Doctor Who: The End of Time

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Rating 3


Directed by Euros Lyn

Written by Russell T Davies

Starring David Tennant (The Doctor), Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott), John Sim (The Master), Timothy Dalton (Narrator / Lord President), Claire Bloom (The Woman), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Karl Collins (Shaun Temple), David Harewood (Joshua Naismith), Tracy Ifeachor (Abigail Naismith), June Whitfield (Minnie Harper), Sinead Keenan (Addams), Lawry Lewin (Rossiter), Alexandra Moen (Lucy Saxon), Jessica Hynes (Verity Newman), Russell Tovey (Alonso Frame), Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones), Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith), John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Tommy Knight (Luke Smith), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler) and Matt Smith (The Doctor)


The Doctor is summoned to the Ood Sphere, where he learns that the Ood have experienced visions of his arch-nemesis the Master, who he until now believed to be dead. They tell him that something is coming and the end of time is near. The Doctor races back to Earth, arriving on Christmas Eve. Aided by the elderly Wilfred Mott, the grandfather of his last companion Donna Noble, it is now a race against time to stop the Master and, ultimately, the return of the Time Lords themselves.

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‘The End of Time’, broadcast on BBC1 in two one-hour segments on Christmas Day 2009 and New Year’s Day 2010, marks the end of David Tennant’s tenure as the Doctor, as well as providing a farewell to Russell T Davies, the show’s head writer and one of its executive producers since its return in March 2005. The show has proved to be a huge ratings success in that time, a winner with (most) fans and critics alike, and David Tennant is now arguably the most popular Doctor of them all, although each fan will have her or his own particular favourites. Mine will probably always be Jon Pertwee, the Doctor between 1970 and 1974, and Sylvester McCoy, who occupied the role between 1987 and 1989. I would also have liked Christopher Eccleston to have stayed around for a while longer, although his single season does have a very distinctive and quite unique flavour to it.

The show, since its return, was undoubtedly at its peak in the first two seasons – the one with Eccleston and the first season with David Tennant, when Billie Piper was on board as Rose Tyler, the Doctor’s companion and perhaps the most iconic companion since Elisabeth Sladen appeared as Sarah Jane Smith between 1973 and 1976. That character was brought back by Russell T Davies and subsequently given her own series, ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’, which has run for three seasons so far. ‘Torchwood’ is another successful spin-off of the revived show, proving the extent of its enduring popularity. Since the end of season three of ‘Doctor Who’ in July 2008 there have been a number of “specials”, taking the place of a full fifth season. These have proved to be a little hit or miss and it has been difficult not to conclude that the formula set in place by Russell T Davies and the full-on approach of David Tennant has become a little stale at this stage. The same impression lingers during ‘The End of Time’.

I find that the constant frenetic pace can become rather tiring after a while and across two hours it is positively exhausting, although I do appreciate that the intention is to provide exhilarating Christmas entertainment for a widespread family audience. The Master’s appearance here is perhaps not quite as successful as John Sim’s initial appearance in the role at the end of season three and I wasn’t all that keen on having so many of him on the screen at the same time after the Master has become, more or less, every single person on Earth. It sometimes seemed as though Sim and David Tennant had shared a private bet to see who could give the most exaggerated performance, although they are certainly no slouches when it comes to acting ability. The characters Joshua and Abigail Naismith were far too sketchy, particularly given their central roles in the plot early on, as were the two “Vinvocci” aliens, whose presence was rather artificially and unconvincingly engineered as a plot necessity. Even the presence of Bernard Cribbins did not wholly rescue matters, although I have added an extra star rating for giving him such a central role and so much welcome screen time.

For all of the frenzied running around, it was at times strangely flat and rather convoluted, veering too much into metaphysical storytelling for my own tastes. However, for all of these criticisms it ultimately proved to be reasonably successful, although I imagine there will be much debate amongst fans about it, especially those who have been critical of Russell T Davies and his handling of the show – for example, the reference to the Lord President (played by Timothy Dalton) as “Rassilon” is sure to have raised a few eyebrows.

I did like the cameo appearances at the end of the second episode by various departed central characters from the four most recent seasons. This could so easily have been clumsy, but I thought it worked very well and highlighted the lovely emotional undercurrent that exists in the writing style of Russell T Davies at his very best. I am curious about the appearance of Russell Tovey (whose name had at one point been put forward as a possible candidate to take over the lead role when David Tennant announced his departure) and I wonder if there are plans for him to feature in the fourth season of ‘Torchwood’, assuming there is going to be a fourth season.

The regeneration scene before the brief appearance of Matt Smith as the new Doctor was perhaps rather drawn out, but David Tennant has been a particularly successful Doctor and so probably deserves such a send off.

Judged on the extremely high standards that Russell T Davies set for the show, ‘The End of Time’ proved to be slightly disappointing, but it was no less welcome for that and there was a whole host of nice little touches, especially during the closing scenes.

