So, after so long, so many novellos, audio adventures and hiatus, the Eight Doctor whose first adventure involved a motorcycle chase through San Fransisco and shouting in a cupboard for 30 minutes has arrived in modern day London with a very different appearance and a very different dynamic ethos. Welcome to Doctor Number 9, Christopher Eccleston. 

Of course, with all the older episodes and nostalgic look backs during the lead-up, it is inevitable that comparing "Ghost Light" and "City of Death" and "Dragonfire" with "Rose" is like comparing apples with pears. This is glossy and modern, with the investment and computer technology that all previous Doctors so desparately needed. "Rose" is just as much a Doctor Who experience as any previous serial, but this looked and behaved as any 40 minute drama serial would; short, sharp and sexy. A new era indeed. And when this episode was over, apart from feeling giddy and exhausted, the feeling was of relief that finally Doctor Who has all the right elements together to make a new series work. 

Christopher Eccleston is perfectly cast, and acts fantastically, as the Ninth regeneration. Almost everything he did seemed right on the nail, with perfect interaction with Rose and flawless behaviour within the well realised story. There will be countless reviews which suggest that Eccleston has elements of each and every Doctor before him; they are right. You can sense all from Hartnell to McGann in the eccentricities, humour and stature. The "regeneration mirror shot" - such a small little tradition - was done with great humour. 

Billie Piper is the natural sucessor to Sophie Aldred; Ace is now Rose and there are so many possibilities for Rose's character it is a certain bet that novello writers are already penning idea for her. She was able to put across the stunned bemusement and attracted curiousness in good measure, and distanced herself from the "scream and gleam" companions along whom she strides as a confident and classy young woman. 

As those who saw the TV Movie will testifty, narrative is all. Good actors can try all they can but a narrative has to be a sound structure. The return of the Autons and the conclusion was breathlessly rapid; perhaps a little too short and sweet. The "anti-plastic" solution seemed to be introduced and executed quickly with an element of "fake tension" between cutting shots that didn't quite have the desired effect. As an introduction to the two main characters, the story did work well. Rose was very quickly in a situation she could not control, the Doctor was very quickly introduced and importantly did not automatically sweep the shop assistant of her feet and into the TARDIS. With time to develop, the relationship seems more real and the script really helped here. How many times are we going to see quoted "Nice to meet you Rose, now run for your life!". 

Maybe die-hard 'Whovians' are going to groan at the idea of a glossy, CGI-aided version of Doctor Who. But with all the possibilities that the new era holds, this new series could be the start of a relationship taking the concept well into the 21st Century. Paul McGann's Doctor could have been everything and more Christopher Eccleston is promising; let us take the journey with him and find out.

You watch this episode with the knowledge that this Dr is already "dead"... he's going to regenerate at the end of this series, or maybe in the Christmas special, regenerate into Casanova it seems...and that knowledge is going to colour your views of this and further episodes this series... but what can you do? Its Dr Who, you have to watch it out of love and so I did, but for the review, here, I want to look at the episode as stand alone, through the lens if possible of 'market forces'... because at the end of the day they didn't bring Dr Who back to please the fans did they? They brought it back so that they (and the they is not some hidden secret society but the BBC) could make some money and gain some recognition out of it. And I don't hold that against them (nor should we)

That said there was plenty for the fans in this one - the news that Gallifrey lost a war and is gone... against who? Was it the daleks? I think we should be told... The noise of the Tardis inside the control room... just like the good old days! Although, as an aside, I think the new design of the control room is just too...alien? Despite the roundels in the walls, it would have been nice to have a bit more continuity here I think...but maybe thats just the fan in me.

Was the episode any good? I watched it with my wife and I think it is worth bringing in her views here. Why? because she can't stand Science Fiction. For every SF film/programme I want to put on the DVD I have to sit through the equivalent amount of RomCom. To date the only positive comments she has ever made are about X2 and Spiderman and lets be honest you would have to be a dour geriatric actuary from Auchtermuchty with your adrenal glands removed not to like those films. Of the end of the world she said "well its better than last week" and yes, by Xoanon, it is!! 

