It’s almost impossible now to
imagine the waiting. We knew Russell T Davies was writing it; we knew Eccleston
was playing it; we knew the Daleks were coming. But we had no idea quite what a
triumphant return this was going to be. When we heard that Camille Coduri and
Noel Clarke - Rose’s mum and boyfriend - would be appearing in almost half of
the episodes, we wondered whether this wasn’t going to be Doctor Who as soap
opera. We should never have feared. For in 2005, that magnificent year, we saw the return of the Doctor Who we had always dreamt of: successful, ambitious and for the first
time in a long time, looking better than the television surrounding it. 7pm on
Saturdays – it became the appointment of the nation. The show was loved again
and deservedly so. Chris Eccleston’s solitary year as the Doctor was unbeatable.
10. THE LONG GAME
In the script book released just
after the series went out (sadly the only one of its kind – scripts don’t sell)
Russell T Davies honestly and succinctly explains why this one doesn’t quite
work. It was written bang in the middle of a 13-episode production run to give
some time off to the two leads. The only problem was, he fell in love with
those leads. In the pitch document, this story was called The Companion Who
Couldn’t and it was to be all about Adam, and illustrated by
way of contrast why Rose was such an exemplary TARDIS traveller. In the end, it
isn’t really about Adam, played woodenly and without charisma by Bruno Langley. (For
all Andy Pryor’s terrific casting decisions, he makes terrible ones too.) The
Long Game wants to be both about Adam and the Doctor and
Rose’s relationship at the same time. Resultantly, it doesn’t end up being
about anyone and the sci-fi plotting on Satellite 5 feels like meat and
potatoes Doctor Who simmering away in the background. It’s not a terrible story
by any means. The Jagrafess is frightening and the very idea of something on
the 500th floor is quintessentially Doctor Who. Ultimately though,
it only really works as a preamble to the finale, which itself gets under
the skin of this station far better, far more subversively and far more
inventively.
9. THE UNQUIET DEAD
I have a theory that Mark
Gatiss’s scripts always have one foot in the past. Matt Smith’s Doctor in
Victory of the Daleks is written like David Tennant’s. Robot of Sherwood is an
RTD celebrity historical delivered under Steven Moffat. Here, in the
first new series for over a decade, he writes a story that would fit right into
old money Doctor Who. It’s the natural descendant of The Talons of
Weng-Chiang or Pyramids of Mars. Whilst in 2005, it was a thrill in
itself to see Doctor Who travelling backwards in time again,
Gatiss wrote the show with the same pacing as the old days too, provoking Jane
Tranter to ask Russell T Davies to “kick the historicals up the arse.” There’s
little incident in The Unquiet Dead. Despite the terrific pre-titles sequence
(a defining moment of that first year of the comeback), one talky scene leads
into the next talky scene. Rose and Gwen talk forever in the scullery before we
cut to a prosey séance before we cut to a discussion in the cellars. Simon
Callow’s Dickens is resplendent, Eccleston and Piper are fantastic, but what
this really needs is a good chase sequence.
8. ALIENS OF LONDON / WORLD
WAR THREE
It gets a bad rep does Aliens of
London. Along with Rose, it was the first to be filmed and the obvious
shortcomings of that initial production block are right up there on screen: the monster costumes are heavy and clumsy; the chase sequences are static and the
CG Slitheen don’t remotely match the rubbery real-life counterparts. The zips
in the heads of the possessed MPs only arrive when they’re about to unmask (as
scripted they were hidden beneath fringes). So there are several elements which
don’t translate from script to screen as well as they might. However, the
scripts are cracking, Part One in particular feeling like an old school Who
adventure for 2005. This is a world of council estates, hospitals, Downing Street
and dodgy top up cards. It’s incredibly well-structured and breezes along with
fierce abandon. The second half feels as if it stalls slightly and there are
one too many scenes of Slitheen unzipping which start to grate in their
repetition. But all told, this fresh, bold and poppy story is rattling good
fun. And I don’t mind the farting either.