Review posted 2 January 2010


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Doctor Who

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Doctor Who: The Classic Series
Favourite episodes

Doctor Who: Jon Pertwee’s first season (classic series)

Season Seven 1970

Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child (classic series)
Season One 1963

Doctor Who: The War Games (classic series)
Season Six 1969

Doctor Who: Planet of Evil (classic series)

Season Thirteen 1975

Doctor Who: Planet of Fire (classic series)
Season Twenty-One 1984

Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma (classic series)
Season Twenty-One 1984

Doctor Who: The Two Doctors (classic series)
Season Twenty-Two 1985

Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol (classic series)

Season Twenty-Five 1988

Doctor Who: Battlefield (classic series)
Season Twenty-Six 1989

Doctor Who
Revived Show - Introduction

Doctor Who
Season One Episodes

Doctor Who
Season Two Episodes

Doctor Who
Review of Seasons One and Two

Doctor Who: Blink
Season Three
Episode Ten

Doctor Who: Voyage Of The Damned
Christmas Special 2007

Doctor Who: Partners in Crime
Season Four
Episode One

Doctor Who: The Next Doctor
Christmas Special 2008

Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead
Easter Special 2009

Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars
November Special 2009

Doctor Who: The End of Time

Christmas (& New Year) Special 2009

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour
Season Five
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Doctor Who: The Beast Below
Season Five
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Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks
Season Five
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Doctor Who: The Time of Angels and Flesh & Stone
Season Five
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Doctor Who: The Vampires of Venice
Season Five
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Doctor Who: Amy’s Choice
Season Five
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Doctor Who: The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood
Season Five
Episodes Eight and Nine

Doctor Who: Vincent and the Doctor
Season Five
Episode Ten

Doctor Who: The Lodger
Season Five
Episode Eleven

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Doctor Who: Season Four Opening Episode

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Directed by James Strong

Written by Russell T Davies

Starring David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Sarah Lancashire, Bernard Cribbins and Jacqueline King


‘Partners in Crime’, the opening episode of the fourth season of the hugely successful revived Doctor Who, was written by the show’s executive producer Russell T Davies and continues to mine the style he has established for the show ever since its return in March 2005.

Donna (played by Catherine Tate), who we first met in the 2006 Christmas Special ‘The Runaway Bride’, is investigating ‘Adipose Industries’, a mysterious corporation promoting a miracle diet pill. They claim “the fat will just walk away” and that is exactly what does happen. The Doctor (the ever exuberant David Tennant) is also investigating activities at Adipose Industries, now on his own following the departure of his companion Martha (Freema Agyeman, who will return later in the season following her recent stint in the second season of the spin-off show ‘Torchwood’). The Doctor and Donna are reunited and do battle with Miss Foster, an alien “nanny” who is using the excess fat of humans to create babies for her employers, the “Adiposian First Family”.

The episode incorporates all the trademarks of a typical Russell T Davies script, including large doses of tongue-in-cheek humour and commentary about current fads and obsessions – in this case, hysteria about the issue of obesity amongst the population of Britain. There is also plenty of knockabout “Keystone Cops”-style running around, although perhaps this is becoming a little stale now.

Not all fans of the show are fond of Davies’s episodes, complaining that he doesn’t know how to write for Doctor Who, but I think he is a constantly superb television writer.

I have to admit I did not take to Martha in the third season and although I certainly do not hold any hatred for the character, her absence here is not a great loss to me. Donna is okay, although I cannot shake the impression that Catherine Tate is somewhat miscast. Time will tell because she will, I believe, be sticking around for the rest of the season. David Tennant continues to impress in the title role, even if, on reflection, I probably prefer his predecessor Christopher Eccleston.

Sarah Lancashire is good value in her guest role as Miss Foster and it is always a pleasure to see Bernard Cribbins, here playing Donna’s grandfather. There is also a little surprise cameo that will be explored further in later episodes.

'Partners in Crime' attracted an impressive audience of close to 8.5 million, indicating there has been no drop in interest in the show. It’s a good start to a season I hope to enjoy more than the last one (the extraordinary episode ‘Blink’ being a noteworthy exception).




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The Shadow in the North

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Directed by John Alexander

Written by Adrian Hodges from the novel by Philip Pullman

Starring Billie Piper, JJ Feild, Jared Harris, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Matt Smith, John Standing and Hayley Atwell


I somehow managed to miss ‘The Ruby in the Smoke’, the first of the BBC adaptations of the Sally Lockhart Mysteries, when it was shown at Christmas 2006. I have not read any of the four Philip Pullman novels. In fact, I have never read any of Pullman’s work, including the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy, from which the fantasy film ‘The Golden Compass’ is drawn. Therefore, I went into ‘The Shadow in the North’ with little prior knowledge of what to expect.

Pullman has written four Sally Lockhart novels. They are set in Victorian Britain during a ten year period between 1872 and 1882. The BBC plans to adapt all four for television. ‘The Shadow in the North’ is the second book in the series. In the first book the amateur sleuth Sally Lockhart, played by Billie Piper, is just sixteen-years-old. By the time of the second book she is twenty-two and a successful financial consultant.

The 95-minute television adaptation plays like a mixture of Charles Dickens, the Gothic novelist Wilkie Collins (‘The Woman in White’) and Sherlock Holmes, with lashings of extra hokum poured on top for good measure. It particularly reminded me of the 1970 Billy Wilder film ‘The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes’, but that might just be because of the Victorian setting and the theme of destructive invention in the great industrial era of the 19th century.

