Who Review: Rose

Rose Tyler’s normal life–mom, boyfriend, job at the department store–is about to be turned upside down. One evening, while taking the lottery money down to Wilson in the basement, she encounters shop dummies, moving, and getting ready to attack. At the last moment, she is rescued by a mysterious man who calls himself “the Doctor.” He tells her to go home and forget him. But how can you forget a man in a leather jacket who has rescued you from dummies, told you the dummies are really alive, and has just blown up your workplace? The next morning, the man returns, and with him comes trouble. Now jobless, Rose finds she can’t get away from him, and is soon a part of his battle against the strange “living plastic” she encountered in the department store basement, and the consciousness that controls it. But this “Doctor” is no ordinary man. As she discovers, he has been around for a long time, and wherever he goes, danger, destruction, and death are not far behind…

SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen the episode. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!

Doctor Who’s return to television was announced in 2003. I followed the story from the States, where Doctor Who had been a thing, but was very much out of the public consciousness. I remember going into a video store at a local mall and seeing some Doctor Who videos, but aside from that, it was a quaint British sci-fi show from back in the day, and meant nothing to anyone aside from the die-hard fans.

I knew, somehow, we were going to watch the new Doctor Who. Exactly how, I wasn’t sure yet. No announcement had been made with regard to any US station picking it up. Nevertheless, I wanted to prepare the family, so I introduced my children to Doctor Who. The oldest were twelve and ten years old, so they were my first target. I remember standing in their bedroom doorway and telling them about this cool show I watched when I was a child about a man from Gallifrey who traveled time and space in a blue phone box. They were intrigued, and wanted to know more. What’s regeneration? How many Doctors have there been? Who were his companions? Soon after this conversation, I went shopping for episodes to show them. I was delighted to discover the BBC had started releasing Doctor Who on DVD, and one of my favorites, “The Robots of Death” starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, was available to purchase at our local Best Buy. That evening, we sat and watched. New Whovians were born. This was soon followed by “Planet of the Spiders” (regeneration story), “Robot” (the story following), and “The War Games” (all only available on VHS at the time, but I transferred the tapes to DVD). By the time March, 2005 rolled around, the four oldest of my children were solid fans, eager to see the new version.

How did we watch Doctor Who, when no-one in the US was broadcasting it? My younger brother in the UK recorded the episodes on his DVD burner, then uploaded them to an FTP server I set up. Such was bandwidth and processor speeds in 2005, it would take all night to upload. I would then take the files, convert them from PAL to NTSC, burn them to DVD, and watch with the family. That’s how we first saw “Rose”…

The episode opens in space. The camera shifts to Earth, and then zooms in on England, London, and the council estate where Rose’s alarm clock is about to wake her for work. This gives us a sense of the scope of Doctor Who. It’s as vast as space, and yet as intimate as a London girl getting up for work. I think this also signals to skeptical viewers that at last, Doctor Who has a budget big enough to make it look as good as anything coming from the States. For the most part, I think that holds true. Some of the CGI is a bit dated now, as any CGI from the mid-2000s does more than ten years later. In particular, the Nestene Consciousness at the end is a bit iffy. But the rest still looks fine, at least to me.

Then we meet the Doctor, Christopher Eccleston. An interesting choice. I’d never heard of him, but I suppose he was known to people in the UK. It’s always hard to judge an actor’s take on the Doctor from the first episode. Initial stories, whether it’s first of the season, or first after a regeneration, tend to be a mish-mash of humor and drama, so you can’t really tell where they land. The Ninth Doctor seems to be more on the serious side, though you wouldn’t know it from this story. He talks lightly of blowing up the store roof, and makes witty comments about the celebrities in a magazine. Perhaps his most dramatic moment is at the end when he confronts the Nestene Consciousness. That said, there is a lot of death and destruction in the story, especially when the Autons go on the rampage, so the Doctor’s lightness and self-confidence is a good balance.

Billie Piper was a young pop singer who had been on Top of the Pops, and even had a few number ones. Her portrayal of Rose, however, showed she could act too. There’s some good dialog between her and the Doctor, showing a natural rapport between Billie and Christopher. Billie was seven in 1989, so she would barely remember the Classic Series. Maybe this helps her relate to people in the audience, especially young kids, who are new to Doctor Who. Her surprise, wonder, and disbelief seem genuine.

There’s a lot show-runner (and episode writer) Russell T. Davies did right, perhaps learning from the mistakes with the 1996 movie (see “The Movie”). There is no regeneration. We are introduced to the Ninth Doctor with no hint as to how the Eighth Doctor regenerated. The only signal we are given that a regeneration had recently happened is when the Doctor catches his reflection in a mirror, and notes his ears (reminiscent of the Third and Fourth Doctor in their respective first episodes). It’s a subtle sign that only the astute Whovian might have picked up on. And that’s good. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver, but it’s not explained. It’s just a tool in his pocket. The focus of the story is Rose, and we are introduced to the Doctor through her. We aren’t bombarded with Who lore and iconography. We do see the TARDIS, and that triggers her research into the Doctor. Again, the scene with Clive was a good way to introduce us to the idea that Doctor is very old. I liked that his wife was surprised that a girl was interested in talking about the Doctor. This was, without a doubt, a nod to the fact that Classic Doctor Who fandom was almost exclusively male. I chuckled. And the fact that the enemy was not the Cybermen, nor the Daleks, nor the Master, but the Autons. Whovians would know them, but they are not too much of a stretch for those new to the show: living plastic, controlled by a central intelligence. Familiar objects, such as shop dummies, come alive and shoot people with their hand-guns (just like the Classic Autons!).

“Rose” is a good, gentle introduction to Doctor Who. It doesn’t overwhelm the newcomer with its history, but there’s enough of the Classic elements there to assure the Whovian that it’s the same show, the same Doctor. Must-see? Sure. A new Doctor and a new companion for a new era. Definitely worth watching.

Here are some pictures from my 2005 trip to Cardiff with my two oldest daughters. It includes pictures of Doctor Who landmarks from Season 1 of the re-boot.