Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 1 - Rose

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 1 - Rose

Anticipation is ripe for Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary special on November 23rd of this, the year of our Time Lord, 2013. So, what better time for revisiting the entire back catalogue of the modern Doctor Who? I'm hoping I've timed this well enough to give me enough opportunity to watch all the episodes before November 23rd, considering I have a child who doesn't like to sleep at the moment, but we'll see what we can do!

First up, Rose. Christopher Eccleston's first episode as the Ninth Doctor, and Billie Piper's first appearance as companion Rose.

When plastic mannequins start coming to life in the department store where she works, Rose Tyler is saved by the Ninth Doctor, who blows the building up before bidding her farewell. The next day however, he appears at his flat hunting a plastic arm that she took home with her. When the arm comes back to life and attacks both of them, The Doctor lets Rose know it's the Nesteen Consciousness, an alien threat, and that he's heading off to sort it out, in his funny Northern way.

Intrigued, Rose tries to find out more about The Doctor online, and comes across a website run by a chap called Clive, who has found evidence of this Doctor in several different periods of history, including Dallas at the assasiniation of JFK. Heading over to Clive's house with her boyfriend, Mickey (who does his best to look dangerous in a yellow VW Bug), she sees the evidence, but thinks he's a nutter when he declares The Doctor an alien. Unbeknownst to Rose, Mickey has been attacked by a wheelie bin and changed into a plastic Auton (just like the mannequins), although she fails to notice this as he drives her rather erratically to a local restaurant.

Whilst Rose remains blissfully unaware of Mickey's transformation (she seems to treat him like the inattentive one, but really Rose, come on - he's acting stranger than...sliced bread? I need better metaphors), The Doctor has tracked the Nesteen Consciousness' signal to the restaurant and rescues Rose, introducing her to the TARDIS. Rose's 'meeting the TARDIS for the first time' reaction is to run outside in horror, before running back in, which seems to be a rather common reaction. As The Doctor confesses that yes, he is an alien, they search again for where the Nesteen Consciousness is hiding. Rose completes the first half of her Companion interview by locating where it's transmitting from, below the London Eye, they rush underground to confront it, taking a vial of 'Anti-Plastic' (the worst name for a weapon since...sliced bread? Seriously, this is getting embarassing) as backup. The Doctor tells the Nesteen Consciouness to bugger off and leave Humanity alone, but it refuses, blaming The Doctor as he failed to save its homeworld during the Time War, and keeping him held captive with a couple of Autons, who take the Sliced Bread Anti-Plastic. It's up to Rose to use her school-level gymnastic skills to Tarzan kick the Autons into the Nesteen Consciousness itself, thus destroying all the bad guys and successfully completing the rest of her Companion interview.

Outside, The Doctor tests Rose's loyalty to Mickey by offering her the job of full-time companion. As Rose can't shake Mickey from her leg, she explains that she's rather stuck and needs to take care of him, but thank you. However, The Doctor realises that he left a vital piece of information off the job advert, so he returns and explains that the TARDIS travels in time. Now that she knows this, Rose shakes Mickey off her leg, and joins him, in a rather bizarre slow-mo run. Next stop, 5,000,000 AD!

Series 1 kicks off with an episode thats plot isn't really all that memorable, but that does a great job of introducting us to the characters and rules of the Doctor Who universe (or the Whoniverse, for th 3 Doctor Who fans there who've never heard it shortened thusly). I can remember when I first watched this thinking that plastic mannequins coming to life can't exactly compare with armour plated killing machines, but that the way Rose proves herself to The Doctor during the episode meant it didn't matter. From the very first 'Run!', it's clear that we're being taken on an exciting adventure, where we'll meet danger, but have a lot of fun solving it along the way. The humour that I love about Who is present from the start as well, particularly Rose's line about how lots of people being strange in public has to be students.

