Doctor Who Series 1 Episode 1: "Rose" Review

I'm back! For now. When I started this blog, I wanted to do it for myself. I wanted to talk about the shows that meant the most to me. But then, I got bogged down by the idea that I needed to talk about a popular show at the time in the hopes that it would bring eyeballs to the page. 

Well, no more, I say! I'm doing this for me this time, and if you want to come along for the ride, great! If not, I guess I'm not the first person to shout into the void. 

So what brings about the return of The TV Zone? Well, one of MY favorite shows, Doctor Who, will be returning with a new series (what they call a "season" of television in Europe) next year following the Centenary Special that will see Jodie Whittaker's departure as the Thirteenth Doctor in October.

The Centenary Special will also see the departure of Chris Chibnall as showrunner, news which many fans are happy to hear. Replacing him as showrunner for Series 14 is Russell T. Davies (RTD), the man responsible for bringing Doctor Who back in 2005, after a 16-year hiatus (not including the 1996 TV movie). 

So I thought it would be fun to look back at the four Doctor Who series Russell gave us to get an idea of what we can expect upon his return. Without any further ado, let's get started.

First of all, let me just say that while I don't plan on speaking that much on the musical score of Doctor Who, Murray Gold's Doctor Who theme is perfection, and I absolutely love every credits sequence in the RTD era. It's the perfect blend of Classic Doctor Who, which I'll occasionally reference while being its own thing in the modern era.

We open on a quiet shot of the universe before being thrust into the hustle and bustle of 21st-century London. We meet 19-year-old Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a shop assistant from London who lives with her mother, Jackie (Camille Coduri), and spends her free time hanging out with her boyfriend Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke). This ain't your momma's Doctor Who!

Doctor Who is a show about adventure and about unlocking the hidden potential in ordinary human beings. Each of The Doctor's companions are looking for something greater than what they have, and Rose Tyler is no exception. 

After a long day of work at Henrik's, she is forced to go down to the basement to hand off that day's lottery money to chief electrical officer H.P. Wilson. 

Unfortunately, Wilson is nowhere to be found. She soon begins to hear a strange whirring sound. She goes to investigate, getting drawn deeper and deeper into the recesses of the basement, and quickly finds herself trapped at the precise moment that a horde of mannequins come to life and start coming toward her. All seems hopeless until the moment a man in a leather jacket (Christopher Eccleston) grabs her by the hand and tells her to run!

The chase continues as they make their way down the corridor and back to the elevator, with the man in the leather jacket fighting and yanking off the plastic hand of one of the mannequins and throwing it to Rose as the elevator door closes. Free from the threat, Rose begins speculating, initially believing the whole ordeal to be a prank orchestrated by a group of students, and she vows to tell Wilson tomorrow.

When the man informs her that Wilson is dead, Rose begins asking him questions. He explains that the mannequins are living plastic creatures, called Autons, that are being controlled by a being known as the Nestene Consciousness from a relay device on the roof.

The Autons first appeared in the Season 7 Classic Doctor Who serial "Spearhead from Space," Jon Pertwee's first story as the Third Doctor. 

They would appear again in the Season 8 serial, "Terror of the Autons," the first Classic Doctor Who serial to feature The Master (Roger Delgado).

It's considered by many to be one of the greatest episodes introducing a new Doctor in the classic series, which I assume is the reason they make an appearance in the reboot's premiere episode. I've never really cared for the Autons or the Nestene Consciousness. A blob that controls the Earth's plastic is about as interesting to me as a villain that absorbs people. Nevertheless, everything that happens around the episode's central conflict is interesting to me, so I'll take it.

To prevent the store mannequins from reanimating, he tells her he'll have to blow up the building. He tells her to run along and not to tell anyone what she saw so as not to get anyone close to her killed. Before parting, he introduces himself as The Doctor and tells Rose to run for her life.

Watching this interaction again, I find The Doctor's warning to Rose a bit weird. There's no chance of MI6 swooping down and kidnapping Rose's loved ones for fear of them exposing the existence of the Autons and the Nestene Consciousness. Heck, Torchwood and U.N.I.T. don't even show up in this episode.

