Ninth Doctor/Series 1 Review

Series 1

Ninth Doctor/Series 1

Doctor: The Ninth Doctor

Companions: Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler

The Ninth Doctor’s one season runs remains a masterclass of plotting and character development. The Doctor starts out as a veteran suffering from PTSD from an impossible to imagine war covering it up with mania, and Rose goes from a somewhat dull shop girl to one of the most heroic people in the universe.

The Review

Here’s the scores for the stories

Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways: 10/10

Dalek: 9.5/10

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: 9/10

Father’s Day: 9/10

Boom Town: 8/10

The End of the World: 8/10

Rose: 8/10

The Long Game: 7/10

The Unquiet Dead: 6.5/10

Aliens of London/World War Three: 6/10

We will spent a bit more than usual on the season recaps here as this also serves to wrap up the Ninth Doctor era. Christopher Eccleston has been overshadowed by the show finally exploding on the British scene again with David Tennant, then again in America with Matt Smith. One season doesn’t help matters. But the revival may not have worked without him. He brought a sense of modernization and seriousness to the series amongst all of his ridiculous jokes and wildness. The geek chic of Tennant may not have legitimized the series as a tortured Doctor in a leather jacket did. Broadcasting the the Ninth Doctor’s innate happiness (“I’ll hug anybody!”, head bobbing in The End of the World), Eccleston also showed the tortured veteran whose wartime actions severely scarred him. His top 5 scenes:

5. “Run.” The Doctor’s introduction in the new series, his first scene is so much fun as it shows us the Doctor in media res. He is serious and charming, and completely in control.

4. “I watched it happen, I made it happen!” When Eccleston unloads into the Dalek in Dalek, it immediately course-corrects Series 1 on a back half for the ages. The full fury of Eccleston is unleashed against authorial intent to great effect.

3. “Coward every time.” Standing in for most of his final episode in The Parting of the Ways, this moment finally emphasized that the Doctor was never going to sacrifice lives anymore, no matter the benefit.

2. “Just this once Rose, everybody lives!” Finally the Ninth Doctor got to have a good day as finally nobody in the story died. The Doctor is able to heal everybody, and the sheer joy on Eccleston’s joy is amazing.

1. “And then, just to finish you off, I’m going to blow every last stinkin’ Dalek out of the sky!” The speech to the Daleks explaining exactly what he is going to do in Bad Wolf will remain one of Doctor Who‘s greatest moments forever.

As for Series 1, it starts off pretty slow, but when it picks up steam, it really does pick up steam. With Russel T. Davies narrowing the stakes, this series is really about people. Rose, Mickey, Jackie, Captain Jack, they are all memorable after the series. Adam really isn’t, but that’s down to how much The Long Game fails him. The scope of the series starts out incredibly small with a lot of world-building to do, but the finale has truly immersed the show back in the large world of possibilities in Doctor Who. If you’re trying to make somebody a fan, the episode that will definitely hook them isn’t Rose, but if they’re generous enough to give you a thirteen episode trial run…well they’ll be demanding to see Series 2 in a heartbeat.

8.07/10 A smashing debut, especially as it gets going.

Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways Review

Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways

End of the line

Story 166, Episodes 708 and 709, Series 1 Episodes 12 and 13

Doctor: The Ninth Doctor

Companions: Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler

Still one of the best finales to a series of Doctor Who, Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways provide a haunting and emotionally effective conclusion to the Ninth Doctor’s time on the show and showcase the terrors of the Daleks the way few stories have.

The Review

 

“You are the weakest link. Goodbye.”

Oh, what a ride this episode is. It starts off with the Doctor being tossed in the Big Brother house unexpectedly, Rose finds herself in the Weakest Link, and  Jack is in What Not to Wear. Quickly the games are revealed to kill the losers and randomly select participants from across the planet in a horrifying arrangement. The story is quite entertaining at this point, but gains steam as the Doctor deduces whatever got him hear wants him alive. The ‘disintegrator’ that losers face stops, and he and plucky would-be companion Lynda escape. Then we see: this is Satellite 5 from The Long Game, but 100 years in the future and the Doctor shutting off the news opened humanity to be fed these game shows. Seeing horrific repercussions of a Doctor adventure a century later is still affecting.

“Rose?” “Yes Doctor?” “I’m coming to get you.”