After this episode, there's hope! Some humour (e.g. the Dr's rescue of Rose as the Sun glare goes up and down), some good ideas (the "300G time battery" thing that the Dr puts in Rose's phone) and some weIrd and tragic action (the Dr & t he tree lady in the fan tunnel) these are the kind of ingredients that make the formula that took Buffy to the top, that meant Star Trek kept its franchise going too, sorry, so, long. The stuff in short that makes a winning genre series

After last week (i.e. episode 1) I have to admit to being disappointed - but now I live in hope that, along with the ipod/jukebox collection of records in the sky+box/video the last television series on Earth could well be Dr Who!

It was somehow appropriate that Rose was transmitted over the Easter weekend. Because of this timing I am staying at my parents house and therefore watched the first new Doctor Who series in over 15 years in the same location where I watched the old series for a decade, in my parents’ living room on a large Grundig telly. 

What of the episode itself? My first feeling was pretty much “my goodness, it is really here and now”. The first impression was that RTD’s Doctor Who isn’t quite like “classic” Who. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, the old series would not quite work on today’s audiences and even the biggest fan has to accept that. There were certainly scenes that were very much like traditional Doctor Who, and if the scene in Rose’s home felt out of place most of the rest seemed to fit.

Plot wise the only real problem I have is with the lack of explanation for “anti-plastic”. The Doctor produces it without telling us how he came by it or how it works, even some Baker or Pertwee technobabble would have been better than nothing. Otherwise, given that the story had to fit into 45 minutes the plot and script are pretty good. What we missed was any real build-up of tension, I would prefer to see more two parters in the future. It also appeared that the Doctor knew the problem and how to solve it before he arrived, something missing was the way in which he used to use logic to solve problems. But perhaps, with character introductions done with, we shall see some of that in later stories.

And what of the characters? Having seen some of Eccleston’s film work I thought him potentially a very good Doctor. He still seems to be settling into the role but shows bags of promise. I can imagine by the third or fourth episode he’ll have made the role his own even though there are echoes of his former incarnations in some of the phrases he uses and in his mood swings. One could identify Hartnell, Baker and Pertwee in there with a touch of Davison. Not bad at all! And Bille Piper’s Rose was better than I could have hoped. We have her in the role of cipher, a young woman who is there to ask the Doctor questions we are itching to ask. But we also have a bored, bright girl who yearns for excitement and seems to relish danger, and who has the common sense and strength to be able to get the Doctor out of scrapes when necessary.

Special effects were generally of a high standard, be they CGI or the Auton’s plastic heads and arms. I like the TARDIS interior (not sure about coral growing out of water though) but am lukewarm about the console. Incidental music seemed intrusive at times but I have to remind myself that this is early days. Small problems such as the music can always be addressed in future episodes and series – assuming we get another series next year!

I enjoyed “Rose”, though it has minor faults as a slice of Doctor Who it does succeed as modern family drama and did feel like Doctor Who at times. What of the people I watched with? Well as tradition demanded my mother gave up after five minutes announcing “this is crap” and went to wash the dishes. Bear in mind that she feels anything not a soap or game show is crap. My father (a fan since Hartnell) really enjoyed it and felt it to be some of the best television he’s seen in years as well as genuine Doctor Who. My Wife, who is American and who saw some 4th and 5th Doctor stories on PBS as a child, put down her crossword about 10 minutes in and seemed to enjoy the episode though she feels it doesn’t feel quite like the old series. She’s right, but I feel if she was excited enough to watch then hopefully so will other people who are not die-hard fans.

Over all a good start but perhaps not destined to be an all time favourite. The twin purposes of this episode were surely to keep old fans happy while introducing the whole concept of Doctor Who to a new audience who haven’t seen much of it. In my opinion it has achieved these aims and promises to be a springboard to exciting adventures. Will the viewing public agree? Only time will tell…

The new Doctor Who series so far demonstrates Hitchcock's adage that a good movie needs three things - a good script, a good script and a good script. Russell T Davies proves the point of course with his offering, but with the new Doctor Who you have the special effects, the costumes, the performances, the whole 'superior production values' too... and left feeling wanting more. This is entertaining stuff for anyone, it just so happens to be Dr Who.

Davies puts in gags that you would swear came from Douglas Adams - how the National Trust moves mountains, literally, to create a 'classic Earth' and he builds deep and meaningful relationships between characters with a single word. There is wonderful economy in his writing - the old series would have spent an entire episodes in what Davies can do simply by making the Doctor exhale!

