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Since I’ve finally discovered that both UKTV Gold and BBC Three are actually showing season 1, I decided it was time to watch it again, something I’ve been wanting to do ever since seeing Torchwood and Captain Jack again. (And yes, I know I could just buy the DVDs, and I will eventually, but I do object to the prices they ask for them and am trying to wait till they’ve come down a bit.)
So…
I feel a little disappointed by Rose. It’s a fairly good introductory episode, and there are some really good bits in it, but my main problem is that I just don’t like Christopher Eccleston. Now hear me out, before you start yelling. First time round, neither hubby nor I liked CE as the Doctor. To be honest, neither of us were particularly keen on him before Doctor Who either. And as the Doctor, we just couldn’t adjust to his constant, inane grinning. It just…jarred. And then, at some stage during the season – I don’t remember when – we both suddenly started to warm to him, to the point where we were really sad when he regenerated.
Since then, I’ve read a fair bit of fic about the Ninth Doctor and I’ve warmed to the character still more. Which is why I feel disappointed now – because I really didn’t like him in this. He was as annoying as I remembered and I expected to like him now.
By comparison, I liked Rose more than I remembered. And interestingly, she actually sounded quite posh in bits of this – perhaps the first bits to be shot? – which was nice because the main thing I dislike about her is her voice.
Still, there were lots of things I liked. The opening – a day in Rose’s life – complete with lots of shots of shop dummies in the background. The Doctor, grabbing her hand and saying “Run!” Rose running past the TARDIS without knowing what it was. Jackie flirting with the Doctor. Mickey pretending to be strangled by the dummy hand, and then the Doctor actually being strangled by it. Rose trying to Google the Doctor (yep, that would be my first instinct too). Clive, and his wife going “It’s a woman???” Mickey and the bin. Plastic Mickey – hilarious (and rather reminiscent, with the shape-shifting hands, of Terminator 2). The fact that Rose doesn’t notice it’s plastic Mickey! The Doctor coming round with champagne. Rose keeping her head and hitting the fire alarm to get the people out. The Doctor forgetting Mickey – twice – as a precursor of their relationship for the rest of the show. The London Eye as a transmitter. The Doctor talking to the Nestene Consciousness and the pain on his face as he tells them he tried to save their world. The Doctor inviting Rose, her refusing, him going and then coming back: “By the way, did I mention it also travels in time?” Lovely. (And iirc the Tenth Doctor does the same with Martha. Seeing a trend here. Still cute, though.)
Other things:
There was a lot of good music in this episode. I especially liked the evocative music after the Doctor’s speech about being able to feel the earth turning.
There was a weird bit near the beginning, when the Doctor was in Rose and Jackie’s flat: she was talking in the kitchen with her back to him and he was mucking around in the living room, and he looked in a mirror and it was if it was the first time he’d seen himself in this regeneration. “Ah, could have been worse,” he says. “Look at the ears!” Surely he has mirrors in the TARDIS – and according to Clive he’d been in this body a while, because he’d been to all those places, and those visits couldn’t have been made after this episode because he’d have had Rose with him. Weird.
And a mention of the Titanic!!! One of the pictures Clive shows Rose is the Doctor with a family who were due to sail on the Titanic but cancelled their tickets. So I guess that doesn’t indicate that the Ninth Doctor would actually have sailed on the Titanic, but it’s an interesting connection.
Rose’s introduction to the TARDIS was fascinatingly similar to the First Doctor’s companions’ introduction to it in An Unearthly Child which I watched recently. Both times, it was parked in a junk yard. And both times, it’s impossibleness was emphasised by the companion walking all the way round it on the outside. I particularly loved the way this time saw Rose going in, out and in again before we got a glimpse of the inside.
Did Clive die? It wasn’t entirely clear. I saw a dummy fire a gun (well, it’s arm) at him (ha, it was armed!) but we didn’t see if it killed him or just injured him. Though his wife and child were running about without him later, so I guess he died. Poor Clive. (Note: according to Wikipedia, Clive’s ‘real’ website says he died.)
The only bit I really didn’t like was Rose’s “Got no A-levels, got no job, know what I have got?” I have no objections whatsoever to Rose saving the day, and the Doctor, but the way it was hammered into us that she was this poor little brainless nobody was irritating. She’d already shown she was quick-thinking and a match for the Doctor. It felt like they were labouring the point unnecessarily.
Oh, and Mickey, because he really was quite pathetic in this. Yes, he’s sweet, but sooo dumb!