Captain Jack gets out of hilarious predicament, meets the Doctor and Lynda, and the arrive too late to save Rose from getting disintegrated in a tense sequence. The palpable horror that falls is astonishing as the Doctor is silently arrested and imprisoned. He does not speak again until he breaks out and storms Floor 500 to learn the now Game Station’s controller snuck him aboard to help fight her masters. Of course, Rose isn’t dead, but like all losers on the games teleported to a ship…run by Daleks. The fury in Christopher Eccleston’s performance is incredible, and that scene, oh man, that scene where he tells the Daleks no is on of the greatest moments in the show’s history. You have no doubt that yes: he will blow every last stinkin’ Dalek out of the sky, and you’re going to witness it.

“Do that for me Rose. Have a fantastic life.”

The Doctor does extract with her, and faces the fearsome Dalek Emperor. As the episode starts, he banishes Rose to 2005 in a heartbreaking scene, leaving him to try and beat the Daleks with Jack. A few volunteers help defend against the Daleks but everybody on board is massacred one by one. Lynda’s death with a Dalek flying in space blinking ‘EXTERMINATE’ silently and shattering the glass is horrific. The continents are misshapen from bombing Earth. The Dalek Emperor taunts the Doctor as he assembles a delta wave to fry the Daleks…but he doesn’t have time to spare Earth from it. An incarnation ago, the Doctor killed every Time Lord to kill the Daleks…and it didn’t even work. Even Jack has now been gunned down, and the Doctor simply stands. “Coward every time.” And finally, he is redeemed.

The Doctor sacrifices himself for Rose

Rose could not sit idly by while the Doctor died in the future, and she convinced Mickey and her mother Jackie help her rip open the console to peer in the Heart of the TARDIS. The energy of the time vortex creates Bad Wolf, who dissolves all the Daleks to atoms. She even resurrects Jack. But this can’t last, and the Doctor sacrifices his tenth life to save her. As they fly away the Ninth Doctor finally is at peace with himself. He isn’t a killer and a murderer. And as he thanks Rose, he tells her that she was fantastic…and so was he. Then he becomes David Tennant in front of her eyes.

The Daleks straight up murder everybody but Rose in this story

Wow, just reading through all that…it’s poignant. Look, the reality show games are kind of divorced from the finale, but it’s amazing how the Weakest Link is an effective precursor to freaking Daleks. And the Daleks, how terrifying are they? After one in Dalek massacred a base, 500,000 are legitimately unstoppable. Jack and Rose have great beats, two runners of the games who atone for their sins, but the real story is the redemption of the Doctor. As he presses his head on the TARDIS door hearing the screams of Exterminate, to finally accepting that he would be a coward over a killer, it’s moving. This story made me a super Doctor Who fan, and Eccleston is pitch-perfect. This finale also builds on almost every previous episode in the series, making Series 1 one of the best plotted as far as the overall arc goes. Overall, it’s a classic.

The first regeneration story of the new series gets it right. It’s shame Eccleston only stayed for a season, but it makes his arc feel defined in complete in the way others would stumble (looking at you Eleven). And as a finale to Series 1, it makes perfect sense. Well goodbye Christopher Eccleston, and thank you so much.

10/10. Only docked points for cohesion issues as well as the reality show part being honestly completely unneeded, but it still manages to take a beat from the middling Long Game and turn it into something special. And you know what, I’m changing my mind, screw docking points, this is a stone cold classic and you know it.

The Tenth Doctor!

Boom Town Review

Boom Town

A last meal to remember

Story 165, Episodes 707, Series 1 Episode 11

Doctor: The Ninth Doctor

Companions: Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith

A surprisingly introspective episode takes a look at the morality of the Doctor featuring old enemy Margaret Blaine formerly known as Blon the Slitheen.

The Review

The effective four leads

This episode is one that is not remembered that well. It comes off the heels of the embarrassing fart jokes in Aliens of London, but wisely does away with them. Correctly identifying Annette Badland’s Margaret as the best Slitheen from the previous story, this episode’s A story has the Doctor easily re-capture her as she prepares to destroy the planet to escape. Of course Margaret will be executed back on her home planet for being a mass murderer, so this raises a moral dilemma. Of course they get out of it by the Heart of the TARDIS regressing her back into an egg to start over again. However, all the scenes where she questions the Doctor provide some serious looks at who the Doctor is.