The story is told at a breakneck pace and might have benefited from a longer running time, possibly being spilt over two parts. The climax of the story seemed a little rushed and didn’t quite manage to achieve the impact that was obviously intended, but the portrayal of Victorian London is a definite plus point and it was never less than an enjoyable hour and a half’s viewing. Some reviews have suggested it doesn’t quite have the charm of ‘The Ruby in the Smoke’, but I am unable to comment on that.

The constantly excellent Billie Piper is a peculiarly modern actress and I don’t think she is especially suited to period costume drama. The ITV adaptation of ‘Mansfield Park’ is a case in point. This might also explain why she was so good in the adaptations of ‘The Miller’s Tale’ and ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, which were both set in the modern day. However, it works to her advantage in ‘The Shadow in the North’ because although Sally is necessarily very straight-laced, prim and proper, she refuses to be held back by the constraints that Victorian society places on her as a woman. It’s just the latest in a sequence of impressive performances by Piper.

I will need to pick up a DVD copy of ‘The Ruby in the Smoke’ – and ‘The Shadow in the North’, allowing me to watch it again – and I now look forward to the third and fourth parts of the series.


Screencap courtesy of billie-piper.net



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Doctor Who: revived show (season one and two review)

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Click here for introduction page
Click here for season one episodes
Click here for season two episodes


“She’s gonna smack you if you keep calling her ‘she’!”
Rose: ‘Dalek’ (s1 e6)


“Some of the old stuff, the patriarchal know-it-all and his helpless companion, that’s been got rid of.”
Christopher Eccleston

To be clear about this, the new Doctor Who is the same as the old show; it has simply been updated in certain areas to make it work now. It’s neither better nor worse. It’s just more digestible for audiences today. The doctor is much the same as he always has been. He’s not the frequently disapproving (old fashioned) patriarchal figure as portrayed by William Hartnell, Jon Pertwee or Sylvester McCoy, but he is just as bad tempered, just as manipulative and just as much of a know-it-all as he ever was.

Rose: “You think you’re so impressive.”
The Doctor: “I am so impressive!”
Rose: “You wish!”
‘The End of the World’ (s1 e2)

The previous companions were not all quite as helpless as is sometimes suggested (“You know how they are, the weaker sex and everything, twisting their ankle on behalf of the little ice-cream cone,” as Frank Zappa once said), but the show was very much of its time and in this post-‘Buffy’ era we have, perhaps, taken a few faltering steps away from all of that.

“Piper is perfect in the role of Dr Who’s sidekick Rose Tyler, conveying a winning mix of streetwise pluck, cool glamour and a kind of been-there, done-that savvy.”
Craig McLean, Daily Telegraph 25 November 2005

It could be argued, in fact should be argued, that the most important feature of the new Doctor Who is the writing of Russell T Davies and his colleagues, but there are all sorts of reasons why the show has been such a huge success. Billie Piper and the character she plays, Rose Tyler, forms just one part of that, but it’s a big piece of the overall jigsaw.

Despite the claims of a small but vocal minority that she is awful and wooden, Billie Piper really can act. Perhaps more importantly, she projects a very real likeability in her performances. I was certainly guilty of being doubtful of the casting when it was first announced. However, it was immediately evident from the first episode onwards that I had been very wrong. I think she may well be the new Queen of Blub – some of the episodes are real emotional rollercoaster rides!

The evidence of her very real talent is clear for everyone to see, not just in Doctor Who but also in ‘The Miller’s Tale’, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and ‘Spirit Trap’, a film in which Piper makes the most of a largely threadbare script.


The old wobbly sets and laughable special effects never bothered me and I can still happily watch old Doctor Who episodes with the glow of nostalgia.

When I was twelve-years-old, watching the show in the Jon Pertwee era, I thought it looked fantastic. Later on, when there was no longer any denying the cut-price quality of it all, it still didn’t bother me in the slightest. It’s all part of the charm of the show and, in fact, they did a tremendous job with next to no resources. It’s the story that counted and during the various times down the years when I was watching I always found it endlessly interesting. The new show apparently has, by BBC standards, a very generous budget, something that is immediately apparent. The sets aren’t wobbling these days like they used to.

I was a bit worried that the “improved” special effects might detract from the charm of the show but that hasn’t been the case. The writing is too good to allow that to happen. The characters and the story is what continues to make it so good.

In the season two episode ‘The Satan Pit’ the doctor discovers a seal deep inside the core of an inhospitable mining planet, a remnant of an ancient and long forgotten civilisation. This is one of several examples of an episode that appears to have its roots in a ‘Buffy’ storyline. As an example, in ‘The Unquiet Dead’, the third episode of season one, a young servant girl is the mystical key that can open and close a rift in time and space, allowing gaseous creatures to pass through from their dead world to the planet Earth.


Rose Tyler is nineteen-years-old and lives with her mum Jackie in a high-rise block on an anonymous council estate. She works on the shop floor of a department store and has a boyfriend called Mickey. When the store is blown up and she finds herself out of a job, Jackie variously suggests that she claim for compensation for traumatic shock, sell her story to the Daily Mirror and get herself a job in the local butchers.

