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DOCTOR WHO: ROSE Director: Keith Boak Hacktors: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper Rating: Cutting Remarks: The first thing that hits you, besides the nice new opening sequence (retaining both the classic 'time-tunnel' format and the essence of the musical theme) is the speed at which Doctor Who is comin' atcha in 2005. The fact that the show's editing and plotting pace was always going to be faster is painfully obvious, yet I was strangely unprepared. As an alarm clock rings and Rose (Billie Piper) climbs out of bed, Murray Gold's punchy score sets the tone for the mindbogglingly pacey sequence which follows. It's only establishing London as the location, along with the fact that Rose is a typical bored worker in a department store, but its message is loud and clear: this model of Doctor Who has been stripped clean, and it's all about the here-and-now. Whereas stories used to run for four twenty-minute episodes, or even six, most of the new series' tales will be told in one glossily colourful 45-minute burst.       Again in-keeping with the keep-'em-snared-on-Saturday-night approach, there's little time wasted before Rose is confronted with a large batch of Autons in the store's basement. Crucially, when the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) appears, he's smack-bang in the middle of attempting to thwart them. There's not even any back-story to be told here - he's simply got a bomb which he's going to use in order to destroy the Nestene transmitter on the roof, and that's really all we need to know. As Russell T Davies has said time and time again, we're seeing this new Doctor through Rose's eyes.       Rose looks great: both the episode and the character. The filming captures a Summery magic which serves the vivid depiction of London well. Most importantly, the story and its delivery hits all the right buttons for grabbing different slices of the demographic pie - essential if this re-launch series isn't going to wind up a fondly-remembered attempt to resurrect the show, only to be foiled by poor ratings and an Alan Partridge-esque lack of second series. There's enough depth to the story, and enough meaningful moments (particularly the Doctor's passionate monologue about feeling the Earth's orbit), to interest adults, plus a sufficient degree of action and (generally softened) violence. There are also a few moments tailor-made to produce laughter from children, which have proved controversial among older fans. An Auton wheelie bin swallowing a character, then belching loudly, is never going to engage the grey matter unduly, and might not fit in with the thirty-something fan's personal wish for the show to be dark and serious. Yet it will tickle young minds, reinforcing the possibility that Doctor Who will become a family show again, and will therefore have a greater chance of enduring for years and years.       There's a clever piece of postmodernism, when Rose meets an internet freak who has been tracking the Doctor's adventures and (rightly) warns her that death follows him around. There's also a fantastic, Terminator 2-like moment when a clone of Rose's boyfriend Mickey has its head pulled off, then goes berserk in a restaurant, smashing tables with big, wedge-like hands. A great-looking piece of madness, which really shows how the new Who can temper its throwaway gags (there's a terrible "armless" joke at one point, and an over-cooked moment when the Doctor fails to see the capital's Millennium Wheel behind him… one too many times) with genuinely gripping scenes. It's an exciting mix indeed.       No more will people be able to laugh about Doctor Who's supposedly dodgy effects and sets: the finale sees the Doctor and Rose confronting an impressive CGI Nestene intelligence in what looks like a huge steelworks. The whole thing looks so much more like a movie than a BBC production, that you can't help but feel proud about how your favourite show has grown up. There's also an Auton invasion, recreating the similar shop window-smashing scene from Jon Pertwee's classic debut Who adventure, 1975's Spearhead From Space. While you'd love to have seen more of this updated assault, there's no doubt that it surpasses the original, which with the best will in the world now slightly resembles a Monty Python sketch, complete with comedy policeman hearing a noise and running to the rescue.       Forget Easter: this is a resurrection to be reckoned with. Release Date: Rose is broadcast on BBC1 on March 26, 2005 at 7pm. [Check it out at Amazon UK, as part of Doctor Who Volume One disc] [Read Who media launch report] [Reviews Menu] [Home] © Copyright Slasherama 2002-present