Rose

A great way to introduce the new era of Doctor Who. A new era which was immediately successful, credit to a 'Fantastic' opening episode. In this episode we meet Rose and The Doctor and some of the supporting characters as well. When a strange man saves a young woman called Rose from killer mannequins she becomes embroiled with him and helps him face a hidden invasion by the Autons: led by the Nestene Conscienceness.

It really was a great introduction. Christopher Ecclestone is now long in the past which is a shame. Not to say he should of gone on in place on Tennant but I really felt Ecclestone got the role. Billie Piper will always be the most memorable NuWho companion to me as she was just so much more charismatic than the others. Martha and Amy, i find boring. Donna got on my nerve. Rose was near perfect. As a story it isn't much. There were some daft little moments clearly aimed at kids. On the whole though it was brilliant.

The best moment has to be 'I can feel it' speech by Ecclestone. Very rarely in his tenure was he as good as this. That isn't a knock as this is one of my favourite NuWho moments. It really did sell me on the new series. The final scenes were also great, The Doctor's remarks about time travel the key.

OVERALL - 7.0: Very good intro but not a suspenseful, thrilling masterpiece. However very entertaining, great characters, and the Nestene looks great.

Rewatching from 18 years in this episode's future was a far better experience than I thought it would be (except the CGI, of course). What surprised me was that I couldn't remember Mickey being so pathetic. He eventually became a hero in the series and all trace of his original personality had disappeared from my memory. It a fun story with lots of action and at the end Rose doesn't hesitate to head off with the mysterious stranger because Mickey is an A-grade idiotic a-hole. I was also surprised by the amount of flirting between Rose and the Doctor. I thought that developed later but it was there from the very beginning. The Autons were very menacing, but I couldn't work out if the man-eating dustbins were just crap or a clever homage to the 8th Doctor's reign.

Because, frankly, I am a lunatic I'm also, along with everything else, going to go back to the start of "Doctor Who" or "Nu-Who" anyway, and rewatch and review every episode. I have seen every episode before, but very few of them more than once. Let's go back to 2006 for the first one.

Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) works in a London department store. One night, just before lock up she's attacked by the shop dummies. Her life is saved by a man enigmatically known only as "The Doctor" (Christopher Ecclestone). The Doctor, an alien, is tracking signals that are controlling plastic things, particularly but not exclusively shop dummies but both he, and now Rose, are being targeted in turn.

This was my real introduction to "Doctor Who". I was 9 when the show ended, and though I do remember the feature length episode with Paul McGann, this was the start of the show, for me. The most striking thing about it, looking at it with 2020 eyes is how badly the computer generated effects have aged. It's not the fault of the BBC, it's just that 14 years ago visual effects were so costly there was a compromise required. It cannot be ignored though that the interaction between Mickey and the Dustbin looks terrible. My next thought was that I should be cherishing this time with Christopher Eccleston as I know it's not going to last very long. Everyone is clearly settling into everything at the moment . . . which I think is the excuse for the overblown "I can feel the movement of the earth" speech in the middle of the episode. But a couple of other moments really land, such as enthusiastic "Yeah" in response to Rose's question about whether travelling with him will always be this dangerous.

This episode has a lot to do, it introduces us to all the principles that will take us forward for the next few years, including Mickey (whose characterisation is perhaps the most "off" in this one) and Jackie. It can perhaps been forgiven then that the plot is a little basic and we hang around in the climactic scenes far longer than we ought too, before Rose decides that she can save the day. But it's an engaging start to the series that would now (and did at the time) entice me to start watching.

Since Sci Fi channel has been showing this series, I was hooked from the first episode. I hear a lot of bad press about it but I don't care what they think. I love this show for 2 reasons: FIRST being ROSE (actress Billy Piper). She is sweet, lovable and very beautiful, with an arsenal of emotions and faces. We see the (altered) world thru her eyes, our standard Earther beliefs. It just so happened that she made contact and got to board the TARDIS, but it could have been any one of us. SECOND is "THE DOCTOR". He is trying to save the other species and is giving them a chance to live and do right, compared to our Kill the Aliens politics. He takes Rose and us by surprise by looking at things from a completely different point of view. His out of time, out of the moment, completely oblivious to the situation style of wit cracks me up. Like when he is scorning Rose's kidnappers and between sentences turns to her and gives her a cheerful "OH, HELLO." and return to scorning without missing a beat. He comes off as having a "I don't know what I'm doing, but you don't know what I'm doing either so we're even." personality.

The sets, costumes, props, are all obviously TV grade, not as good as Farscape, but fitting for the show. The "END OF THE WORLD" show had several good aliens and props, but true to WHO. The advertisements show upcoming episodes with robots I remember from the original WHO series in the 70's. I can't wait to see where this series goes. OH, and the theme song is the same for true fans. However I always have to think back to the ROCK AND ROLL PART 2 parody from the TIMELORDS.... Dr. WHO and the TARDIS

Started to watch this series again, but this time with my young kids!

They were very engrossed in this first episode. They found the Doctor very interesting as a concept, and the Autons sufficiently scary.

I think I have them hooked.

They really latched onto Rose and her life, which made me see the true strength in this show isn't the Science Fiction antics, but the humanity behind it.

Hopefully I've created a couple of life long fans.