First impressions of The Ninth Doctor - There's a harshness about The Doctor at the beginning, when he tells Rose to go home to her beans on toast - if it does turn out that this is a Doctor coming immediately from ending the Time War, he's certainly showing some scars. In many ways, although I know that I'll come to love him, he's not the most instantly lovable character. That's clearly just Eccleston and the BBC trying to find the right tone to play with, which is always the same in a pilot.

Also, there's the line about how he's 'having to blunder about saving the life of every stupid ape on this planet' - that's a far cry from the Doctor we know that loves nothing more than saving humans. I can't think of any occasion when the Tenth or Eleventh Doctors say something along these lines, although maybe they've mellowed and learned to love Humanity again by then.

Having said that, the cheeky grin from the 'Northern' Doctor is here right from the start. No matter the incarnation, there's always delight in danger from The Doctor. When I think back to Eccelstone, I always see that grin as he proclaims 'Fantastic!', so it was a bit of a shock to see him being so grumpy before. I always saw David Tennant taking this part the Ninth Doctor and exaggerating it when he plays the Tenth, and I think it's the bit of the Ninth that works best. Where Matt Smith being suddenly hostile and grumpy works well, I don't think it does for Ecclestone. Serious, yes, but not actively hostile.

The Doctor's willingness to give everything a chance before destroying it is laid down here as well, as he gives the Nesteen Consciousness a chance to right its wrongs, before putting an end to it. It's a key part of his character, and it was important to establish it right at the beginning. If he is coming fresh from the Time War, he's obviously trying to make sure he never does anything like that again without exhausting his options first.

His despair at the Time War rears its head too, as the Nesteen Consciousness accuses him of not doing anything to save its world. He pleads that the couldn't save it, or any other world that was lost, and it's great contrast to the rest of episode where he's been either grumpy or smiling like a crazy person. His general attitude, as discussed above, is definitely that of someone who has recently lost something, or has had a lot of trouble, at least intiitally. Even assuming that he has been to Dallas in 1963 etc., this still tells the tale of a man who has a lot of sorrow in his heart.

Moving on to Billie Piper and Rose, I think she clicks with the role straight away. I find it very difficult to choose my favourite of the modern Who companions, but Rose is a very strong candidate. Piper is perfect at delivering the right level of humour, shock and fear, but most of all it's her interplay with the other characters that works so well. She's our guide to discovering this world, and she's terrific at it. We don't know what to make of The Doctor to begin with, just as she doesn't, but at the end we too know that he's the one we want to be going on an adventure with.

The warmth between Rose and Mickey, and the slightly antagonistic relationship between Rose and her mother, Jackie, are also great to watch here - Rose gently teasing Mickey about whether there's a match on at the pub he's offered to take her for a drink, or Jackie telling Rose to sell her story as she needs a way of making money now, are great nods to where the show will go with these relationships. Jackie's flirting with The Doctor (whatever incarnation) begins here, and had me creased up as she teases him about only being in her dressing gown.

Noel Clark makes me laugh all the way through - I know that he can play a hard man, but watching him play a bit of a wimp pretending to be a hard man is brilliant, particulary when he's sat behind the wheel of a yellow VW Beetle (that most manly of cars) trying to intimidate Clive. It's a scarily manic grin when he gets turned into a plastic Mickey. I'm also fairly certain that whoever was playing him without a head wasn't having to act when they were stumbling blindly into everything during the chase in the restaurant...And hugging Rose at the end like a small child is classic.

There's definitely a different feel to the series now - perhaps that's just the camera quality, or the fact that in the first episode they're wandering round council estates rather than worlds in outer space. Also, it's the pilot episode. It feels less cinematic, which is understandable, and in it's infancy - I love it for this reason though, because as viewers that's exactly where we are at this point in the story.

As you'd expect, from the very beginning the music is stunning. There's hints of the Doomsday theme running through, and it's spine tingling, especially as I know how it's going to come about in the Series 2 finale.

How It Fits Into The Series As A Whole
When they contact Clive, the picture of The Doctor suggests that he must have been around with that face for a while, so what is the discovering himself in the mirror thing about? One note about the picture - they musn't have had much of a budget for the Kennedy photo, as it's awful! He looks so badly photoshopped it's unreal.

