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Doctor Who: Rose

spingirl | 10 May, 2008 03:00

So, let me begin by saying that I never watched the original series. In my neck of the woods, back in the 1980s, Dr. Who came on at 10pm on Saturday nights, thus putting in direct conflict with Mama’s Family and Saturday Night Live – the 2 shows that were must see TV in my family at that time (you know, other than the local and national news, 60 Minutes, and 20/20…my family is so unique). The little glimpses I did catch of Dr. Who were not impressive: shoddy sets, poor dialogue, pitiful production value. So, when Scott and his friend, Jim, starting talking about the Brits producing a brand new Dr. Who series, I really could have cared less. Dr. Who, Dr. Schmoo.

And then, I got sucked in. And now, I *heart* Dr. Who (well, more the 10th Dr. Who than the 9th Dr. Who, but I’m getting ahead of myself here).


So, through nefarious means, Scott has managed to get a hold of the 1st season of the new series and we’ve started watching them. I thought it would be fun to blog a little about them.

Episode 1, Season 1: Rose Tyler

Brief Synopsis: We start by watching a day in the life of Rose Tyler, seemingly average Briton. She lives with her mother in London, works as some sort of salesgirl at a large department store, and has a cutesy relationship with her boyfriend, Mickey. Everything is normal until one night when she has to drop of the lottery money in the basement of the department store. She goes downstairs and the man she is supposed to give the money to is nowhere to be found. She wanders around a large room in the basement calling for the man, amidst hundreds of store mannequins, and the door to the room closes behind her. As she continues to call for the guy (Wilson) that she is looking for (my god, she calls for this guy over and over), the mannequins start coming to life and begin coming after Rose – if only they had finished her off at this point. Just as Rose is about to be offed (and a great source of my irritation about to be relieved), Dr. Who swoops in and rescues her, darn him. He also blows up the department store. Eh, no big loss.

So, Rose returns home, with the arm of one of the plastic mannequins, and her ever-annoying mother, Jackie, is prattling on about how Rose should get some sort of compensation for being traumatized by the whole explosion. (I should get some sort of compensation for having Jackie Tyler on my tv screen.) Mickey shows up and Rose has him take the mannequin arm with him when he leaves.

The next morning, Rose wakes up, but has no job to go to. Lo and behold, the mysterious Doctor shows up at her door again. Annoying (and apparently quite slutty) mother Jackie makes a half-hearted (or should I say half-assed) pass at the good Doctor; needless to say, it doesn’t work. Rose is off in her own little world (oblivious-land, methinks), and therefore does not notice immediately when the plastic mannequin arm from the night before pops up and starts choking the Doctor. The arm eventually begins choking her (probably because she was being sooo annoying), but the Doctor, darn him, saves her. Again. Then after some running and bantering, the Doc disappears into a blue box.

Well, Miss Rose gets the bright idea to search for information about the Doctor on the web. Um, yeah. Amazingly enough, on her third try, she finds someone who is looking for information about our mysterious friend. The next day, accompanied by the increasingly doofus-like Mickey, she goes to see the man seeking info about the Doctor. Mickey stays outside in the car while Rose talks with the man, named Clive. While in the car, Mickey sees a trash bin starts moving towards the car and goes to investigate (dumbass). He gets sucked into the bin. Meanwhile, Rose learns that the Doctor has apparently been spotted throughout history, generally in places where disaster strikes. Through the magic of piss-poor PhotoShop, we see that the Doctor was at the Kennedy assassination and in Southampton prior to the Titanic sailing. Rose returns to the car and Mademoiselle Oblivious does not seem to notice that Mickey McDoofus has suddenly become a lot more shiny and plastic – he has apparently been replaced by a plastic body double.

Rose and Mickey McPlastic are at a restaurant and Mickey starts acting funny. Not that Rose notices, because it’s all about her. Mickey gets a little rough with Rose and (cue the music) the Doctor rushes to her rescue. Plastic Mickey starts to come after Rose and the Doctor, his plastic arms turning into paddles reminiscent of the Robert Patrick-Terminator. The Doctor runs out of the restaurant and into an alley, where he runs into a blue police box. Rose, rather than following the lead of the man who has already saved her life 3 times, stupidly bangs against a fence and screams and plays damsel in distress. Finally, something cracks her thick skull and she decides to go into the blue box the Doctor went into…and discovers the blue box is actually the quite large TARDIS, the Doctor’s ship. The Doctor activates the ship, and when he and Rose come out of the ship, they are no longer in the alley, but are on the bank of the Thames. Somewhere in all of this, the Doctor explains that the plastic things are being controlled using a transmitted signal, and he needs to find the transmitter. Rose, for once, uses her two brain cells, and suggests that the London Eye might be the transmitter. Sure enough, as Rose and the Doctor learn, below the London Eye, the Nestene Consciousness has taken up residence. Also there is the real Mickey, being kept hostage. The Doctor attempts to reason with the Nestene Consciousness, but is attacked by two plastic henchmen. The Nestene Consciosness sends out a signal that makes all of the mannequins in London become animated and murderous. Jackie happens to be out shopping and finds herself in the line of fire. Back at Casa de Nestene, Mickey blubbers on about wanting to get away and basically wastes the oxygen in the room. Rose, however, decides to help the Doctor (the Doc has a vial of anti-plastic that can kill the Nestene Consciousness) and she ends up vanquishing the Nestene Consciousness. Just in time, too, because Momma Jackie was about to take a plastic pellet to the brain. Instead, she, along with the world, is saved by Rose and the Doctor. Darn them both.

The Doctor takes Mickey and Rose to safety and offers Rose the opportunity to accompany him on some more adventures. Why he wants her to come with him is beyond me – I thought he supposed to be intelligent. Initially, Rose turns him down, stating that she needs to take care of her mother and Mickey (thus making me think about the blind leading the blind). However, she does decide on second thought to accompany the Doctor…and off they go.

Ms. Money’s thoughts: I like the Doctor. Sure, Christopher Eccleston isn’t exactly what I would consider eye candy, but he’s got spunk. He's got charisma. He's got a sonic screwdriver! But Rose – egads! She makes me want to bang my head into the wall. Plus, she’s got this bad habit of breathing with her mouth slightly open that is exceedingly irritating.

I can tell already that I am going to be a charter member of the Anti-Rose Tyler Club.

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