Mrs. Know-It-All has never seen the first season of the 2005 Doctor Who, and we only recently found that out. So we’ve never done one of these before, and it’s time. David Tennant’s coming back for the 60th anniversary specials, Ncuti Gatwa’s been cast, and we’ve got casting news on the new companion too: Millie Gibson, who’s going to be playing Ruby Sunday. I love her name, by the way. We both do.
So we went all the way back to the start. Doctor Who, 2005, season one, episode one, “Rose.” Restart, reboot, I don’t know what you want to call it. She finally understands how we got Rose.
I started watching the show because season two with David Tennant was about to happen, and Sci-Fi Channel was doing one of those runs where they show the whole thing. There’s only like 12 episodes. I got caught up, I watched it, and it really pulled me in.
Very British, a Little Campy, and Moving Fast
We meet Rose Tyler, the shop girl, and all this stuff happens really quickly. She has to take the lottery money to a guy who works down in the basement, she goes down there, she hears some noises, and she thinks some people are having a joke at her expense.
This first season is very British. The others are too. What I mean is this felt probably the closest to what I believe the older show felt like. A little campy, a little corny, in the music and some of the acting and some of the choices. But overall I loved where they were going. You can tell Russell T Davies was moving in a direction. I think he cited Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He wanted to make it hip, a little more updated, a little less stodgy feeling. Mrs. Know-It-All caught me on “stodgy.” It’s a Britishism, and she hears it all the time on the baking shows.
What got her in that opening was the mannequins. There’s the part where Rose is walking down the hall and all of a sudden you see the mannequin head turn. “That’s so creepy to me,” she said. If she didn’t know any better, this could’ve been the start of a spooky Halloween show. They didn’t hesitate at all.
Meeting the Doctor
Then Rose meets this guy in a leather jacket. Christopher Eccleston is our Doctor. They get into an elevator and she figures the mannequins are students, and he asks why they’d be students. She’s got a reason: to get that many people organized to do something stupid, they’ve got to be students. And he’s like, okay, I like that thought process. Good.
That’s what Mrs. Know-It-All liked when she first met him. He’s very logical. Why would it be students? It’s almost like he didn’t understand, and then she gives him a good reason and he takes it.
He walks her nice and casually out the door, she asks his name, and he pops his head back out. By the way, I’m the Doctor. Run for your life. And he’s got a little bomb in his hand. So she runs, and then they have a really bad CGI explosion. It was bad. But I understand where they wanted to go, and I find myself wondering how I’m going to judge this show moving forward, because it’s a little dated in some places and in other places it’s, okay, I’m with you, Doctor Who.
Rose’s Mom, and Mickey
When she gets home we meet her mom for the very first time, and her mom is a hot mess. How do you not love the woman for the mess that she is?
Then her boyfriend Mickey shows up. Oh my goodness, are you okay, you’ve been traumatized, you need a proper drink, let’s go to the pub. And she says, there’s a match on, isn’t there? He’s a little empty at the start, but he still does care. Later on they give him some computer skills, which are okay and they stick around for a bit. And this is her actual boyfriend, by the way. I want that clear, because she doesn’t act a whole lot like it. Mrs. Know-It-All read him as her go-to.
Rose has come home with the arm of one of the Autons. Mickey throws it in a dumpster, and as he’s walking away you hear the sound of something scurrying off.
The Sonic Screwdriver, Used as a Screwdriver
She hears something at the pet door, because the little screws aren’t in it anymore. It’s the Doctor, coming through the little door. It took us a second on the couch to catch the joke: he’s got his sonic screwdriver, so this is one of the only times the sonic screwdriver gets used as a screwdriver. As someone says to him later in the season, who looks at a screwdriver and thinks, you know what, this should be a little more sonic?
Then he gets attacked by the arm, and he’s doing this whole flailing thing, and it’s too funny.
She follows him out and they have a really interesting conversation. He lays down this and this and this, and tells her nobody should know, and if she tells anybody they might get killed. Then he does the monologue. Those of you who are Doctor Who fans, you know the one I’m talking about. The Earth is moving. That’s who I am.
The Biggest TARDIS They Ever Built
At this stage they haven’t made his TARDIS a thing for us yet. While they’re talking, there it is in the background, but it’s blurry. You just know it’s there because you know what it looks like.
This was also the largest TARDIS ever. In previous versions they hadn’t built it to scale. This one is actually to scale with real police boxes of the era, and later on they start getting a little smaller. When Eccleston walks up to the door, his head is at the lower end of the glass. When Matt Smith stands by the door, the top of his head is above the top of the glass. They shrank it for transport. If it’s bigger on the inside, it doesn’t have to be that big. Mrs. Know-It-All says she’s going to randomly pick a Matt Smith one to check.
A Doctor Just Back From the Time War
We have the luxury of hindsight. Here we are 13 seasons into the 2005 era, and what you’re seeing is the groundwork. Eccleston’s doing this very subtle thing: this is my first time back in the swing of doing what I used to do before the Time War. At Rose’s house he looks in the mirror and goes, oh hey, look at the ears. So you get the sense he just recently regenerated, which we later know from The Day of the Doctor is when the John Hurt version, the lost Doctor, is leaving and starts regenerating.