“Well, it might do you good! That shop was giving you airs and graces,” Jackie reasons.

Rose wonders if she should apply for a job in the canteen of the local hospital or go back and take her A-levels. “Is that it, then… dishing out chips?” she says to Mickey.

There are a couple of clever pieces of dialogue in the first two episodes that immediately establish that Rose is not going to be a “helpless (read “brainless”) sidekick. The first one, in ‘Rose’, occurs immediately after her first encounter with the doctor when he has rescued her from a bunch of killer mannequins in the basement of the department store.

Rose: “Very clever, nice trick! Who were they, then, students? Is this a student thing or what?”
The Doctor: “Why would they be students?”
Rose: “I dunno…”
The Doctor: “Well you said it.”
Rose: “Cause… to get that many people dressing up and being silly… they gotta be students.”
The Doctor: “That makes sense! Well done.”

The doctor is patronising, but the point is clear and it quickly becomes evident that Rose isn’t about to “twist her ankle on behalf of the little ice cream cone.” As the show progresses we learn that she’s very inquisitive and independent and perhaps has been stifled by her life up until now. As she says in the voiceover that opens ‘Army of Ghosts’, the penultimate episode of the second season:

“The first nineteen years of my life, nothing happened. Nothing at all. Not ever.”


In ‘The End of the World’, the second episode of the first season, the doctor, trying to impress her, takes her five billions of years into the future to the day when the sun expands and the planet Earth is destroyed.

Rose: “But, hold on, they did this once on Newsround Extra - the sun expanding - that takes hundreds of years.”
The Doctor: “Millions. But the planet’s now the property of the National Trust. They’ve been keeping it preserved. See down there? Gravity satellite. That’s holding back the sun.”
Rose: “The planet looks the same as ever. I thought the continents shifted and things.”
The Doctor: “They did. And the Trust shifted them back. That’s a classic Earth. But now the money’s run out, nature takes over.”

This scene, and two others later on in the episode, forming the three parts of a trilogy, is important to establishing a theme for the season. It also tells us a great deal about Rose. This is her very first trip with the doctor and has followed immediately on from the events of the opening episode.

As the second episode progresses she does become overwhelmed by the situation she finds herself in. As she tells the one person she can relate to, a young female worker on the observation platform, with increasing alarm in her voice, “I just, sort of, hitched a ride with this man. I didn’t even think about it… I don’t even know who he is… he’s a complete stranger…” However, she is not overawed by the idea of travelling into the future and seeing this incredible spectacle. To use something the film director James Toback once said, she’s restlessly inclined to new discovery. She might get her information from Newsround Extra, but it’s the right information, she remembers it and she constantly questions things. She isn’t prepared to just accept what is spoon-fed to her.

‘The End of the World’ is an episode that gets better each time I watch it. There is a theme running through the season that doesn’t become entirely clear until the end of all thirteen episodes. It means that each episode unlocks new information and subtleties in the writing on each new viewing. We learn that the doctor fought on the front line of the last great time war, which saw his people wiped out. He is the last remaining Time Lord and travels the universe on his own. He is war-weary and jaded, possibly even shell-shocked. He carries around an enormous amount guilt and anger inside. He can be callous and cruel, but his compassion is still present, as is his lust for adventure. Rose gives new meaning to his life.

At the end of the second episode Rose is upset that nobody actually saw the Earth being destroyed because they were too busy saving themselves. The Doctor takes her back to her own time and they stand in the middle of a crowded street, while he confesses to her that he is the sole survivor of a terrible war. He asks if she wants him to take her home.

The Doctor: “You’ve seen how dangerous it is. Do you want to go home?”
Rose: “I don’t know. I want… Oh! Can you smell chips? I want chips!”
The Doctor: “Me, too.”
Rose: “Right then, before you get me back in that box, chips it is… and you can pay.”
The Doctor: “No money.”
Rose: “What sort of date are you? Come on, tightwad, chips are on me.”

Rose falls in love with the doctor (“Quite right, too,” as he tells her during their final emotionally traumatic meeting at the end of the season two finale ‘Doomsday’). That much is clear, although she occasionally tries to deny it, continues to cling onto her boyfriend Mickey, has a brief fling with a boy called Adam and is very flirtatious with Captain Jack.

Captain Jack: “Tricky thing, psychic paper.”
Rose: “Yeah… can’t let your mind wonder when you’re handing it over.”
Captain Jack: “Oh, you ‘sort of’ have a boyfriend called Mickey Smith but you consider yourself to be footloose and fancy free.”
Rose: “Wha…”
Captain Jack: “Actually, the word you use is ‘available’.”
Rose: “No way!”
Captain Jack: “And another one - ‘very’!”

The doctor’s feelings are sometimes more difficult to gage. At the time of their very first meeting he is patronising and simply wants to be rid of her.

“I’m going to go up there and blow them up and I might well die in the process. But don’t worry about me, no. Go home… go on! Go and have your lovely beans on toast.”

However, he is clearly very lonely and he constantly tries to impress her.

