For the past 4 years or so, my wife has consistently watched the revival of Doctor Who, first with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, then with David Tennant taking over the role. She tried to persuade me to watch them, but it is something that I had never really been fussed with. Growing up at my parents' house, I would occasionally watched a rerun of one of the older Doctor Whos, such as Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee, and I found them interesting, but I didn't really follow them and the aliens just seemed farcical to me.

Fast forward to last year. The fourth series ended in what my wife called a gobsmacking double episode that made her go out and buy the box set of the series starring Christopher Eccleston as the doctor. It was her intention to make me watch the last four series in as short a time as possible. So, we sat down to dinner in front of the TV, and watched the first episode...and then the second......and then the third!!

Brief History

Dr Who is a character created by Sydney Newman, the Head of Drama at the BBC in the early 1960s. Dr Who was first aired in 1963 amidst a great deal of speculation. It features an alien in human form travelling the universe and time in, taking on human form and known only as the Doctor. He travels in his ship, known as the TARDIS, which from the outside appears to be a small telephone box, but is actually deceptive and is huge inside, bigger than a house! The Doctor is a Time Lord, and has taken many forms, and each time he disappears he reappears having regenerated in a different human form. This explains the numerous different actor who have played him. The show ran successfully until 1989, when viewing figures plummeted. There was a TV movie starring Paul McGann in 1996, which I vaguely remember, and then a 9 year gap before Russell T Davies revamped the doctor as Christopher Eccleston. The show has been immensely popular and is still going strong, with David Tennant now playing the Time Lord and soon to be replaced with Mat Smith.

The DVD series

The first DVD features the first 3 episodes of what is called Series 1. Although it's not the first series ever, it is the first of the more modern series, and so it is thus called.

Episode 1 - Rose

The first episode of the new series naturally has a bit of explaining to do after such a long time away from the screen. Although there was a film in 1996, no episodes had been made since 1989, meaning a 16 year gap and a whole new generation of Doctor Who fans to impress. We are introduced in this episode to Rose. Traditionally, the Doctor has an assistant/companion to accompany his on his travels through time and space. Rose is the latest for the Doctor. At first, she is content with her job in a department store, but when the mannequins all come to life and try to take over the Earth she meets the Doctor, who is tracking them and trying to stop them. He explains they are an alien race called the Autons, and the pair of them work together to stop them.

Episode 2 - The End Of The World

This second episode follows on straight after the end of the first, with Rose and the Doctor inside the TARDIS. The Doctor shows Rose how he can go anywhere in time and space, and takes her to the year 5 billion, to the day of the end of the Earth. They emerge on an Observation Station and are accompanied by a selection of representatives from different alien races, each who have paid a great deal of money to witness the end of the Earth. However, there is a saboteur on board who has sinister intentions, as deadly metal spiders appear all over the ship. They must have been brought aboard by someone, but who? It is up to the Doctor and Rose to find out and save the day.

Episode 3 - The Unquiet Dead

Apparently, the TARDIS is not always as exact as the doctor would like. He intends to take Rose to Christmas Eve in Naples in the year 1860. However, as luck would have it, they end up in London, on Christmas Eve in 1869, and are just in time to meet Charles Dickens and team up with him and some undertakers to tackle some spirits that are trying to cross over from their dying world to find hosts for their gaseous forms in this world. The trouble is, the only vacant lifeforms are the corpses!

The Cast and Performances

Christopher Eccleston is excellent as the Doctor. I have seen him in only a few things over the years he has been acting, most memorably for me as a bit part in a couple of episodes of Heroes, the latest craze in American Drama series. Beside that, he never really appealed to me as the Doctor, but having now watched him in the role, I find him to be excellent. The Doctor is a very matter of fact character. As he is in human form, it is easy to forget he is an alien, and this lends itself to a couple of surprise moments in the three episodes here, and indeed in the ensuing episodes, particularly the thrilling double story in episodes 4 and 5.

Billie Piper has had a lot of criticism over the years, but I have to admit she is a very good actress in the role of Rose Tyler, the 19 year old girl who gets caught up in the Doctor's world and taken up by the mystery and endless possibilities. her character slowly develops into the third episode, but the writers and producers are careful to reiterate the fact that she is still new to the time travel game and it still astounds her.

Two recurring characters are Rose's mum, Jackie Tyler, played by Camille Coduri. They live on a run down council estate, and Camille's portrayal of Jackiwe is one of a tracksuit and hoody wearing stay at home mum who will scream and shout at anyone who goes near her daughter. The actress does very well in showing how the character copes with the revelation of the doctor and his time travel. The other character is Rose's boyfriend, Mickey, played by Noel Clarke. To me, Clarke is one of the finest British talents around at the moment. Not only has he acted very well in the handful of roles he has taken on, but he has also penned and starred in the extremely successful and hard-hitting Kidulthood, and its recently released sequel, Adulthood. Clarke is a fabulous writer and a brilliant character actor, and here, he sparks off the other actors on screen with him, particularly Jackie, Rose's mum, and the Doctor, who thinks Mickey is stupid and constantly tells him so.

The supporting cast in each episode perform very well. There is no real main support cast in the first episde, Rose, as the Autons in the form of mannequins are the main threat and it is more of an introductory episode than anything else. The second episode, The End Of The World, has a couple of very good performances, particularly from Zoe Wanamaker as the voice (yes, the voice!) of the last human, Cassandra, and also from Simon Day as the Steward and Yasmin Bannerman as Jabe. In the third episode, The Unquiet Dead, there is excellent support from Simon Callow as Charles Dickens. The actor reprises a similar appearance as his portrayal of Gareth in Four Wedding s And A Funeral, and his acting is top notch. He is a consistent British actor, and makes it easy for Eve Myles to enter the Doctor Who saga as Gwyneth, a medium who can contact the gaseous spirits in the episode. Coincidentally, Eve Myles was to star in Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood as the female lead Gwen Cooper, making a couple of guest appearances. The remainder of the cast in each episode perform very well.

My Opinion

So, am I glad that my wife made me watch this? You bet I am!

So, what did I think? Well, traditionally, Doctor Who is supposed to be full of laughable special effects and ridiculous costumes and aliens, and I can see why. But what is portrayed as ridiculous and tacky has obviously taken a lot of time and care and attention. The effect of the special effects and wardrobe team on the screen are marvellous, and the simplistic methods of randomly pressing buttons and randomly pull levers and spin wheels to travel through time lends itself to the sort of sci-fi drama where you can just sit back and watch. The combination between Eccleston and Piper is magical, and as you can tell by the number of episodes I watched, I loved it and it kept my attention, indeed I was glued to the screen. Mark Gatiss (from The League of Gentlemen) was the writer for the third episode, so Russell T Davies is obviously not above accepting some strong help at times, and I eagerly awaited watching the rest of the series.

In conclusion, these 3 episode of Doctor Who are marvellous and get a 5 star rating from me. The first episode if anything is slightly weaker in terms of plot, but that is merely because there was a lot of scene setting to do. The whole thing is fabulous, and I would recommend it to anyone.

The complete series 1 is currently available for £44.98, but if you just want to buy these three episodes on their own, you can get it for £6.48. Both these prices are for amazon.co.uk. Naturally, prices will vary where you look for it. No doubt you could pick up a second hand copy from ebay probably for cheaper. There are no extras on the DVD - these get kept for the end of season complete boxset.