The rift re-opening for Margaret

The other effective parts are just how fun Captain Jack is in the team, he doesn’t have much to do but fits in well and it seems that the three-person TARDIS team has been hard at work. However the episode’s MVP is Mickey, who shows how much he loves Rose but just cannot stay with her. Rose just assuming that Mickey will come back to her like a lapdog is properly called out, and it’s effective. The episode is all conversation, but they’re conversations that shed more light on who the Doctor and Rose are. And the Slitheen are not as terribly handled as in Aliens of London.

The Doctor lands in Cardiff to re-charge his TARDIS, and set against a well-realized backdrop a morality play ensues. It’s a credit to how it works that the ending doesn’t undermine it. We also get the confirmation that ‘Bad Wolf’ actually is something.

8/10. It’s the money-saving episode, but one that makes sense in narrative. Also Annette Badland is magnificent. “He fell and died.” “It was an icy patch.” “He was decapitated!” “It was a very icy patch.”

She’s an egg!

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances Review

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances

“The tape ran out 30 seconds ago”

Story 164, Episodes 705 and 706, Series 1 Episodes 9 and 10

Doctor: The Ninth Doctor

Companions: Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness

Steven Moffat’s very first Doctor Who script brings the scares and creates a truly classic heartwarming story that gives truly lets the Ninth Doctor feel like he’s the Doctor again.

The Review

 

Are you my mummy?

This is one of those stories that gets better he more you think about it afterwards. Again the scale feels so much smaller compared the world-building the show has reached nine seasons in, and the plot is relatively simple. The famous child and the ‘are you mummy?’ cries really do become scarier and scarier. The tension of the story, the deepening of the mystery, it’s all well done. Knowing Nancy is the boy’s mother beforehand is so obvious and really clarifies a lot of the story. The setting, entirely at nighttime during the London Blitz just adds to all the tension. Though compared to some of the show’s later efforts, just one kid in a gas mask seems light, but the scenes of Dr. Constantine sprouting a gas mask are haunting.

Pure joy

Captain Jack makes a great debut here, and his personality is rather expertly done as the bisexual flirty conman from the future. In some ways it’s an inauspicious debut for who would become a very important character but his transition from con man to sacrificing himself is great. Rose gets in some good beats too, mainly her flirting with Jack and the Doctor. Finally, let’s focus on the climax. As number Nine the Doctor has felt depressed, wracked by guilt, the horror of war. That ends briefly as he has the famous ‘EVERYBODY LIVES’ moment using the nano genes to cure the gas mask people. The moment feels so earned, and seeing how happy he is just puts a smile on your face. The tender denouement as he dances with Rose and Jack wanders on board is just pitch perfect. For once, the Doctor gets to dance.

The Doctor re-discovers who he is and gets that day he always wanted, a day where he can save everybody. We are also introduced to Captain Jack Harkness who would go on to become one of the show’s most important companions. It’s a classic.

9/10. Some of the very beginning of the story, including how Rose gets on that famous balloon over London don’t quite work, but this is a story that can scare you, and leave you feeling warmer than before inside.

Another day for Captain Jack

Father’s Day Review

Father’s Day

…He wasn’t alone

Story 163, Episodes 704, Series 1 Episode 8

Doctor: The Ninth Doctor

Companions: Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler

The theme of the Ninth Doctor introducing concepts about time, the TARDIS, and the show continues with one story painfully looking at time itself and the consequences of changing it.

The Review

Just an ordinary man

Rose had always heard her father died alone, so the Doctor takes her to be with her. When she ends up saving him while also crossing the path of her past self, demonic creatures come to kill everybody to fix the problem. While introducing these paradoxes create some great scenes, the emotional part comes from finding that Rose’s parents’ relationship was very far from the perfect one she imagined. They squabble, Pete is not a genius but a useless inventor going from odd job to odd job, and the realization is heartbreaking. That’s what makes it more poignant when Pete hears the false stories about how he was always there for Rose, knows he never was going to be that dad, but can sacrifice himself for his daughter.

Even the Time Lords were better than this

There are great moments for the Doctor too, talking to newlyweds and pointing out how special their life really is, his anger at Rose, finding the TARDIS’ interior has vanished. It is a really hopeful moment when he starts recalling the TARDIS with the key, something that writers seem to have forgotten is possible. He also tries to protect Rose and Pete by not telling Pete he has to die, but Pete figures it out anyway. Rose’s trip ends up doing a bit of good after all. Her father always dies, but now he spent his last moments with his daughter, and the poor kid who hit him stays and doesn’t run. It’s a story about ordinary people, a heartbreaking look at fatherhood, and a classic.