Rose: “Who are you?”
The Doctor: “I told you. The Doctor.”
Rose: “Yeah, but Doctor what?”
The Doctor: “Just the Doctor.”
Rose: “The Doctor?”
The Doctor: “Hello!”
Rose: “Is that supposed to sound impressive?”
The Doctor: “Sort of.”
‘Rose’ (s1 e2)

Having taken her forward in time in ‘The End of the Word’, the doctor continues to try to impress her by taking her back in time in ‘The Quiet Undead’.

The Doctor: “I got the flight a bit wrong.”
Rose: “I don’t care.”
The Doctor: “It’s not 1860, it’s 1869.”
Rose: “I don’t care!”
The Doctor: “And it’s not Naples.”
Rose: “I don’t care.”
The Doctor: “It’s Cardiff.”
Rose: “…Right…”

Later on in the same episode, his feelings are more open.

Rose: “We’ll go down fighting, yeah? Together?”
The Doctor: “I’m so glad I met you.”

‘The Unquiet Dead’ sees Rose once again form a bond with the person she most identifies with, a young scullery maid called Gwyneth. Having given Sneed, the owner of the funeral parlour where Gwyneth is employed, a piece of her mind, “First of all you drug me, then you kidnap me, and don’t think I didn’t feel your hands having a quick wander, you dirty old man,” she is quick to protect Gwyneth in the face of the doctor’s apparent insensitivity.

“I’ve told you, leave her alone. She’s exhausted and she’s not fighting your battles.”

Having said that, it doesn’t mean she is impervious to making judgements of her own.

Rose: “I don’t care. They’re not using her.”
Gwyneth: “Don’t I get a say, miss?”
Rose: “Look, you don’t understand what’s going on.”
Gwyneth: “You would say that, miss. Because that’s very clear inside your head that you think I’m stupid.”
Rose: “That’s not fair!”
Gwyneth: “It’s true, though. Things might be very different where you’re from. But here and now, I know my own mind.”

This is an interesting episode because it’s a good example of the theme of ethical responsibility that weaves its way through the season, as the doctor’s mix of carefree adventurism and dark introspection is constantly brought into sharp focus and Rose is left to question his apparently very alien sense of morality. It doesn’t hurt, of course, to have an actor as good as Christopher Eccleston in the central role.

Rose: “It’s just… wrong! Those bodies were living people! We should respect them… even in death.”
The Doctor: “Do you carry a donor card?”
Rose: “That’s different, that’s…”
The Doctor: “It’s different, yeah. It’s a different morality. Get used to it or go home.”

The doctor is very callous and his reasoning is deeply suspect because he is driven by guilt. The gaseous creatures begging for his help have manipulated him, using his guilt to trick him into serving their purpose. However, it isn’t quite that simple, because only one thing can close the rift and whatever he does, ultimately he must condemn Gwyneth to death.

The doctor has become embittered by the war, but Rose helps to restore his faith in humanity and he is increasingly forced to question his own moral centre, something that is particularly relevant in season one episodes like ‘Dalek’, ‘Boom Town’ and ‘The Parting of the Ways’.

It is looked at in a slightly different way near to the end of ‘The Doctor Dances’, when he shouts out, “Everybody lives, Rose! Everybody lives!” It is one of the very few occasions when the choice is so easy and it focuses attention on the difficult decisions he constantly has to make.

A theme that is present throughout both seasons is the conflict Rose constantly faces between the adventure with the doctor and her old life back on Earth, as viewed through the eyes of her mum Jackie, her boyfriend Mickey, and her own internal feelings of loss and grief about her dad Pete, who died when she was just a baby.

Near to the beginning of ‘The Quiet Undead’, when the Tardis has materialised in what they think is Naples, Rose says:

“That’s so weird… it’s Christmas. But, it’s like… think about it, though. Christmas. 1860. Happens once. Just once and it’s gone. It’s finished. It’ll never happen again. Except for you. You can go back and see days that are dead and gone and a hundred thousand sunsets ago… no wonder you never stay still.”

Going back to the opening episode, ‘Rose’, as the episode comes to an end the doctor says, “Right then, I’ll be off! Unless, uh… I don’t know… you could come with me.” Mickey, who is terrified, crumpled to the ground and clinging onto Rose for dear life, exclaims, “Don’t! He’s an alien! He’s a thing!”

Rose: “Is it always this dangerous?”
The Doctor: “Yeah.”
Rose: “Yeah, I can’t… I, um… gotta go and find my mum and, um… someone’s gotta look after this stupid lummox… so…”

Mickey is initially presented to us as being rather hapless, easy going but seemingly without any ambitions and quite content to simply drift along. The ninth doctor (Christopher Eccleston) constantly winds him up by calling him “Ricky” and the tenth doctor (David Tennant) takes to referring to him as “Mickey the Idiot”. Without question, this condescending attitude is partly driven by jealousy. What is clear is that Mickey genuinely cares about Rose and while his willingness to always wait for her might, on the surface, make him appear to be rather weak, he adds an interesting dynamic to the narrative.

“You left me! We were nice! We were happy! And then what, you give me a kiss and you run off with him and you make me feel like nothing, Rose. I was nothing! I can’t even go out with a stupid girl from a shop because you pick up the phone and I come running. I mean, is that what I am, Rose, standby? Am I just supposed to sit here for the rest of my life, waiting for you? Because I will.” ‘Boom Town’ (s1 e11)

Rose’s mum Jackie is, much like Mickey, initially presented to us as a slightly comic figure, but as we learn more about her in later episodes she evolves into a much more substantial character.

