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Episode 1: “Rose”Broadcast on BBC1, Saturday March 26th, 2005
Director:
- Keith Boak
(Holby City)
Screenplay:
- Russell T. Davies
(Bob & Rose, Casanova, Children’s Ward, Cluedo, Doctor Who, The Grand, The House of Windsor, Linda Green, Mine All Mine, Queer as Folk, Revelations, The Second Coming, Springhill, Touching Evil)
Cast:
- The Doctor: Christopher Eccleston
Rose Tyler: Billie Piper
Clive Finch: Mark Benton
Mickey: Noel Clarke
Jackie Tyler: Camille Coduri
Before attempting any review of the BBC’s world-famous science-fictionfranchise, it’s important you know my own personal viewpoint on the DoctorWho brand.
As a child growing up in the ’80s, Doctor Who was a favourite TVshow of mine – starting in the Peter Davidson era, through Colin Baker’sturbulent run, until its demise at the hand of Sylvester McCoy.
I’m a fan, but mostly from a nostalgic standpoint. I don’t attendconventions, I don’t own any merchandise, I don’t listen to the audioadventures, and I haven’t campaigned since 1989 to get the show back on theair.
The things I love about Doctor Who are perhaps the core elements everyoneloves – the premise of a time-travelling alien, the”inside-bigger-than-the-outside” TARDIS, the iconic design of The Daleks,and the fact Doctor Who remains one of the very few science-fiction horrorTV shows in transmission.
What I’ve always hated about Doctor Who is that the BBC’s production valuescould never do justice to the material. Wobbly sets, silly make-up, apropensity for alien cultures to resemble historical England, the woodenacting…
I was actually quite relieved when Doctor Who vanished from the airwavesback in 1989, because there was a new, more exciting, and more intelligentscience-fiction series coming from America – Star Trek: The Next Generation– that made the BBC stalwart look decidedly old-hat.
So now, after a quarter-century, the Doctor is back again (well, just undera decade if you don’t ignore the 1996 TV Movie with Paul McGann – but mostpeople do), this time with acclaimed actor Christopher Eccleston as TheDoctor and ex-popstar Billie Piper as his new companion Rose.
The new series kicks off on BBC One on Saturday 26 March but, thanks to aninternet leak, the first episode can be reviewed weeks in advance. I wish Icould drown the new series in plaudits, but the honest truth is that the newWho is incredibly disappointing.
“Rose” begins with a credit sequence similar to the ’96 TVM mixed to theexcellent theme tune (unchanged to evoke memories of the show in its ’70sglory years). The lack of an effective 21st-Century update of the theme issomewhat indicative of the show in general – far too nervous to upset thefans by changing anything too much, thus leading to a show feelingold-fashioned and outdated.
A truly awful opening montage focuses on Billie Piper’s Rose, leading astereotyped teenaged existence with her boyfriend in London – edited withextreme incompetence. Things get worse when Rose finds herself attacked inthe department store where she works. by a group of shop mannequins. Yes, inthe very first episode this new series has already ripped-off The Autonsfrom the classic Who canon. Couldn’t Russell T Davies think up an originalidea?
Anyway, our titular hero, The Doctor, arrives just in time (no pun intended)to whisk her away to safety before he destroys the homicidal dummies with awell-placed bomb. From here, the plot thrashes around the place without muchfocus, but at least the scenes are short and snappy. As you’d expect, TheDoctor soon finds himself teamed-up with Rose after her boyfriend is eatenby a wheelie-bin (yes, you read that right) and they both set out to destroythis alien menace that wants to takeover the planet by controlling everyplastic item on Earth. Oh dear…
This is a monumentally appalling first episode. The story is so hackneyed,silly, derivative and illogical it’s galling that it was actually penned bythe man responsible for the excellent Queer As Folk, and theflawed-yet-brave The Second Coming.
An entire decade of expensive and high-quality US science-fiction – from thelikes of Star Trek and The X-Files – seems to have had little influence onthis new Doctor Who. As a British viewer, you can’t even drag up the age-oldexcuse that at least the plot and characters make up for the patheticstoryline – as they clearly don’t.
The special-effects in the episode range from the incredibly inept (thewheelie-bin attack has to be seen to be believed!), through embarrassing (aconspiracy website’s wholly unrealistic photographs of Doc throughouthistory), to just moderately passable (the sludgy alien in the finale).
The incidental music is awful; dire and incessant chords and inane dittiesthat actually make you wince while you watch. The story is far moreconcerned with introducing Rose as a character than doing anythinginteresting with The Doctor, or achieving any kind of dramatic thrust to thewasted alien threat.
Davies’ script contains only a minimum of decent lines – one about theDoctor’s accent being “Northern” and a good monologue about the Doctor beingable to “feel” the planet spinning and falling through space. Beyond thosediamonds in the rough, the rest makes kids TV series Goosebumps lookintellectual!
On the plus side, Billie Piper isn’t too bad after a shaky start and shefights bravely against the script’s limitations. It’s not much of a part, tobe brutally frank, but she shines in her two-dimensional role.
Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor is… well, debatable. He’s clearlyacting on the same “grinning loon” character he employed in The SecondComing and can be quite irritating at times. His entire performance isbasically like watching a prat rush around London and occasionally lapseinto farcical moments – like wrestling with a “possessed” plastic arm.
Personally, on the evidence presented so far, I preferred Paul McGann’squirky-yet-calculating performance in the TVM. But perhaps it’s too early totell – the first two episodes were penned before Eccleston was cast, sofinal judgment can be reserved for now.
The TARDIS exterior remains quite rightly unchanged, while the interiorlooks to have achieved a lower-budget rehash of the ’96 TVM spliced with acoral reef. The aesthetic doesn’t have the high-tech feel the old showsaimed for, and has abandoned the gothic feel of the TVM, so instead goes foran inoffensive beige open-plan feel with curvy support struts. Never mindthe Doctor, someone send in the Decorator!
I desperately wanted to like this first episode, I really did, but the purenaffness was unbearable to stomach. The majority of Whovians are now adults,and I find it hard to believe they’ll actually enjoy this on any other levelother than pure loyalty to the brand.
Potential new fans, weaned on slick, expensive and imagination US TV such asBuffy The Vampire Slayer, are for more discerning than the young scamps ofyesteryear, and I think they’ll look at this with a kind of half-smirk.Probably with an over-excited dad sat next to them bullying them to like”proper British science-fiction”. But this isn’t science-fiction, it’sscience-farce.
The new series will be a big success for the BBC this Spring because of its”phoenix from the flames” novelty. Even I can’t wait to see the belovedDaleks later on in the series – but this rebirth shouldn’t need to berelying on nostalgia tactics. It should be reinvigorating the premise,taking an established show and giving it a unique 2005 spin that will pleasefans and drag in new audiences! But it doesn’t. The producers are obviouslytoo scared to do anything that might upset the fans, and have basicallycontinued in the vein of McCoy’s era with added CGI and a clear eye on theunder-10 demographic.
To end on a more optimistic note – this is only the first episode, and itmay be polished up before final transmission (it needs neater editing and aneffects polish urgently!)
Interestingly, some hastily released publicity shots in the tabloidsfollowing the leak of “Rose” onto the internet have revealed some moreimaginative villains we can look forward to meeting later in the series.Plus, I’ve never enjoyed most Dr Who episodes set in our present time – theseries works much better on alien worlds or in our past, in my opinion…so, I hope I’ll be proven wrong and come to love the new show in the weeksto come…
But, no matter how you look at it – the new-Who has gotten off to a badstart…
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