On the downside, the Doctor's heroic rescue came straight out of the movie 'Galaxy Quest' - a hilarious Star Trek spoof movie. Davies ripping off a spoof of Star Trek? Well, genius steals and talent borrows and Davies almost gets away with it. Almost.

The Doctor sheds tears (for the first time?) on the subject of the fate of Gallifrey five billion years into the future - how this will pan out in the Doctor Who Universe remains to be seen, but it is about time we pushed things on here. Gallifrey (at least the bits run by the Time Lords) has always been to me a sort of 'Oxbridge in a Police State' planet. There's lots to be uncovered there.

With the Doctor's 11 regenerations now runnning out, how about 'The Guilty Secret of the Time Lords' that reveals the weakness that lead to their demise and the Doctor gaining an unlimited number of regenerations to keep the series going?

We see a human exploding - blood and bits everywhere - and we've got a 7pm timeslot for family viewing. At long last, someone, somewhere is going to complain about Doctor Who - as Dr Who writer Mark Gatiss expressed recently, we've got back that Dr Who 'Saturday feeling'!

On the evidence of this episode, the Americans just have to buy the series now. If BBC Wales and Russell T can keep this up we've got to be seeing plenty more where this came from. Christopher Eccleston would be advised to stay put!

As a longtime viewer who’s been involved with organized DW fandom since 1976, I have to admit to being a bit disappointed. I recognize that the show needs to appeal to contemporary audiences, that times have moved on, and that the 45 minute format necessitates different story structure to the old episodic one. Within these confines the show was acceptable. But it could have been so much better.

The main problem is it was too broadly comedic – it didn’t take itself seriously enough. Doctor Who has always had some comedy element, which peaked really with Tom Baker around season 17 (and went too far) – but at its heart it should be a drama. A lighthearted drama perhaps, but a drama nonetheless. The scene of the Doctor grappling with the Auton arm in Rose’s apartment was obviously played for comedy. So was the belching trash container. So was the Autonised Mickey. And there was too much of it. The show needs to take itself more seriously.

The script itself was also something of a letdown. Admittedly the first episode had a lot to achieve: reintroduce the Doctor, introduce Rose AND have a self contained “defeat the monster” plot. But it didn’t really succeed as it should have. It was fast-paced, but at the expense of character development. Russell T Davies has been emphasizing in interviews for the past 12 months how important it is for the new series to focus on character: so where was this focus? Despite the episode being titled ‘Rose’, we learnt virtually nothing about Rose’s character. We know she has a boyfriend and lives with her mum in a flat, we know she didn’t do well at school and once won a gymnastics medal. That’s it. That’s not character development. In contrast, the 45-minute Smallville pilot told us a helluva lot more about its regulars (and there are more of them!) while STILL telling a story.

The sequence with the internet geek who had a website on the Doctor could easily have been dropped from the story entirely with no consequence to the plot. It was a waste of space and seemed designed as an injoke, the geek a thinly (sic) disguised Ian Levine. The sole point seemed to set up the mystery of the Doctor, but this could have been far better achieved in a scene between the Doctor himself and Rose, preferably in the TARDIS – which didn’t get nearly enough attention. In contrast, the 1996 TVM with Paul McGann did much better at establishing the other worldliness of the TARDIS (by giving it more screentime). The whole internet geek thing seemed an excuse to introduce the net as a topical reference – labored.

I would have much preferred a simpler, lower key intro story (without the “foiling a major invasion” business, there simply wasn’t the time to treat this properly), with more emphasis on characterisation – more Doctor/Rose scenes.

On the plus side: the acting was fine. The FX were pretty good (a few were hokey, but that’s inevitable with the budget as is). The Doctor himself was, unfortunately, not quite alien enough. There were two nice bits: when he answered Rose’s question of who he was, and his obvious longing at the end for her to join him on his travels (which hearked back to Pertwee and Baker both of whom exhibited the same quality). But for the most part the Doctor was too damn human. It’s bad enough he is dressed to blend in rather than stand out, but his speech had too many contemporary colloquialisms and contractions – which he wouldn’t know unless he’d spent a lot of time hanging around contemporary London, and that’s out of character for him, he should be off exploring the universe. The Doctor is and always should be “the outsider”, the mystery: there was a hearkening to this at places, but there was not ENOUGH of it. He was too familiar and everyday.