The Bad Wolf Sightings
None - but they'll start cropping up in the next episode. Clearly there wasn't any point putting them in the pilot!

Overall
A solid start to the series, which introduces the new characters and themes of the Whoniverse perfectly. It's slightly let down by a forgettable main plot, but then it was surely never meant to be memorable for that reason.

8/10

Doctor Who: Ending Series 7 and Looking Forward to the 50 Anniversary Special *Spoilers* (Of course...)

Doctor Who: Questions and Answers from the end of Series 7 *Spoilers* (Of course...)

After many weeks of build up to the finale of Doctor Who series 7, we finally found ourselves with some answers. We learnt the mystery behind Clara (a perfectly satisfying solution in my mind), and we saw the inevitable dodging of actually learning The Doctor's name - his name was spoken, yes, but not so that we could hear it, and so this secret still remains a secret (which is probably for the best really - no name could ever live to the hype surrounding it, and in the end it was more important that the name was used by someone, rather than what the name actually is itself). 

Neither of these were the biggest talking point of the episode however. Instead, we got a massive hint towards a bigger, darker secret, one that already has message boards and forums buzzing with anticipation. Most are pointing towards one idea, and I'm about to spell it out in case you haven't thought along these lines, as well as address a couple of other questions that I still have. There are, obviously, gigantic spoilers in the following paragraphs.

So, at the end of the episode, we saw the following: The Doctor crosses into his own time stream to rescue Clara, and succeeds in finding her and whisking her to safety. However, just before he does this, he sees a lone figure staring out across some barren plains (it's not exactly clear to me where this is - it could be Trenzalore, or it could be elsewhere). Then, the following conversation takes place:

Clara: Who's that?

The Doctor: Nevermind...Let's get back.

Clara: But who is he?

The Doctor: He's me.There's only me here, that's the point, now let's get back.

Clara: But I never saw that one. I saw all of you, eleven faces, all of them you. You're the Eleventh Doctor.

The Doctor: I said he was me. I never said he was The Doctor!

Clara: I don't understand!

The Doctor: Look, my name, my real name. That is not the point. The name I choose is 'The Doctor'. The name you choose, it's like a promise you make...He's the one who broke the promise.

(Clara faints)

The Doctor: Clara! Clara!

(The Doctor picks Clara up)

The Doctor: He is my secret.

Unnamed Figure: What I did, I did without choice.

The Doctor: I know.

Unnamed Figure: In the name of peace, and sanity.

The Doctor: But not in the name of The Doctor!

(The Doctor leaves)

(Unnamed figure turns around)

Then, as we see the figure is revealed to be John Hurt, whom we all know is starring in the 50th Anniversary special, the words 'Introducing John Hurt as The Doctor' flash up on screen. Suddenly, Stephen Moffat's promise that this episode would fundamentally change Doctor Who starts to become apparent - there is another Doctor that we never knew about.

The real fun, of course, is finding out where this Doctor fits into the series. After all, we know that this Doctor must come before the Eleventh, as Matt Smith's Doctor knows who he is (yes, the episode mentioned at one point about how The Doctor visiting his tomb before he actually died leaves him open to learning about his future, but it's not made to seem as if he learns everything about his future). And this is where the game-changing twist really occurs - if, logically, he has to be an earlier incarnation, and therefore can't possibly be one of the previous 10, he has to be a previously unknown Doctor, which means that somewhere along the line we need to start re-numbering our Doctor's.

And the smart money has to be that John Hurt is really Doctor No.9. Why? Let's take a look.