7. ROSE
It’s the small, grand, tiny, epic
start of it all. This story is about the promise of adventures yet to come,
showcasing the world of a wild stranger in shop girl Rose’s life. Contemporary reviews
pointed to this focus on the two leading characters meaning the alien invasion
plot didn’t have time to develop. To a degree, that’s still true: the Doctor
arrives with the answer in the form of the anti-plastic so there’s no great cleverness
in the defeat of the Nestene, rather a simple, strong illustration of Rose’s
bravery. But the Autons are designed to smash through those shop windows and
that’s the moment that ignites the senses here. It’s all the invasion plot we
need. Watching the dummies march awkwardly through the precinct is as
terrifying as Doctor Who gets. Rose is a disarmingly simple script but
never simplistic. Its character beats are wondrous – look how the Doctor arrives
with the champagne or the way Rose breezes past Mickey to use his computer. Rose
isn’t a perfect introduction though. Chris Eccleston’s Doctor isn’t quite fully
formed. Yes, he’s utterly remarkable when it comes to the “turn of the Earth”
speech, but his comedy is over-mannered and a touch uncomfortable. The CGI doesn’t
always work and there some clunky edits. The bride dummies cutting from 1 to 3 to
2 hand-guns is a tiny thing but so irritating once you’ve noticed it. However,
for Rose to be such an otherwise blisteringly successful re-introduction
to Doctor Who is no mean feat. I can’t imagine how it could have been done
better. Every single writing decision is a wise one. This is Doctor Who run by
a master.
6. THE END OF THE WORLD
And the master continues his
saga, taking us first to the Year 5 Billion. This constitutes an even bigger mission
statement than Rose. We’re going to meet aliens aplenty, go to places we
could never have imagined, see people die in the light of the sun, but we’re
always going to return to the here and now, with a new perspective and a great
love of life. What looks like a murder mystery is actually more character work:
we learn who the Doctor is in relation to his own people and we see how Rose copes
under pressure (though locking your leading lady in a room with no company but a sun
filter feels like a slight mis-step). The End of the World
looks a million dollars to this day. It’s unlike anything on TV before or
since. Bright, colourful and with its own beautiful geography, Euros Lyn
creates a confident, ambitious and bizarre episode with brave assuredness. With
a second script of such calibre, pulled off with such flair and aptitude, Doctor
Who was always going to remain a hit.
5. BOOM TOWN
The cheapie episode, under the pen
of Russell T Davies was always going to be a fascinating experience. The first
half is laugh-out-loud funny. The teleporter gag is played three times and gets
funnier each time. Annette Badland is delightfully wry and Mickey running
around with a bucket on his foot is forever treasurable. There are even shamelessly
hokey lines like, “Leave the mayor alone!” which can only work in a script like
this. Surprisingly, there then follows a beautifully, sometimes hauntingly
shot, dinner. It starts with the very funny poison finger business and then
gives way to some close-ups of a deeply troubled Eccleston. There are no easy
answers here. The Doctor is being called out. He gets away with it in the restaurant but
next week, he really will see what a mess his actions can create so Boom Town
works as a piece of foreshadowing too. I don’t know what’s not to like about a
story which includes the “very icy patch” gag alongside a Cardiff earthquake and a
conversation as earthy and heart-breaking as the one about Trisha Delaney. For
the cheapie episode, Boom Town has it all.
4. DALEK
I had the misfortune of hearing Jubilee
long before seeing Dalek, meaning that Robert Shearman’s solo TV outing
always felt like the lesser cousin to his complex and subversive audio script. However,
forgetting that comparison shows off Dalek for what it is: the modern
series’ Earthshock moment. The Dalek returns and within a few short
scenes is no longer the laughingstock that the papers would have had us believe
in 2005. It suckers someone’s face off with that sink plunger, takes Rose for a
fool and is soon exterminating without compunction. In short, Shearman revitalises
the Daleks, making them a force of ultimate terror once again. It might not be
as obviously intelligent a script as Jubilee – there’s not enough time to be amidst the reintroducing, and the Dalek’s change of mind feels sudden and
convenient – but it’s clever in its own way. It’s effectively as strong a
jumping-on point as Rose and in its economic way, Dalek breathes the most possible new life into the oldest of TV concepts. The Daleks had returned and they
would never be a laughingstock again. Here too, Chris Eccleston comes into his own
with a savage, appropriately electrifying performance.