The title sequence was wonderful, the new theme arrangement was wonderful, and I was relieved to see the character credited once again as ‘Doctor Who’ - crediting him as 'the Doctor' is too literalist, it loses both the poetry of the former credit as well as the link between the character and the name of the program! The Doctor he may be, but the credit should be and thankfully once more is ‘Doctor Who’ (? As in yes, it is a question!)

In summary: it was not a bad start, but it could have been better. The writing needs more depth, more characterisation. It doesn’t need to move at this breakneck speed ALL the time. The show can sustain both fast moving sequences AND more considered character-driven scenes, and the latter is what this first episode really lacked, and what it NEEDED. If the program is trying to compete with stuff like SMALLVILLE, it needs to go a long way to do it – cos that show is frankly (and as a committed DW fan I hate to say it) more entertaining.

Tuning in to the first episode of the BBC’s new Doctor Who series you may have been a little overwhelmed – I know I was. After the opening titles we hurtle from space down onto a CGI representation of Britain; we see a montage of shop girl Rose waking up, getting up, leaving home, working, eating; a speeded-up recording of London life flickers by. Music pumps noisily in the foreground all the while. Perhaps unsurprisingly, as it comes from the pen of the ebullient Russell T Davies, it is hyperactive television – bright, noisy, unfocussed and occasionally slightly incoherent. This is certainly Doctor Who for a new generation of kids: it is absolutely buzzing with e-numbers!

Yes, ‘Rose’, and probably any 1-part episode of 45-50 minutes’ duration, is too short to tell stories of Doctor Who’s traditional scale and length. Nevertheless, it makes sense and holds together as a story very well – but the only way for it to do this is to scrimp on the explanations. How did the Nestene Consciousness get there and get established under London? How did it know to copy Mickey and how did the real one get to its secret lair? How did the mannequins (never once referred to as Autons) get to all those different places – didn’t the Doctor blow them up? And how come they had guns inside, who made them?

Watching ‘Rose’ is a rewarding and fairly enjoyable experience, but very frustrating. Frustrating because it has been spoilered so heavily; frustrating because for every great scene (such as the Doctor’s confrontation with the Consciousness) there is a stupid one (the replica Mickey – and yes, I know it’s all a joke on how shallow his personality is anyway); frustrating because for every laugh-out-loud scene (Rose’s chav mother catching on about half a minute later than the other shoppers that the Autons are slaughtering everyone!) there is a crude and annoying one (such as that dustbin burping – it hasn’t got a digestive tract, for heaven’s sake!) And it is frustrating because actually, it is not the old Doctor Who that we all love, but something tantalisingly close to it.

Basically, ‘Rose’ is ‘alright’. Chris is alright, Billie is okay, the Autons are rather poor, the CGI is rather excellent, the guest cast are pretty good, the TARDIS is fine, the plot and humour are mostly great but sometimes dodgy. The atmosphere is non-existent. There were two bits that I absolutely loved; Mickey trying to look hard in his clapped-out yellow Beetle; and everything featuring Clive, an allegory of you and me (and a surprisingly flattering one when you consider Light and Bellboy!)

The Doctor himself can get rather lost in all this, which is unfortunate. Whether or not the uninitiated would be enthralled and hooked by this portrayal of the Doctor I honestly don’t know, as I can’t step outside myself enough to see. The idea is clearly that he has very recently regenerated, perhaps while in the course of setting his pre-existing plan to defeat the Autons in motion – perhaps the Eighth Doctor had a run-in with the Autonised managerial team of Henrik’s store? This explains his baffling mood swings, which are initially engaging and funny but become disconcerting. He is alternately nice and callous. If we assume that the former characteristic is the remnant of the Eighth Doctor’s personality slipping away (getting a bit fannish with the theorising here), then maybe the callousness is this Doctor’s true underlying persona beginning to coagulate? It can be rather shocking, particularly his lack of care for Rose’s boyfriend on the Embankment. And while the Seventh Doctor was hammily evil in an enjoyable way, even Tom Baker in his worst moods never actually seemed dangerous to his friends. 

Finally, Russell, in the TARDIS’ five-second sojourn towards the episode’s end, has generously and far-sightedly provided us with the first new series ‘gap’ for solo adventures, which the forthcoming novels and audios can exploit forever!!

Seven out of ten.