Hello, Goodbye
Christopher Eccleston faced an uphill struggle from day one. Anyone stepping into the role has to struggle to establish themselves as the Doctor and this doesn’t happen overnight. Those who hadn’t seen the show had to learn about Doctor Who from scratch as well as getting used to all of the characters and settings. Long-time fans wanted – and needed a sense of familiarity.
The behind the scenes issues didn’t help and I’m sure that this must have affected the scripts in some way towards the end of the season with both Davies and Ecccleston glad to be parting ways by the end of it. It is such a shame because when given the right material Eccleston’s Doctor shone brightly and deserved so much better. Certainly his work on the Big Finish releases has since proven that.
Continuity
We all know Doctor Who is littered with continuity errors, and it’s something to be expected with such a long running show. But this season is caught out with a glaring one within itself that can’t be ignored…
After Day Of The Doctor we now know clearly where this season fits in the show’s timeline. It’s clear that Rose takes place very shortly after the War Doctor has regenerated as the Doctor is surprised at their appearance. But that throws up a huge issue. When Rose meets with the “fan” she is shown evidence of the Doctor being seen throughout history. With her spending the season with them, and the Doctor regenerating at the end, when does the Doctor actually participate in these historical events?
In fact, the fact that we have a range of audio productions from Big Finish now featuring Christopher Eccleston only adds to this confusion. The only way to reconcile this with what we’ve seen on screen is to disregard the now familiar scene of the Doctor seeing themselves for the first time. Either it’s the first time the Doctor had access to a mirror since regenerating or simply didn’t have “time” to look.
RTD – Writer vs Showrunner
There’s a huge amount of excitement surrounding the return of Russell T Davies to Doctor Who. Chris Chibnall’s time at the helm was controversial at best and split fan opinion. Many felt that he overstretched himself trying to do too much in writing and producing the show. But perhaps the same could be said for this first season and Davies…
Watching the show back, it’s easy to tell which episodes were written by him and which aren’t. Davies has a penchant for whimsy and and element of camp in his episodes, with humour that perhaps was a little too over-the-top at times.
I certainly don’t want to be dismissive of the great work he did with the series. But he also brought us the burping dustbins, farting Slitheen, the robotic Ann Robinson, and some bizarre species names along the way. But taken as a whole, it has to be said that the best of the season were penned by other writers.
Alas Poor Mickey…
One thing I did notice throughout the season was the somewhat appalling treatment of Mickey during the run. Despite a few dramatic moments, for the most part he seemed to be there for slapstick comic relief. I’d say looking back across the years – modern and classic – he’s one of the few characters written deliberately to be made out to be a fool.
While his alternate universe counterpart fared much better, it wasn’t until he left the series and teamed up with Martha that he started to show promise. Unfortunately, as he was portrayed during this season, it’s no wonder that Rose was so quick to leave him behind.
I Know That Place…
As a now much older Doctor Who fan, this season also was the first where I found it easier to recognise filming locations. What I often found absurd were the ways BBC Wales attempted to disguise the fact that episodes were filmed in Cardiff and other Welsh towns and instead attempt to portray them as London locations.
Rose was a perfect example. Filmed in the centre of Cardiff, scenes were shot in the popular Queen’s Arcade shopping centre. Exterior shots were supplemented with fake red telephone boxes and black taxis in an attempt to convince viewers it was London! Locals knew better, of course. Some were more obvious than others but more recently at least producers have learned to just be more open where they are filming instead in the storylines.
Final Thoughts
First time I watched the relaunch, I have to be honest and say that as a whole I wasn’t impressed. It wasn’t the fact that I didn’t like the series per se. Christopher Eccleston just didn’t gel for me as the Doctor. Truthfully, after struggling with much of Sylvester McCoy’s run, then the Paul McGann movie, I had been left feeling rather jaded.
This rewatch did get me thinking differently. It’s clear that the different writing styles made a huge difference to not only the character, but the way I perceived the Doctor back then as well. Until this series, I don’t think a showrunner had been this actively involved as a writer before, writing 8 out of the 13 episodes.
I did find myself enjoying more of the series than I did first time around, but equally the inconsistency in quality really made it hard when binge watching them all. One thing I did find frustrating was that with just 13 episodes, three were taken up with the Slitheen, and three were set on Satellite 5/Gamestation. This many connected episodes were fine with longer seasons (and shorter episodes), but with so few episodes overall it was a bold move and certainly risked losing the audience’s attention for unpopular characters/settings.
And I think for me, that was the crux of things. With too much of the season wasted in this way I struggled to see beyond these episodes back in 2005 and the great stories were overlooked. Even today, episodes like “Dalek” and “Father’s Day” are sadly overshadowed.
But with the closing scenes, we were introduced to a new Doctor, new teeth, and the start of a new tradition for Doctor Who – the Christmas special. And I’ll look at all of these in the next part of this series.
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