November 7th 1987, just a normal, ordinary day. But the Doctor has never met anybody or any day that wasn’t important. The greatest man in the world died.

9/10. “I’m your dad, it’s my job for it to be my fault.” Pete would’ve been a great father.

Genuinely befuddling

The Long Game Review

The Long Game

Meeting humanity’s boss

Story 162, Episodes 703, Series 1 Episode 7

Doctor: The Ninth Doctor

Companions: Rose Tyler, Adam Mitchell

An episode that serves as a wholesale prequel for the finale, The Long Game is the forgotten episode of the Ninth Doctor’s brief run.

The Review

The head implants are pretty well realized

Simon Pegg plays the gleefully delicious Editor in this story, working for the Jagrefess, the blobby creature that is stunting humanity’s growth. Why? That’s never really answered, and Pegg’s acting is charismatic enough to cover it up. The concept of Satellite 5 and media manipulation to control humanity is an even more apt topic now than it was in 2005. However, the story never finds its footing, it’s hard to care about the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire’s stagnation if we have no reference point for it. That doesn’t hit home as well as it should.

What an idiot Adam is

Adam Mitchell manages to be conclusively terrible as a person, and a good character in the story. Immediately the knowledge of 200,000 is to be used for his personal gain. His decision to get the head implant with the oddly seductive nurse egging him on is hard to watch because of how accustomed we are to intelligent companions. The Doctor’s brutal dumping of him. shows just how much he screwed up. For new viewers it is an important lesson in what companion hood is, on the rewatch it is forgivably outdated. It’s another aspect of Series 1 that makes it an amazing introduction to the show, but ‘early season weirdness’ is rampant on re-watch.

This episode has some good ideas, but the consequences of the Jagrefess holding back humanity and what Adam had done are not realized enough to make a big impact.

7/10. We’ll get a much more interesting look at Satellite 5 later on. Also I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that Rose has one of her best looks in this episode.

Simon Pegg deserved a better guest role

Dalek Review

Dalek

The Doctor faces the Daleks again

Story 161, Episodes 702, Series 1 Episode 6

Doctor: The Ninth Doctor

Companions: Rose Tyler, Adam Mitchell

The episode that had to re-launch the Daleks as a villain does so in stunningly effective fashion.

The Review

The Dalek and Rose

The Daleks had become a joke. Far removed from the terrifying debut in The Daleks, nobody took them seriously. Until now. The episode that sold me on the show, Dalek is fantastic. The fury of the Doctor when he sees the Dalek, the revelations about the Time War, but then the long sequences of brutal murder as just one Dalek kills so many in its path. It is chilling to see the Dalek murder at will, and it telling the Doctor it would’ve been a good Dalek remains one of the show’s best lines. In re-inventing the Dalek, it succeeds in spades.

Henry Van Staten, great one-off character

The other pieces of the episode flow excellently too. Van Staten is a great character with his selfishness and abuses of power, he makes a great foil for the Doctor and the Dalek. The Dalek’s transformation into feeling thanks to absorbing its DNA gradually is played out, also giving a great line when Rose tells the Doctor the Dalek isn’t the one pointing the gun at her. As much as the episode makes a Dalek terrifying, it shows us maybe we too should fear the Doctor. Adam Mitchell doesn’t do much in the episode but be a third! love interest for Rose in the series. But mainly what works is a radical shift in how we, and the Doctor, see Daleks.

Doctor Who quickly moves from farting aliens to showing the murder of about twenty people at the hands of one of a singular Dalek. The Davros shout-out is also pretty great.

9.5/10. Dalek does more than bring the Daleks back, it also helps bring back Doctor Who. What is the Doctor without the Dalek?

All the Dalek wanted was the sun (and racial cleansing)

The Unquiet Dead Review

The Unquiet Dead

 

The Gelth Come to Earth

Story 159, Episode 699, Series 1 Episode 3

Doctor: The Ninth Doctor

Companions: Rose Tyler

The new series heads into the past for the first time, setting the template for future historical episodes.

