Doctor Who was one of the shows I constantly had around me growing up, series 1- 4 in particular, becoming my favourite childhood show and shaping my interests in the genres of storytelling and science-fiction. So naturally, this review will resonate more personally with me than many of the others I have done before. So, when Russel T Davies revived this old British classic in 2005, how well did he do in appeasing old fans and bringing on board a new generation to love the character?
This first series follows Rose Tyler, a young woman living in London, when a series of bizarre events involving plastic dummies bring her to a mysterious man called the Doctor, who is in reality an alien with a time machine disguised as an old Police Box. Together, they travel across time and space, encountering strange, wonderful and terrifying creatures in any and every place you could imagine, as Rose learns more about the Doctor and who he is.
I think the best thing about this series is the use of character - Rose is the perfect surrogate for the audience - relatable, witty and sympathetic, and through her perspective we get to see the Doctor as a rich and detailed character - charismatic and quick-witted, with a love of adventure and travel, but deeply lonely, with a cold anger lying beneath.
Watching this season in isolation from anything that comes before or afterwards, we also don't know who he is, and so like Rose, we don't really know if he is a character that we should like or consider a good person. Even going to this from the classic series, there are questions and mysteries as to why he has become like this, so Davies presents us with the best possible way to ask the question of who he is - we don't need his name, his family or anything of the sort, just who he is. This engages the audience in a way that I don't quite feel any subsequent Doctors have been able to really capture, and one of the reasons Eccleston's ninth Doctor is regarded by me and many others as the best acted version of him.
What I also appreciate is that every episode, regardless of overall quality, finds the right blend of drama and comedy - after all, it is a family show, so it contains plenty of humour and levity, but never to the detriment of the story or the intimidation of the monsters (with a few noticeable exceptions, but even then I think that the humour is still very purposeful). The Doctor himself uses humour in a very relatable way - when he is around people who may be scared, he acts a little quirky and playful as a way to reassure them (and the audience, especially children, who may be "hiding behind the sofa" at some of the scarier or darker moments). This makes even the weaker episodes fun to watch, since the writing is so spot on and entertaining to watch being played out by talented actors, even when they seem to be brushing over little inconveniences to the story or oversimplifying scientific explanations to explain what essentially amounts to the supernatural.
Since this series is now fifteen years old, and was ready to be easily dropped if audiences didn't warm to it, the effects aren't exactly top of the range by todays standards, the CGI in particular. That being said, many practical costumes and props, I'm thinking the Daleks and the mutants inside, are timeless in their designs, quickly becoming akin to British icons. So, if you haven't seen it before and are going into it now, I imagine you'll find this juxtaposition very jarring.
Out of thirteen episodes in the season, I estimate that six of them are instant classics (Rose, Dalek, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways), while there are four solid episodes (The End of the World, Aliens in London/World War III, Father's Day), not masterpieces but good television nonetheless, and three weak ones (The Unquiet Dead, The Long Game, Boom Town), relying on the dynamics between the characters than telling good or inventive stories - more swings and misses than total blunders. However, the consistency of entertainment value for the whole family in this series is not something that can be easily dismissed or ignored. Objectively, I think it is a 8.5 out of 10, but if you were to ask me my own opinion, it would be a clear and unmistakeable 10 out of 10. I'll settle for a 9, though.
9 OUT OF 10
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