Doctor Who (2005) 1-01: Rose

Episode:

697

|

Serial:

157

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Air Date:

26-Mar-2005

---

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about Rose, the first episode of modern Doctor Who. Because after writing about the first eight Doctors it seemed a shame not to write about a Ninth Doctor story.

It's kind of amazing to me that this actually features the actual Ninth Doctor instead of a new First Doctor, and they didn't reset the continuity despite the huge gap between stories. This aired 9 years after the TV movie and 15 years after the final episode of the classic series. Doesn't quite beat the 18 year gap between Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Original Series but it's pretty close.

Here's some more facts for you, to save me from writing an actual introduction:

• This is the first of just three episodes of Doctor Who to have a companion's name in the title (four if you count the Feast of Steven chapter of The Daleks' Master Plan). The others are Smith and Jones and Amy's Choice.
• The episode had the shortest title in all of Doctor Who's then 42-year history until it was beaten a couple of years later by an episode called 42. I don't think that one's in any risk of getting outdone any time soon.
• If they'd kept the numbering, this would've been the first episode of season 27.
• It's the first season opener since The Ribos Operation in 1978 to introduce a new companion, and the first to also introduce a new Doctor in the same story since 1970's Spearhead from Space.
• It's the first story since Mission to the Unknown in 1965 to not feature a single returning actor (even the TV movie had Sylvester McCoy).
• It was directed by Keith Boak, the same guy who did the farting aliens in the Aliens of London two-parter and then never came back. Though to be fair he didn't write it. The episode was written by Russell T Davies, the same guy who wrote the farting aliens in the Aliens of London two-parter. Also the producer for this era.
• I'm not actually sure if I watched this episode on the day it aired, the only Doctor Who I'd seen at that point was the 1996 TV movie, so I wasn't exactly hyped. But it seems very plausible that I walked into a room with it on, saw a wheelie bin burp and then walked back out again. (I watched it a few years later though).

This is going to be a full recap review commentary full of screencaps and SPOILERS, so I'd suggest watching the episode first before reading it. In fact, to be safe you should probably watch all 696 classic episodes as well, even though I'm sure any spoilers I drop about them will be incredibly minor. And I'll be spoiling absolutely nothing about episodes that aired after it; I won't even say the words 'bad wolf' because there's no reference to them in this story at all.