Doctor Who fans if you've been following my reviews of the show for a long time then you'll know that I only review New Doctor Who whenever there's a new episode. Well I thought i'd put a stop to that by taking a look back at an episode from the very first series well it is the first series of the 2005 reboot and well what better place to start then right at the beginning and so here is my review of Rose enjoy.
The plot of the episode is teenager Rose Tyler works at a shop in London and one night before the shop closes she discovers The Autons and now she and a mysterious man known only as The Doctor have to stop them from taking over the world. In terms of plot this episode is pretty light on it since it's the basic introduction to a new companion episode and it also serves as the introduction to a new Doctor but when all is said and done the story is honestly pretty fun to see play out.
As The Doctor we have Christopher Eccleston who unlike all of his previous incarnations hasn't yet shared the screen with any of the previous Doctors. As Rose we have singer Billie Piper and I have to say for someone who at the time hadn't done much acting she is pretty good in this episode Chris kills it as well as The Doctor and to me it's very clear that both he and Billie have great chemistry because I honestly bought them as friends.
This episode also introduced us to Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler and Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith both of whom don't really get that much screen time in this episode or at least enough for me to form an opinion on them but they are acted really well. In terms of guest starts there's only one and that's Mark Benton as Clive and he's just Mark Benton so if you love him in anything else then your going to love him here.
Now i'm not going to make a comment on the character of Rose just yet because while I did grow up with her as the companion I want to try and rediscover her if that makes sense. That being said i always find it very interesting going back to the first episode of a series that I love because it's always weird knowing where the characters end up and seeing them start on that journey and the same thing is true here because I watched all of these characters for quite a few years and I got to see them grow and so to see them looking so young is just strange to me.
Now i've already said that I grew up watching Billie as Rose but Chris was also my first Doctor infact I vaguely remember seeing adverts for this episode in various magazines. I also remember being super excited to see this episode because to me this was a new show and so when the day of reckoning came I was out my Nana's house with I think my brother and father there might have been a few others there as well and I made all us sit there for forty five minuets just to watch this one episode and I was hooked on the show from this episode so to see I have personal history with this episode would be an understatement.
I actually forgot how action orientated this version of The Doctor is from his first scene he's always involved with some sort of action scene or chase scene. Which is something that I think honestly suits this version of the doctor since he's just coming from being in the Time War so it makes sense that he'd be running everywhere because for years that's what he's had to do just to survive and plus it makes the first episode really exciting.
I actually love how they made The Doctor more mysterious in this episode they kind of build up this whole mystery over who he is and I loved that because it's something that we dont get to see that often. It's also something that would make sense given that this is the 21st century so there would be websites dedicated to this mysterious stranger appearing in and out time and it's something that I wish further series would develop more.
This was also the first series to have the CGI done by The Mill but further research tells me that this wasn't there first Doctor Who adventure as they previously did The Curse Of The Fetal Death. I want it known that I love The Mills work but there effects in this episode haven't really aged well at all in fact they look pretty bad but given that CGI was pretty new to the show and this was mid 2000's CGI it's understandable that it wouldn't hold up that well.
This episode helped make composer Murray Gold famous since he also did the score to the UK version of Shameless which was airing at the same time. It goes without saying that the music in this episode is great it's no wonder that he would go onto to compose the music all the way up until series 10 because every piece of music he does is truly great and is worth listening to , I'll talk about his version of the theme song in a minute because that's something that should be talked about separately.
There is a fair amount of action in this episode and all of it is in my opinion character driven which is the best kind of action for me because then it's the characters that dictate the action and not the story. Also adding to the action is the fact that it also adds to the drama and threat of that episode which is something that I don't really see that often in either films or TV so I was shocked to see it in here and for me the best part of the action is seeing Rose save the doctor just due to the fact we don't see that happen at all.
One of the criticisms that this episode got when it originally aired was for it's use of humour and in some ways I do kind of see why. Since on the one hand the humour does kind of undercut the tension especially in The Doctors intro but at the same time humour is subjective and just because someone doesn't find something funny doesn't mean that you won't find that same something funny but they could have done a better job of putting the humour in a more natural place and not somewhere where it undercuts the tension.
Now we have to talk about the theme song done by Murray Gold because it is an iconic part of the show like how the TARDIS and other iconography. To me honest I find this version of the theme song to be kind of boring there's just nothing in this version of the theme song that really makes it stand out to me which is a shame because like I said theme song is iconic and so it's sad to see a version of it which isn't that good.
Like alot of the reviews I do for this show I actually own this on DVD I have the first series on DVD which was the one where they made the box set as big as the TARDIS itself. It's that big it even took me a few minuets to put it back with the rest of my DVD's because it's so big and where I keep it is so small and I can't put it anywhere else because there's no room in my room for it but this is the struggle that we Doctor Who fans have to got through.
Overall this is a really good introductory episode and if there are any people out there who want to get into the show i'd recommend starting of with this one since it does ease you into the lore but that said it is very light on plot and character and so it gets a 7.5 out of 10 from me.