The Review

 

The romance begins

The most striking thing about The Unquiet Dead is how clearly in the infancy of the new series it is. It is a far way from the point where the layers of mythology the new series built and re-introduced can make episodes like The Witch’s Familiar. The best quality is how fresh it feels, it really does feel like Rose’s first adventure in a way that later episodes just can’t. The Doctor also remains an enigmatic figure, truly not the protagonist of the story. The story itself about Charles Dickens is fine, but nothing special.

Dickens is portrayed well

The symbolism of the Gelth being just like ghosts and reminiscent of Dickens’ book A Christmas Carol is pretty clear. However, it does position Dickens himself as the story’s hero along with the servant girl Gwyneth, the Doctor and Rose merely along to see their story develop. Set Christmas Eve, it is the Christmas special the Ninth Doctor never had. The story never rises above being a pretty standard story, but Dickens’ spirit being reinvigorated mere months before his death is pretty neat. Sadly, like a lot of Gatiss stories, it just doesn’t have that spark.

6.5/10. It’s a fine story, but nothing more.

The rule of the new historicals: it’s always aliens

The End of the World Review

The End of the World

Nothing Lasts Forever

Story 158, Episode 698, Series 1 Episode 2

Doctor: The Ninth Doctor

Companions: Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler

In the new series’ first foray into distinctly alien territory, it also has something to tell us about mortality.

The Review

The varied alien cast

As a collection of different aliens get introduced billions of years in the future as they watch the burning of the Earth at its eventual death, there’s a moment where the power of the Doctor starts to become clearer. As Rose realizes her mother is dead billions of years in the future, but then can call her and hear her still happy and alive serves as a poignant reminder that everything dies. The Doctor’s own and is similar, we learn about the Time Lords, and the fact that the Doctor is the last one. No one is left. Even the character Jade that helps him perishes, as does the villain, the memorable flat-skin ‘human’ Cassandra.

The beautifully rendered death of the Earth

For a story called The End of the World, it definitely delivers, as we see what happens to it. We also get a look at the Doctor’s rage as he leads Cassandra dry up and die with no regret. However, the ending gives us an uplifting future as the Doctor and Rose return to London, bustling and full with people, enjoying life as at lasts. For a story about death, the message comes to enjoy life while it’s here, and don’t worry about the future. The plot of the story works well, it’s enjoyable, and gives some memorable addition to the universe, along with some hilarious ‘classic’ Earth music. It isn’t a classic, but it does the job.

The End of the World shows off the future universe, and introduces some of what has made the Doctor into the Ninth Doctor. The silence when Rose asks who the Time Lords fought the war with is haunting.

8/10. I’m always a bit skeptical of stories set so far in the future, a billion years from now looks suspiciously like now.

Got to love humanity

Rose Review

Rose

“Run!”

Story 157, Episode 697, Series 1 Episode 1

Doctor: The Ninth Doctor

Companions: Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith

One of the most important stories ever, Rose had to introduce a brand new generation to Doctor Who and re-launch the series. Did it do a good job?

The Review

The pair that (re)-started it all

This story will also be special, also for me personally as it was the first I watched. The dizzying intro with a type of musical flare unique to the episode is really bizarre. But the introduction of Christopher Eccleston as the new Doctor, and Rose as a normal girl burdened by a boring domestic life is pitch-perfect. The Autons are definitely a weird choice as villain, and it plays into a kind of campy humor the story doesn’t do so well. However, the mysteriously odd Ninth Doctor is characterized brilliantly by Eccleston.

The Nestene Consciousness

As a die-hard fan now, I was forgiving of the Autons, but Rose being unable to tell her boyfriend Mickey is plastic is pretty sad. As well is Mickey acting like a scared five year old, completely pathetic and something thankfully that vanishes even by the rest of the series. Clive, somebody who has found the Doctor throughout time is pretty interesting, but the story works only based on how much Billie Piper and Eccleston give to their performance. They are absolutely convincing, and the moment where Rose initially says no to the Doctor and how heartbroken he is genuinely feels depressing.

Rose gets it done, and leaves us hungry for more, especially the very alien Doctor. Lots of planets have a north!

8/10. A fine introduction for the Doctor through the eyes of Rose, but the Autons don’t really work as well as villains. And ‘anti-plastic’ would be ridiculous if not for how much Eccleston commits to the concept.

The Ninth Doctor at last!