In ‘Rose’, after the department store where her daughter works has been blown up, she revels in the attention it brings, gossiping with friends on the phone.

“I know! It’s on the telly! It’s everywhere! She’s lucky to be alive! Honestly, it’s aged her. Skin like an old bible. Walking in now you’d think I was her daughter!”

In the same episode she has her first encounter with the doctor (she has no idea who or what he is) when he turns up at the flat.

Jackie: “I’m in my dressing gown.”
The Doctor: “Yes, you are.”
Jackie: “There’s a strange man in my bedroom.”
The Doctor: “Yes, there is.”
Jackie: “Well, anything could happen.”
The Doctor: “…No…”

However, there is one thing above all else that must remembered about Jackie. She brought up Rose on her own and the person Rose has grown up to become rather speaks for itself. There is a very interesting conversation between Jackie and her daughter in ‘Army of Ghosts’ in season two.

Jackie: “When I’m dead and buried, you won’t have any reason to come back. What happens then?”
Rose: “I don’t know.”
Jackie: “Do you think you’ll ever settle down?”
Rose: “The doctor never will, so I can’t. I’ll just keep on travelling.”
Jackie: “And you’ll keep on changing. And in forty years time, fifty, there’ll be this woman… this strange woman… walking through the market place on some strange planet a billion miles from Earth. She’s not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She’s not even human…”


There is never any question of the love Jackie feels for her daughter, or the love that Rose has for her. In ‘Aliens of London’, the fourth episode of the first season, the doctor and Rose return for the first time since the events of the first episode. By the doctor’s calculations, twelve hours have passed. However, as is so often the case, a theme long existing in the show, his calculations are wrong and, in fact, it has now been twelve months.

Rose has been missing for a whole year and her mum and friends have been left not knowing where she is or what has happened to her. Only Mickey knows the truth and his knowledge that she has been “abducted” by an alien isn’t helping him. He is the main suspect connected to the disappearance and is ostracised and worse on the estate.

Mickey: “You disappear. Who do they turn to? Your boyfriend! Five times I was taken in for questioning. Five times. No evidence, of course. There couldn’t be, could there? And then I get her… your mother. Whispering around the estate, pointing the finger, stuff through my letterbox… and all ‘cause of you!”
Rose: “I didn’t think I’d be gone so long.”
Mickey: “And I was waiting for you, Rose! Twelve months. Waiting for you and the doctor to come back.”
Jackie: “Hold on! You knew about the doctor? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Mickey: “Yeah, yeah, why not Rose, huh? How could I tell her where you went?”

This is something the show paid little more than lip-service to in the past, the consequences of leaving a life behind to go off with the doctor, but Russell T Davies made it clear it was paramount to the story he wanted to tell.

The Doctor: “Nine hundred years of time and space and I’ve never been slapped by someone’s mother.”
Rose: “Your face…”
The Doctor: “It hurt!”
Rose: “You’re so gay!”

Doctor Who is targeted at a family audience and Russell T Davies clearly states that he writes it primarily for the children watching, although there is a sizeable adult audience of people who grew up with the show and remain loyal to it. It is estimated that the core adult “online” fanbase, those people who remained committed when the original show came to an end, routinely buying the monthly magazine, the various novels, the audio tapes, videos and DVDs, as well as tuning into the radio productions and the 1996 film, amounts to about eight thousand.

The new show has an average audience of about eight million, or 13.5% of the total population of the UK. It’s shown on Saturday teatime. It’s a show about a Time Lord who travels around in time and space and has lots of adventures in which he encounters a variety of weird and wonderful (or silly) aliens. It is not a hugely complex character study and yet that is exactly what is happening. The revived show features everything expected of Doctor Who, but the stories are very much character driven.


Christopher Eccleston’s doctor is almost a kind of ‘Ethan Edwards’ type character and Eccleston is a perfect actor to portray someone like this. All of his guilt and anger and fear and darkness comes spilling out in the sixth episode, ‘Dalek’.

The Doctor: “Get out of the way! Rose, get out of the way… now!”
Rose: “No, ‘cause I won’t let you do this!”
The Doctor: “That thing killed hundreds of people!”
Rose: “It’s not the one pointing the gun at me.”
The Doctor: “I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to end it. The Daleks destroyed my home, my people. I’ve got nothing left.”

Rose: “It couldn’t kill Van Statten… it couldn’t kill me. It’s changing. What about you, doctor? What the hell are you changing into?”

Rose will question and challenge the doctor, but equally she is not perfect. The more wrapped up she becomes in the adventure, the more she is inclined to take her mum for granted. She clearly cares for Mickey, but her treatment of him is questionable and she certainly doesn’t give enough regard to his feelings.

In ‘School Reunion’, the third episode of season two, the doctor is unexpectedly reunited with Sarah Jane Smith and K9, while investigating strange occurrences in a school, something that interestingly he and Rose have been alerted to by Mickey. There is immediate antipathy between Rose and Sarah Jane.

Sarah Jane: “You can tell you’re getting older. Your assistants are getting younger.”
Rose: “I’m not his assistant!”