3. THE EMPTY CHILD / THE
DOCTOR DANCES
Arguably, this is the story that
made sure Doctor Who had a successor after Russell T Davies hung up his boots. There
is no doubting the power of Steven Moffat’s staggering two-parter. It genuinely
frightens, it breaks and then melts the heart and has arguably the greatest ending
in the show’s entire past and future history. It’s difficult to see how
Eccleston’s joyous, mad and rousing “Everybody lives!” can ever be bettered. The
last twenty minutes of this dark story are probably the brightest his Doctor
ever shines and some of the best of the entire canon. That being said, watching
the first half back now, it doesn’t half seem to take its time. Rose and Captain
Jack spend an eternity flirting when it would be nice to see another
explosion. The refrain “Are you my mummy?” begins to terrify when Doctor
Constantine utters it painfully before his transformation but half through Part
Two and it’s started to irritate. The structure of the two-part New Who story
still has its mind in the past, the cliff-hanger a moment of jeopardy rather than
a natural pivot point in the storytelling. These are small quibbles though in a
story whose majesty sweeps across the screen like Rose’s Union Jack T-Shirt.
Hello, Steven Moffat. Please can you stay a while?
2. FATHER’S DAY
The most peculiar story of this
first spectacular year and one of the most powerful. It’s the most human of the
stories on offer, which is saying something in a show with such a huge heart at
its centre. The sad tale of the inevitable death of Pete Tyler is a universal one played out on a small stage, in this case the eerie, vaulting church. Paul
Cornell brings his compassion to the life of a man who, when all’s said and done,
is a bit of a loser. The tragedy of Father’s Day is that Rose has
mythologised her Dad to the point where he could never hope to live up to his
expectations anyway. To find him to be a Jack-the-lad, one who flirts with her before
getting himself in a dishonest tizz about the girl under the coat stands, is devastating
for Rose, and Billie Piper plays her continued quiet heartbreak beautifully.
When Pete runs off to his death, vase in hand, it’s the making of him. His
first and last heroic act - but what it means to Rose is overwhelming and
cannot be put into words, the last silent scene as her and an enigmatic Doctor
walk back to the TARDIS hand in hand says it all.
1. BAD WOLF / THE PARTING OF THE
WAYS
Fans like traditional. Of course,
they do. I love traditional. The most traditional story here is The Empty Child,
winner of the DWM poll that year and Number 5 in The Mighty 200 poll of 2009.
It is, of course, magnificent. Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways,
however, are the most ambitious stories on display here. The first half of the
first half seems like a loose comedy, but there’s a bite to it: the deaths of
the contestants are felt and disturbing, all the more distressing for the fact
that the public are watching and supposedly enjoying these nightmare scenarios
unfold. The apparent death of Rose is a shock to the system and is played for real,
the suddenly silent Doctor more dangerous than ever. Perhaps this is the Doctor
at his most badass, Christopher Eccleston the most frightening of Time Lords.
That midway cliff-hanger is one not of peril but of triumphant defiance. No
plan and the odds are against him, but the Doctor is going to save the day. And
then that last mesmeric episode – every scene a heartbreaker. The deaths of the
Satellite 5 staff are hard-hitting and worrying as the Daleks approach Floor
500 with relentless, slow-moving ease. There’s so much to talk about here, so
many highlights, that this finale is worth a whole article of its own. The first
season finale encapsulates everything a season finale should be. It is perhaps,
after 15 years of bonanzas, still the finest. Eccleston’s hologram in itself is
a masterstroke and having the loyal Mickey help Rose out with his
car is an illustration of the love Russell T Davies has for these characters
and indeed, they have for each other. This is Doctor Who written on the
broadest canvas with honesty, heart and feeling and it is absolutely, faultlessly
tremendous.
JH
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