It's possible this is just a symptom of The Doctor's paranoia regarding the Time War and wanting to minimize the casualties. Or it's a symptom of not really understanding what a post-Time War Doctor looks like. I guess we'll wait and see!

Rose takes her plastic arm and goes home to find her mom on the phone with a friend as a news broadcast plays in the background, detailing the explosion at Henrik's that Rose narrowly avoided. 

Rose takes The Doctor's advice and lies to her mother and Mickey about what transpired. Thankfully, they're more concerned with themselves to really care about the truth, and they quickly move on, a far cry from where they'll be a few series down the line.

The next day, The Doctor winds up at Jackie's apartment, having used his sonic screwdriver to track more plastic that the Nestene Consciousness is currently controlling. Rose lets him in, and while she makes him some coffee, he is attacked by the plastic arm that he wrestled from one of the Autons a day earlier.

Although he keeps it from strangling him, it soon begins attacking Rose. Luckily, The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to kill the signal, making the arm go limp.

As he tries to leave, Rose begins to question The Doctor once again, asking why the mannequins and their various body parts keep trying to kill her. To this, The Doctor tells her that they're actually trying to kill him and take over the planet, but she keeps getting in the way. When she asks him to tell her who he is, he has this to say:

"It's like when you're a kid. The first time they tell you the world's turning, and you can't believe it 'cause it looks like everything's standing still. I can feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at 1,000 miles an hour. The entire planet is hurtling round the sun at 67,000 miles an hour. I can feel it, we're falling through Space, you and me. Clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go...that's who I am."

While this could potentially explain how the Eleventh Doctor was able to do 4,000,000 kicks with a soccer ball in an hour in "The Power of Three," this speech doesn't tell me much about The Doctor otherwise. 

Although the Ninth Doctor tells Rose to forget him, she can't, and she quickly takes to the Internet for any information she might be able to find about the mysterious man. This leads her to a conspiracy theorist named Clive, who runs a website about a mysterious man named The Doctor who has been spotted throughout history at events such as the Kennedy assassination, which interestingly occurred the day before the first broadcast episode of Classic Doctor Who, and the explosion of Krakatoa.

She and Mickey go to visit him, although Mickey waits out in the car. During this meeting, Clive tells her to be cautious, that the Doctor brings death in his wake. Outside, Mickey is waiting patiently in the car when he hears a rattling coming from a nearby garbage can. Of course, he finds nothing inside of it, but when he goes to close the lid, he finds he can't let go! As he struggles to break free, the plastic stretches, lifts him up, and swallows him whole! When Rose returns, Mickey is looking a little...plastic. Of course, she doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary until Plastic Mickey begins grilling her about The Doctor and eventually tries to kill her in the middle of lunch.

Luckily, The Doctor arrives just in time to save her, once again, beheading Plastic Mickey. Unfortunately, the upper half of the mannequin continues to chase The Doctor and Rose through the restaurant. Escaping out the back, The Doctor runs into a 1960s-style police telephone box and urges Rose to follow him. 

Of course, Rose is appalled at the idea they'll both be able to fit inside of it, and it is not until the rest of Plastic Mickey begins to break down the back door that Rose makes a mad dash for the police box. Upon entering, we only see Rose's facial expression as she gets her first glimpse of what's inside. 

However, we can see that she's incredulous enough to exit the box and do a 360 around it before entering once again. 

Here, we get a full view of the machine that The Doctor calls the TARDIS, short for Time and Relative Dimensions In Space. It's a time machine that The Doctor tells Rose they're going to use to track the location of the Nestene Consciousness using Plastic Mickey's disembodied head. 

