteur robot on the floor, and the visible jump to CG animation. 

Visually, what makes this new series stand out from the old is the very apparent attention to detail and the investment of money into more expensive sets. We can actually believe that the Doctor’s rickety old TARDIS is just that. The frantic pump-action operation of the console and the alarming shuddering and juddering of each flight give the impression that this time machine is every bit as old as the Doctor’s 900+ years. And its not just the detail on the series key elements. The ‘retro’ design of Platform One, combining metal and wood in some MDF inspired vision of the future banishes any memory of the tin foil covered computer consoles of old, and later the design takes central stage in a very dramatic finale when the Doctor has to run the gauntlet through the air conditioning. 

Clearly, as much thought has also gone into the smallest aspect, from the blood visibly pumping through Cassandra’s veins, to the script of the future English language and the twisting of notions and facts over generations and millennia, as exemplified in the legendary Ostrich egg and what Cassandra believes is called an iPod. It is this iPod which leads to a couple of odd moments when pop music becomes part of the soundtrack. I’ve often wondered how Doctor Who would work with the use of contemporary pop music in it. I will admit I wouldn’t have thought of putting a shot of a space station drifting towards the destruction of the Earth to the strains of Brittany Spears’ TOXIC, but that’s what the production team have done and in a strange way it works.

And speaking of the soundtrack, Murray Gold’s work on this episode is a great improvement on the first’s pumping electro-beats, a somewhat calmer tone which is far less intrusive than that of its predecessor. 

It is also good to have a pre-credits sequence in place, acting as the closest thing we’ll get to the cliffhangers of old in this new mostly single episode format. I gather they are here to stay, and jolly good too!

Finally, what are the comedic highpoints of the episode? Well, there are so many. The wonderfully cantankerous steward’s ‘shop floor’ announcement about the owner of the blue box. Rose introducing herself to a twig. The Doctor’s “What you gonna do? Moisturise me?” retort to the threat posed by the villain’s henchmen. Or how about Cassandra’s throw away line about her youth? There is so much here to chose from, even some slightly more adult orientated jokes, which I will admit slightly shocked me. 

But then this isn’t the Doctor Who of 1963 to 1989. This is something else. And absolutely fantastic it is too!