Okay, we’ve all seen it now, so how was it for you?
Let’s start with a few negatives.
This was not aimed at people who wanted Doctor Who to be the same as in 1975 (or 1965 or 1985). This was not aimed only at hard core SF fans. This was not aimed only at kids.
This was aimed at a 2005 family audience – think Harry Potter meets Buffy meets Lord of the Rings meets Casualty.
And every posting I’ve read that speaks about showing the episode to children or spouses says how much they loved it.
The only bad mouthing has come from a small subset of old-skool Doctor Who “fans” who seemingly hate any innovation. Well, here’s the news for those people – a show made for you would have a fraction of the budget, would have nowhere near the amount of talent and would be shown at some God forsaken time on a digital channel. So screw you.
A few more negatives
How could the BBC manage to get bits of sound from whatever Graham Norton was doing transmitted over the top?
The CGI was a bit ropey in places, though it must be said that a certain plastic quality (a traditional problem with CGI) is appropriate for the Autons.
The sound mix was much better on transmission than on the leaked copy and I never had the issues with it that some people did. So let’s move onto…
The positive things
The plot might be wafer thin but that’s partly on purpose. This story is told from Rose’s point of view. The Doctor is some mad man who blunders into life and starts babbling about aliens and intelligent plastic and stuff. For most of the audience this will be the first time they’ve ever seen Doctor Who so having a real person react to the Doctor in a real way is a great introduction.
— The Doctor flipping through celeb gossip magazine.
The madness that enters Rose’s life plus the fact that they have to introduce the Doctor, the TARDIS, Rose, and some of the basic concepts of the series all in 44 minutes goes some way to explaining the very frantic pacing. You are out of breath by the end – but that’s a good thing. Were you gasping for breath and gasping to see the next episode? I was.
With fewer introductions, and some two parters, the other twelve episodes should be a bit less packed. But, again, this is Doctor Who for 2005 not 1975.
— The Doctor drops all the flippancy and lets the aliens know who’s in charge.
Christopher Ecclestone is brilliant. Manic, intense, flippant, goofy, angry – all in the space of a few minutes. He’s a great actor and will be worth watching every week, so long as he keeps on getting great lines. I loved his “I can feel it moving” speech.
He was very unexpected casting but the sort of brilliant characater actor who can make the part come alive. (In many ways what Ecclestone has to do is recreate the part – just as the other three “good” actors who took part did: Troughton after the first regeneration, Davsison after seven years of Tom Baker and McGann in the TVM. )
(The constant stream of comedians and light entertainment presenters that the tabloids had put forward as potential doctors was something that drove me mad. Comic actors have been cast in the past – Hartnell and Pertwee – but they played it straight. What comedy existed in Doctor Who was part of the character’s reaction to the situations he found himself in, not the essence of the character.)
Piper is fine. Nothing exceptional but nothing terrible about her performance (which is probably ideal – see above regarding Rose being a real person). Her Buffy moment at the climax is well handled as is her decision to run off with the Doctor at the end.
The new TARDIS interior is fantastic. Elements of the original, the Cushing film version and the McGann TVM version. I like it so far but I’m not totally sure it will work in the long term – it’s fine here where it’s used a getaway vehicle but presumably later on it will need to be used as a home base as well. Will we see any rooms other than the console room?
Overall
8/10 and bring on next week.