Rose: “I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but who exactly are you?”
Sarah Jane: “Sarah Jane Smith. I used to travel with the doctor.”
Rose: “Oh! Well, he’s never mentioned you.”
The Doctor: “Oh, I must have done! Sarah Jane… Mention her all the time.”
Rose: “Hold on… sorry… never.”

Rose: “Look, no offence, but could you two just stop petting for a minute? Never mind the tin dog, we’re busy!”

Mickey takes great delight in all of this, telling her, “See, what’s impressive is that it’s been nearly an hour since we met her and I still haven’t said, ‘I told you so!’ Although, I have prepared a little ‘I was right’ dance I can show you later. All this time you’ve been giving it, ‘He’s different’… when the truth is, he’s just like any other bloke!”

The episode has already seen Mickey on the receiving end of the doctor’s dismissive and condescending attitude towards him.

Mickey: “Sorry! Sorry, it was only me. You told me to investigate, so I started looking through some of these cupboards and all of these fell out of them.”
Rose: “Oh my God! They’re rats. Dozens of rats. Vacuum packed rats!”
The Doctor: “And you decided to scream?”
Mickey: “It took me by surprise!”
The Doctor: “Like a little girl?”
Mickey: “It was dark! I was covered in rats!”
The Doctor: “Nine, maybe ten years old. I’m seeing pigtails, frilly skirt…”

When Mickey’s chance comes to give the doctor a taste of his own medicine, he grabs it with both hands.

“Ho, ho, mate! The missus and the ex. Welcome to every man’s worst nightmare.”

But the truth finally hits him.

Mickey: “So, what’s the deal with the tin dog?”
Sarah Jane: “The doctor likes travelling with an entourage. Sometimes their humans, sometimes they’re aliens and sometimes… they’re tin dogs. What about you? Where do you fit in the picture?”
Mickey: “Me? I’m their Man in Havana. I’m the technical support, I’m… Oh my God! I’m the tin dog!”

The truth is also beginning to dawn on Rose.

Rose: “How many of us have there been, travelling with you?”
The Doctor: “Does it matter?”
Rose: “Yeah, it does, if I’m just the latest in a long line…”
The Doctor: “As opposed to what?”
Rose: “I thought you and me were… but I obviously got it wrong. I’ve been to the year five billion, right, but this… now this is really seeing the future. You just leave us behind. Is that what you’re going to do to me?”

Rose does display a rather callous attitude towards Mickey, constantly flaunting the doctor in front of him and allowing her feelings to be known, while still giving Mickey reasons to cling onto the hope that she might return to him. She persuades Mickey to travel to Cardiff to see her on a false pretext in the season one episode ‘Boom Town’, but when he arrives he discovers that she is now not only travelling with the doctor but also Captain Jack. As Mickey quite reasonably asks, “What are you Captain of, the Innuendo Squad?”

Mickey (talking to Rose): “You look fantastic!”
Captain Jack: “Aww, sweet, look at these two. How come I never get any of that?”
The Doctor: “Buy me a drink first.”
Captain Jack: “You’re such hard work.”
The Doctor: “But worth it.”

When Rose is tricked by the doctor in ‘The Parting of the Ways’ and sent back to Earth to save her from a certain death, honouring a promise he made to Jackie, she is distraught and once again she tramples all over Mickey’s feelings.

Mickey: “You’ve got to start living your own life. You know, a proper life, like the kind he’s never had. The sort of life you could have with me… … Rose, if you go back you’re gonna die.”
Rose: “That’s a risk I’ve gotta take, ‘cause there’s nothing left for me here.”
Mickey: “Nothing?”
Rose: “No.”

At the very end of ‘The Parting of the Ways’, the final episode of the first season, the doctor regenerates into his tenth incarnation. The immediate aftermath of this is dealt with in a mini-episode shown as part of the BBC ‘Children in Need’ appeal and then immediately continues when the Tardis crash lands on the council estate where Jackie and Mickey live on Christmas Eve at the beginning of the episode ‘A Christmas Invasion’.

Rose: “Send him back. I’m warning you, send him back right now… … Can you change back?”
The (New) Doctor: “Do you want me to?”
Rose: “Yeah.”
The Doctor: “Oh.”
Rose: “Can you?”
The Doctor: “No.”


As ‘A Christmas Invasion’ begins Jackie is decorating a Christmas tree. She sits down and holds a wrapped present in her lap, a sad and pensive expression on her face. The gift tag shows that it is for Rose. The last time she saw her daughter, she was taking the Tardis back into the distant future in a desperate attempt to save the doctor, stop the Daleks and prevent the Earth from being destroyed and all the people on it wiped out. The likely scenario was that Rose would die and her mum and Mickey were left behind with no way of knowing what had happened. The show does deal with the consequences of the big adventure.

Of course, Russell T Davies is also fond of his ‘Carry on Doctor Who’ moments. The doctor spends much of ‘A Christmas Invasion’ in a comatose state, lying on a bed in Jackie’s flat. Rose checks that his hearts are still beating.