Cast your minds back to Rose, the opening episode of Series 1 (of the modern Doctor Who). The last Doctor to make an appearance before this was Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor in the Doctor Who movie. Christopher Ecclestone makes his appearance as the Ninth Doctor in this episode, but this is the only time the regeneration from one Doctor to the next is not shown on screen. All the others are shown, so we know that John Hurt cannot be any incarnation that we have previously seen on screen. Realistically, without any mis-direction, this has to be where John Hurt's Doctor fits in. Somewhere along the line, Paul McGann regenerated into John Hurt, who regenerated into Christopher Eccelstone. Of course, this truly is game-changing, because it means that Christopher Ecclestone is really the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant is really the Eleventh Doctor, and Matt Smith is really the Twelfth Doctor. So, if what we know about regenerations is true (Time Lords having twelve regenerations), the Doctor only has one regeneration left.

That's one part of the mystery potentially solved. The other is 'why has he been erased from The Doctor's history?'. At the moment, I (and seemingly most of Who-fandom) can only see one reason - this is the incarnation of The Doctor that locked the Time War and killed all the Time Lords and Daleks. What evidence is there? Well, he states that he did it 'without choice...in the name of peace, and sanity' - it's already been made obvious the guilt that The Doctor feels at having to sacrifice everyone else of his race, and even at the genocide of his greatest enemy, so this would fit into the idea that he believed it was the only option. Also, as The Doctor has the image of being a saviour and hero, it stands to reason that he would want this choice and the face that goes with it to be erased from history. It's hardly evidence really I suppose, but it fits pretty damn well.

Does this all fit too well? Perhaps, but perhaps there's a more obvious solution that I haven't seen, or even a less obvious solution. Perhaps it's not obvious at all. Perhaps he really is a future incarnation that travelled back to visit all his previous selves and they all disavowed him for something he told them.

I'm still betting on what I've already stated.

Now, there's something I haven't yet brought up, which is what led us to learn about Trenzalore in the first place, and that's the following quote: 'On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a Question will be asked. A question that must never, ever be answered - Doctor Who?'. This is, of course, what Dorium Maldovar asked The Doctor in the Series 6 finale, The Wedding of River Song. We're teased about getting to hear The Doctor's name throughout The Name of The Doctor, but in the end it's River Song who answers it (inaudibly). It's The Great Intelligence who ends up asking the question to gain entry into The Doctor's tomb, but even though we now know this part of the mystery, what isn't clear is why The Doctor didn't answer when 'no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer', as apparently he should have had to by some mystical force. I'm going to give Mr Moffat the benefit of the doubt and say that 'the fall of the Eleventh' doesn't mean a regeneration, but the moment when The Great Intelligence jumped into his time steam and began re-writing history. However, this still isn't clear, so might we be re-visiting this point in the anniversary special?

Finally, let's have a quick look at the secret of Clara. It's not easy to give a satisfactory explanation to such a puzzling mystery as Clara - I had a blog 90% written, talking about my frustrations with just how little we've been given in the way of clues compared to previous series, before I decided to let it be and see what the finale brought. Although I do wish there'd been a bit more like the regenerating girl from Series 6, or the bees disappearing from Series 4, in the end I'm damn happy with the reveal about Clara - she jumped into The Doctor's time stream, which splintered her throughout history so that she could save him where he needed it. It makes sense within the show, and I don't have anything negative to say about it. Except perhaps that I don't understand exactly why The Doctor only remembers her twice from this eleventh incarnation and never before. A side effect of jumping into his time stream perhaps? It's not that important really. 

So, there's five months to go until the 50th anniversary special, and I really can't think of a more exciting note to finish on. I'd have been tearing my hair out at the wait if Matt Smith had starting regenerating, and I'd have been grinning from ear to ear if David Tennant and Billie Piper had appeared, but as it happens I think Steven Moffat has topped both of those. Although I'd read the rumours about John Hurt's role in the 50th anniversary special as part of a 'trinity' involing David Tenant and Matt Smith, I hadn't imagined seeing him already, and although I knew this meant he might play one of The Doctor's incarnations, I didn't think it would be done in a way to hint he would lead to a re-numbering of the modern Doctor's. Truly, we've been left with one of the greatest cliffhangers that television has ever seen.