If you're interested in any kind of television that is British - which I absolutely am - you won't manage to ignore Doctor Who forever. In my case, Craig Ferguson has been rambling about the famous Time Lord for as long as I've been watching his Late Late Show. Also, one of my professors at uni is a huge fan of the series and has been including several episodes into her classes every semester.
However, I'd never been particularly keen on watching the adventures of The Doctor and his companions. That is till said professor had me give a presentation on one of the early episodes of the second Doctor Patrick Troughton. I got intrigued very quickly - even though the pacing in the 1960s was very slow and quite uninspired. That's when I decided to finally give the reboot of the series a chance and borrowed the DVDs.
The first season of the new series starts of with the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) saving Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), who is being attacked by mannequins in the department store where she works. She is immediately drawn to his sprakling personality and the adventurous behaviour of The Doctor. Togehter they kill an Auton (an artificial life form), which was living underneath the London Eye.
The Doctor sees Rose's potential and offers her to travel with him in the TARDIS (Time And Realitive Dimension In Space) through time and space, an offer she cannot refuse.
Throughout Series 1 many of the iconic monsters of Doctor Who are reintroduced and reinvented. These monsters resemble one of the main features of Doctor Who. In episode 6, Rose and The Doctor encounter the last of the Daleks - a cyborg race with no emotional capability, which The Doctor thought he had annihilated in the Time War.
My personal favourite of the first series is "The Empty Child". Set during The Blitz of WWII, The Doctor and Rose encounter a child whose face has been merged with a gas mask. The idea alone is already frightening to me, but the child incessantly asking for his mommy adds to the horror of this episode.
Also worth mentioning is the episode "Father's Day", in which Rose saves her father from being run over by a car shortly after Rose was born, which opens a wound in time and space, making it impossible for them to use the TARDIS. This episode deepens the relationship of the viewers and Rose, making her almost more important for the series than The Doctor himself.
The casting and acting troughout the 13 episodes is marvellous. Every character works itself nicely into the show and noone has been miscast. Therefore, I was rather sad to see Christopher Eccleston leave the show after only one season. He is an incredibly charming and charismatic actor with a great Northern English accent. However, once David Tennant takes on as The Doctor, the transition is smooth and the sorrow eases swiftly.
Billie Piper was the perfect decision for The Doctor's first companion. She is a mixture of naivetee, charm, sass, sensuousness and wit. Her smile is infectuous and her childlike spirit very entertaining. I'm very glad that she stayed with the show for longer, because a complete recast would have been difficult to watch.
The only thing to criticise are the special effects. Of ourse, the series has been released in 2005, but even back then the effects were mediocre. Yet, it doesn't really matter, because the narratives work perfectly with mediocre CGI.
Thus, I can summarize that Doctor Who is definitely a show worth watching; especially if you're interested in science fiction and the like. The main characters are great, the monsters vary from interesting to terrifying and the episodes are brilliantly written. I'm absolutely looking forward to seeing more Steven Moffat's work, since his episodes are the best by far. (At this point I've already seen "The Girl in the Fireplace"!)
9/10
