After 10 long years, Doctor Who has at last finally returned to Australian television screens – and it's about time.

The updated time vortex is a nice nostalgic touch for those of us who remember it. After over a year, the new Doctor Who logo still looks far too “photoshopped” for my tastes. The new theme tune is a wonderful combination of the old Delia Darbyshire melody, overlaid with a symphonic score. It's a big improvement on the pompous bombastic John Debney version from the TV movie. And light-years better than the chintzy cheesy version used during the Sylvester McCoy years. The opening shot immediately catches your attention – a wideshot of the earth and moon, then zooming into Rose's alarm clock. Clearly showing that this series will explore the unknown, but will be returning to Earth from time to time.

Murray Gold's new theme tune is excellent – his incidental music is not so excellent. The inspired-by-department-store melody was perfectly appropriate for the first five minutes, but I don't believe it was particularly appropriate for repeated use throughout the entire episode.

Rose's mother Jackie very much reminds me of my own mother. Especially her overprotectiveness of her daughter, not to mention her tendency to natter over the phone with her friends. As a result, I find the character of Jackie annoying for all the right reasons – as a reflection of the bland and uninspiring life that Rose will soon leave behind. Mickey is your typical faithful boyfriend. Like most males of his ilk, he's not a particularly articulate or refined fellow, but its clear that he does love Rose, in his own hamfisted way. I find Mickey to be an immensly annoying character for the same reasons as Jackie. And that's fine – as a Doctor Who fan gunning for Rose to leave in the TARDIS, I'm meant to.

In a breathtaking forty-five minutes, Christopher Eccleston has redefined the role of Doctor Who for the 21st Century. Other actors who have played the role, have sometimes taken the larger-than-life eccentric approach. For past episodes in a more innocent time, this has worked exceedingly well. Ecclestone's Doctor is truly alien, without taking the overly bombastic approach that some past actors have. For me, the “Earth turning” speech was when I truly believed that he was the Doctor.

Billie Piper's character of Rose is an even bigger revelation than the Doctor himself. Rose is a fully- fleshed out character, and the fact we see this adventure from her point-of-view only emphasises this. She's a fully-rounded person with a family who loves her, who's then flung into the most extraordinary situation imaginable.Billie Piper plays the role with charm and verve, without ever descending into maudlin histrionics.

The most interesting aspect of the episode (from a continuity) perspective, is the war that the Doctor refers to in his confrontation with the Nestene consciousness. Just what exactly has the Doctor been up to in the past few years since we've seen him? It appears that RTD is setting up a large arc for the Doctor – hopefully it will work. I enjoyed the Doctor and Rose's confrontation/conversation next to the London Eye. In addition to quickly establishing their relationship, it also brings new viewers up to date – what is the TARDIS? Why is it bigger on the inside than the outside? Just who IS the Doctor? Essentially, RTD has to sum up the forty-year premise of the show in forty-five fast-paced minutes. It's quite a challenge, and RTD mostly pulls it off.

Rose is by no means a perfect Doctor Who episode – how could it be? This new series needs to respect forty years of past history, as well as forge a new and viable future for an attention-deficit viewing audience. In that regard, the debut episode builds a solid foundation from which to improve upon.

Does it work for the 21st century? Will it engage a new audience? Does enough happen? Is it just Hollyoaks with a TARDIS? A lot of accusations have been thrown at the new Dr Who series, a few of them justly so. But do any of them hit the heart?

Viewed as a Doctor Who story, 'Rose' is certainly very odd. The enemy gets barely any introduction, still less explanation, not much screen time and no lines. The plot, as far as this invasion is concerned, is little more than "the Doctor turns up and stops it", which of course is what a lot of people were dreading would happen once stories were cut from four half-hour episodes to a single 45 minuter. However, this isn't quite fair.

'Rose' isn't a Doctor Who story, any more than the first episode of the classic series was. Both are stories of ordinary people becoming inadvertently entwined in a world far outside theirs, and meeting a strange man who they, and we, will soon come to know as the Doctor. 'An Unearthly Child' is a story about two teachers investigating a suspicious student. It's very odd, because after the first episode it suddenly lurches off into a lot of tosh about cavemen, which is when Doctor Who proper starts, but for that first one it's creepy, mysterious, character-driven, explorative, and features no monsters whatsoever.

Similarly, 'Rose' is a story about... well, Rose. She doesn't investigate a suspicious incident so much as become one, but the idea is the same: she falls randomly into the Doctor's world, and we see the story of how it affects her. When she first meets the Doctor, he's practically at the end of what you'd think of as a classic Who story - he knows what the enemy is, how to defeat it, how to find it and what to do when he gets there. That isn't Rose's story; it's just background. Her story, like 'An Unearthly Child', is about someone ordinary colliding with an extraordinary world. It's very odd, because after the first five minutes it suddenly introduces a lot of tosh about shop dummies, which is when Doctor Who proper starts, but it still somehow manages to be mysterious, character-driven and exciting... and has monsters.

There are faults, of course. The incidental music feels a bit Remembrance of the Daleks, very disco military, with no thematic evolution from Working In A Shop to Saving The World. The editing in the climax isn't pacy enough. The humour is a bit strong. Micky can't act. Christopher Eccleston walks funny. But really, who's counting?

The point is, it feels like Dr Who. Overwhelmingly so, and infinitely more than the '96 tv movie, which we can finally all admit to having hated now we've got something else to fill the void. Christopher Eccleston is enormously engaging - friendly, fun, enthusiastic, and (his key character note) tremendously alive. Billie Piper is a revelation, utterly alive and believable as a real-life girl next door. The design work is excellent - even the semi-organic TARDIS, which made me sob when I first saw it because it's going to be such a bastard to build cgi models of, is great - and the sets huge, well shot and evocatively lit. The script by Russell T Davies is, needless to say, faultlessly structured, pulsing with life and astonishingly funny. The direction is rapid, clever, pacy and alive. I've even changed my mind about the coat.

And there's a reason for this. The first thing Russell T wrote for the series was a 15 page document explaining what the show was about. Not regeneration, not police boxes and sonic screwdrivers, but what it's REALLY about. The reason the new TARDIS works is that it's built from ideas up: it's not a home, it's a VW camper van - an old hippy's stolen jalopy, jury-rigged to be operated by a single pilot and repaired on the road with whatever technology was available. The Doctor isn't a an exile, an alien or a player of chess upon a thousand boards: he's a traveller, alone and homeless until he finds someone who can complete him. Rose doesn't join him because she wanders in off the street; she comes because she knows if she says no she'll regret it the rest of her life, and because the Doctor is everything her life isn't. Because he's alive. He doesn't save worlds and rescue aliens because he's a hero, or a pinko communist liberal. He does it because life is short, and every moment precious, whether you're a Time Lord, a shop assistant, a TARDIS or the Moxx of Balhoon.

Russell's final summary of the Doctor's moral code, and Christopher's, is "Live life". I may not have agreed with everything about 'Rose', but that's something I can't help but embrace wholeheartedly. And if the series has a heart as strong as that - two hearts, indeed, for a resurrected Time Lord - then the critics can whinge as much as they like. The Doctor's in safe hands.

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