Mrs. Know-It-All liked how we find out who the Doctor is when Rose visits Clive, the conspiracy guy. A couple of questions got answered for her right there. What do you mean people know about him already? When they went through his history, she thought that was brilliant.
I’d forgotten that he gives Mickey a virus on a disc that’ll remove all references to him from the internet. I forgot they did that back in season one. Matt Smith does something similar later.
Rose catches up with him again and he’s describing what he’s looking for, the thing the Nestene Consciousness is using to control all the plastic in London. It’d be really big, like a disc. And he stops right in front of the giant Ferris wheel in London, and Rose is looking at it, and he goes, yeah, just like that.
I like his quirkiness. Eccleston introduced a lot of really cool character traits, and I’d forgotten how much I liked him. I think you get blown away by the charisma of David Tennant and then Matt Smith, by how bigger than life they are. Eccleston played a slightly subtler Doctor. He’s a Doctor who, now we know, is very wounded and very hurt, who watched the destruction of his planet and was part of it in a lot of ways. And I’m over here acting like those of you watching have never seen the show before.
Later on David Tennant has a line to Rose about the version of himself he cloned by accident: this guy is me when you first met me. She helped him be better. She helped him see the world innocently and have perspective. This first episode is laying that groundwork.
Mrs. Know-It-All’s read is that he’s got more of a sense of humor. He’s the funny one right now.
Anti-Plastic and the Gymnastics We Never Hear About Again
When he’s being quote unquote held hostage by the Nestene, Rose does this gymnastics move. It’s literally the one and only time it ever happens. She’s like, I used to be part of this thing, and you’re like, really? Okay. Trust me, they never say anything about it again for the rest of the season. It’s super corny. Mickey’s groveling.
And the Doctor has a vial, wait for it, of anti-plastic. I’m going to let that sit there for a minute.
Apparently all the shop mannequins suddenly have guns built into their arms, and I have no clue how that was done, because it’s just supposed to be taking control of plastic. Mrs. Know-It-All had it: it’s a consciousness, so why wouldn’t it consciously put guns in the mannequins? Don’t ever forget, my friends, if it seems like something you can logically explain away, that’s probably the answer.
The Garbage Can That Ate Mickey
We forgot a really funny part. Before we ever get to what I refer to as the glowing glob, Mickey falls into a garbage can.
Rose is visiting Clive, and she tells him at the door that her boyfriend’s outside, making sure he’s not a killer or nothing. Mickey’s out there the whole time mean mugging, very cartoonishly. Then he sees the trash can move, walks up to it, tries to open it, and his hands are stuck to it. It’s bad CGI, but it’s a very cool effect. I get what they’re going for.
I caught one thing. He’s standing one way with his hands stuck, he turns around, and that should twist the plastic. When they cut to him from behind, it’s straight again. Mrs. Know-It-All’s answer is that it entangled itself, that it could easily turn on your hand. I guaranteed she’d say something along those lines.
So the garbage can ate him and turned him into an Auton, and later on the Doctor takes his head off. She found that completely hysterical. That’s why she feels this is the humorous Doctor.
I think you had to have a lot of that stuff. You had to make sure fans of the original series understood there’s going to be some corn and some camp, which is very much the through line of Doctor Who. He’s funny at times, he’s a little irreverent at times. They were establishing that this wasn’t going to be that crazy a difference from the previous iterations. It ultimately ended up being a complete departure in a lot of ways, but it was still great.
He defeats the Nestene Consciousness with Rose’s help, and he invites her to go with him. He can go anywhere, it’s a spaceship. She says she’s got to take care of Mickey. He says it’s also a time machine. That’s all she needs. She runs in, and that’s where we start, with them taking off into the wild blue yonder. Wild black yonder of space. Whatever.
The Verdict
Doctor Who “Rose,” the first episode of the 2005 series, is an 8 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index, from both of us.
Mrs. Know-It-All went first. It’s brand new to her, she had a good time, and she gives it an eight. She found out who Rose is and how he came upon her, and Rose’s mom cracked her up the whole time. She was a little annoyed with Mickey. She likes the introduction of this Doctor and she can’t wait to see where it goes. If she’d seen this when it came out in 2005, she probably would’ve been interested.
I’m purposely looking at it objectively, and I’m not judging it against what comes later. I’m going with an eight as well. I think an eight’s a solid number.
I had the luxury of binging the whole thing. Sci-Fi Channel ran it starting at like two in the afternoon until six in the evening, and then the next day, and the next, so you got three or four days of it before they rolled out the David Tennant Christmas special. That’s what we do during the holiday season. We watch the Doctor Who Christmas specials, all of them, starting with the David Tennant one right after he regenerates from Eccleston.
What did you think of season one of the 2005 series? And Mrs. Know-It-All wants to know what she should be looking for as she keeps watching. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