For new viewers, this scene should introduce a couple of different concepts. First and foremost, time travel. The TARDIS is synonymous with Doctor Who. In the age of NuWho, the TARDIS reveal has become a staple. Whenever we get a new Doctor, we're likely to get a new TARDIS, unless you're Peter Capaldi. Sorry, Peter! Aside from the reveal of a new Doctor, the TARDIS reveal is the next best thing because we'll be looking at it for a while. It also tells us a lot about who the current incarnation of The Doctor is unless it's Jodie Whittaker's TARDIS, in which case, it tells you nothing more about her than the writing does! Sorry, Jodie!

I am terrible with physical descriptions, so I'll just say that the Ninth Doctor's TARDIS gives off a steampunk vibe. It suits him well.

The second thing this scene introduces for us is that The Doctor is an alien, although we don't get many other details about who The Doctor actually is. His reaction to Rose's inquiries about the possible danger the real Mickey is facing is also quite alien. Although again, The Doctor may be trying to detach himself from the emotional connection given the trauma he's dealing with around The Time War.

They track the Nestene Consciousness, a plastic blob, and Mickey beneath the London Eye. Although The Doctor tells Rose that he brought along a vial of anti-plastic as a last resort, he says he must allow the Nestene to stand down. So naturally, The Doctor makes his plea:

"This planet is just starting. These stupid, little people have just learnt how to walk. They are capable of so much more. I'm asking you, on their behalf. Please, just go."

Unfortunately, the negotiations are cut short when one of the Autons discovers the vial of anti-plastic and the TARDIS. The Nestene Consciousness has its Auton soldiers apprehend The Doctor and begin the invasion. 

Rose calls her mom, who stopped by the police to see if Rose could get compensation from Henrik's. Although she urges her mom to head home, she loses cell reception and is disconnected. 

Jackie gets the message pretty quickly as, all around town, store mannequins come to life and begin killing pedestrians, Clive among them. 

Back at the London Eye, the Autons continue to hold The Doctor back as the underground bunker begins falling apart, due to the Nestene's electrical transmission.

Although The Doctor and Mickey urge Rose to leave, she is unable to and rushes to action, saying that with no higher education and no prospects, she has nothing to lose. With that, she cuts a chain loose and swings like Tarzan toward an Auton, knocking the vial of anti-plastic out of its hands and into the vat holding the Nestene Consciousness, effectively killing it.

As the underground bunker continues to explode, The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey make their way for the TARDIS. 

Back in town, Jackie and the other townsfolk run for their lives as the Autons make a mess of the city. Thanks to Rose's little stunt, though, they deactivate, leaving destruction in their wake and likely giving many people years of pediophobia.

Back on the other side of town, the TARDIS lands safely in an alley. As Rose leaves the TARDIS, she gets a phone call from her mother, urging her to go home. Rose just laughs and hangs up the phone. Take that, Jackie! 

Rose ribs The Doctor for being useless, saying he'd be dead if it weren't for her, to which he agrees. They say their goodbyes, but The Doctor pauses before suggesting that Rose come with him, telling her that the TARDIS isn't just a "London hopper," it goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge, and that it beats the hum-drum routine of eating, working and sleeping. An understandably shell-shocked Mickey tells Rose that she can't go with him, to which The Doctor replies that Mickey is not invited.

He confirms that it is, in fact, always this dangerous, and although Rose seems intrigued, she ultimately turns him down, saying someone has to look after Mickey. They say their goodbyes, and The Doctor gets back in the TARDIS, taking off moments later, the cloister bell ringing in the distance as the shiny blue box disappears into the night. Although Rose looks regretful, she wraps her arm around Mickey, and the two start to head home. However, before they get too far, the TARDIS rematerializes.

A moment later, The Doctor steps out and says that he forgot to mention that the TARDIS also travels in time. To this, Rose takes a beat before basically telling Mickey, "Thanks for nothing!" and running into the TARDIS in slow motion as the theme music comes back around! 

It's an epic moment made better by Murray Gold's score and the direction of Keith Boak that properly encapsulates Rose's decision, one that will change her life and the lives of a new generation of Doctor Who fans! 

If you've made it this far, thank you! I hope you'll be back. I'm so excited for RTD2, and I can't think of a better way to celebrate it, than looking back and hopefully getting to discuss the show with all of you!