7/10
So…
I feel a little disappointed by Rose. It’s a fairly good introductory episode, and there are some really good bits in it, but my main problem is that I just don’t like Christopher Eccleston. Now hear me out, before you start yelling. First time round, neither hubby nor I liked CE as the Doctor. To be honest, neither of us were particularly keen on him before Doctor Who either. And as the Doctor, we just couldn’t adjust to his constant, inane grinning. It just…jarred. And then, at some stage during the season – I don’t remember when – we both suddenly started to warm to him, to the point where we were really sad when he regenerated.
Since then, I’ve read a fair bit of fic about the Ninth Doctor and I’ve warmed to the character still more. Which is why I feel disappointed now – because I really didn’t like him in this. He was as annoying as I remembered and I expected to like him now.
By comparison, I liked Rose more than I remembered. And interestingly, she actually sounded quite posh in bits of this – perhaps the first bits to be shot? – which was nice because the main thing I dislike about her is her voice.
Still, there were lots of things I liked. The opening – a day in Rose’s life – complete with lots of shots of shop dummies in the background. The Doctor, grabbing her hand and saying “Run!” Rose running past the TARDIS without knowing what it was. Jackie flirting with the Doctor. Mickey pretending to be strangled by the dummy hand, and then the Doctor actually being strangled by it. Rose trying to Google the Doctor (yep, that would be my first instinct too). Clive, and his wife going “It’s a woman???” Mickey and the bin. Plastic Mickey – hilarious (and rather reminiscent, with the shape-shifting hands, of Terminator 2). The fact that Rose doesn’t notice it’s plastic Mickey! The Doctor coming round with champagne. Rose keeping her head and hitting the fire alarm to get the people out. The Doctor forgetting Mickey – twice – as a precursor of their relationship for the rest of the show. The London Eye as a transmitter. The Doctor talking to the Nestene Consciousness and the pain on his face as he tells them he tried to save their world. The Doctor inviting Rose, her refusing, him going and then coming back: “By the way, did I mention it also travels in time?” Lovely. (And iirc the Tenth Doctor does the same with Martha. Seeing a trend here. Still cute, though.)
Other things:
There was a lot of good music in this episode. I especially liked the evocative music after the Doctor’s speech about being able to feel the earth turning.
There was a weird bit near the beginning, when the Doctor was in Rose and Jackie’s flat: she was talking in the kitchen with her back to him and he was mucking around in the living room, and he looked in a mirror and it was if it was the first time he’d seen himself in this regeneration. “Ah, could have been worse,” he says. “Look at the ears!” Surely he has mirrors in the TARDIS – and according to Clive he’d been in this body a while, because he’d been to all those places, and those visits couldn’t have been made after this episode because he’d have had Rose with him. Weird.
And a mention of the Titanic!!! One of the pictures Clive shows Rose is the Doctor with a family who were due to sail on the Titanic but cancelled their tickets. So I guess that doesn’t indicate that the Ninth Doctor would actually have sailed on the Titanic, but it’s an interesting connection.
Rose’s introduction to the TARDIS was fascinatingly similar to the First Doctor’s companions’ introduction to it in An Unearthly Child which I watched recently. Both times, it was parked in a junk yard. And both times, it’s impossibleness was emphasised by the companion walking all the way round it on the outside. I particularly loved the way this time saw Rose going in, out and in again before we got a glimpse of the inside.
Did Clive die? It wasn’t entirely clear. I saw a dummy fire a gun (well, it’s arm) at him (ha, it was armed!) but we didn’t see if it killed him or just injured him. Though his wife and child were running about without him later, so I guess he died. Poor Clive. (Note: according to Wikipedia, Clive’s ‘real’ website says he died.)
The only bit I really didn’t like was Rose’s “Got no A-levels, got no job, know what I have got?” I have no objections whatsoever to Rose saving the day, and the Doctor, but the way it was hammered into us that she was this poor little brainless nobody was irritating. She’d already shown she was quick-thinking and a match for the Doctor. It felt like they were labouring the point unnecessarily.
Oh, and Mickey, because he really was quite pathetic in this. Yes, he’s sweet, but sooo dumb!
7/10
no subject
Yes, exactly! That bothers me. 'Course, the *reason* it bothers me is that I want Nine to have been in the Time War, so I'm biased.
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Does it make that much difference which face he was wearing at the time?
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no subject
And I need to see the movie again. I've only seen it once and that was years ago.