Rose: “Both working.”
Jackie: “What do you mean, both?”
Rose: “He’s got two hearts.”
Jackie: “Oh, don’t be stupid!”
Rose: “He has!”
Jackie: “Anything else he’s got two of?”
Rose: “Leave him alone!”

The 2006 Christmas special, ‘The Runaway Bride’, kicks off the third season that will then premiere with the first episode proper sometime around March 2007. This will be the first season without Rose, Jackie and Mickey.

It’s the way the show has always been, but Rose will be a hard act to follow. There is a real case for saying she might just be the best fellow traveller yet – although, of course, Sarah Jane was a hard act to follow and the show managed that. The new companion (sorry, I’m just used to the term) is a character called Martha Jones. Her family - parents, brother and sister - will all feature in season three.

Rose’s story was brilliantly told and two seasons is just right, leaving us wanting more. She will never run the risk of outstaying her welcome.



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Doctor Who: revived show (season two episodes)

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Click here for introduction page
Click here for season one episodes
Click here for a review of seasons one and two


Executive Producers Russell T Davies and Julia Gardiner

Written by Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat and others

Starring Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, Camille Coduri, Noel Clarke and Shaun Dingwall


The second season, like the first one, also consists of thirteen episodes, five written by Russell T Davies, in addition to the 2005 Christmas Special, the episode that introduced David Tennant as the tenth doctor following his cameo appearance at the very end of ‘The Parting of the Ways’ (season one finale).


CS A Christmas Invasion
The new doctor spends most of this episode in a comatose state, leaving Rose, her mother Jackie and boyfriend Mickey to contend with an alien invasion of Earth, complete with a killer Christmas tree. It’s not a universally popular episode. I like it.


1 New Earth
This is the official opening episode of the second season and sees the doctor take Rose to ‘New New York’ on the planet New Earth, five billion years into the future. It references back to ‘Survival’, the final story broadcast in the original show. Once again, it was not particularly well received by all fans, but I really enjoyed this one.


2 Tooth and Claw
This is probably one of the most popular episodes of season two, a werewolf story set in an isolated house in the wilds of Scotland, featuring Queen Victoria (played by Pauline Collins) and a bunch of Ninja Monks! The special effects are, to my inexpert eyes, very impressive, and it’s a great rollicking story. This is also the episode in which the ‘Torchwood Institute’ is established.


3 School Reunion
Anthony Stewart Head is the sinister headmaster of a nondescript school that suddenly has an inexplicable increase in academic achievement. The doctor poses as a psychics teacher to investigate and Rose is consigned to the school canteen as a ‘dinner lady’, much to her disgust. Sarah Jane Smith (the most famous of all the doctor’s companions) and K9 are involved and Mickey realises that he is the new “tin dog”. There is a whole lot of interesting stuff here as Rose, who doesn’t take too kindly to Sarah Jane’s presence, discovers she is just the latest in a long line of companions. Tony Head is great value as the evil headmaster who is actually a kind of giant alien vampire bat.

Sarah Jane Smith was the companion in seasons 11 to 14 of the original show, spanning the period 1973 to 1976. Following on from ‘School Reunion’, the BBC commissioned ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’, a spin-off show created by Russell T Davies and primarily targeted at a younger audience.

The Doctor: “I don’t age, I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone who you…”
Rose: “What? Doctor?”
The Doctor: “You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can’t spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on… alone.”


4 The Girl in the Fireplace
This is an episode written by Steven Moffat and another one with a historical setting, in this case the Court of Versailles and centred on Madame de Pompadour. I like this episode a lot and would probably count it as one of my favourites, but it got mixed reviews and generally it really wasn’t very popular. Personally, I thought it was a very clever and wistful story, which once again touches on the fact that the doctor can never find lasting love because everyone around him eventually dies and he has to carry on living alone with the memory.


5 / 6 Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel
A two-parter set in an alternative-universe Britain (veering towards ‘Nineteen-Eighty-Four’), which sees the return of the Cybermen. Much like the Daleks, I’m not a huge fan of the Cybermen, although I remember liking them in an old 1960s Patrick Troughton story (there were four in total).

It’s done very well, if maybe not quite as successfully as the return of the Daleks in season one. The performance of Roger Lloyd-Pack, playing a character who seems to be a kind of hybrid of Dr Strangelove and Howard Hughes, was not well liked by a lot of fans, but I think it was part of an attempt to achieve a very specific feel, drawing on influences like ‘Metropolis’ and old Saturday morning serials. The performance should be viewed in this context.


7 The Idiot’s Lantern
This is another episode that got very mixed reviews but I thought it was wonderful. It’s set at the time of the Coronation (of Queen Elizabeth II) in 1953, which acted as the catalyst for the sudden increase in popularity of television as a means of communication, one of the main themes here. Maureen Lipman plays the evil soul-sucking entity trapped inside the television signal. The commentary about social values and patriarchal authority is very interesting.

A great deal of effort was put into ensuring everything was as authentic as possible and it looks brilliant.


8 / 9 The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit
The second two-parter of season two. The doctor discovers the seal that leads down into the hellmouth under Sunnydale High. Hang on, wrong show! Actually, this seal is much bigger, over thirty-feet across, and is located near to the core of a mining planet on the farthest reaches of the universe, defying all laws of psychics by orbiting a black hole.

The evil that awaits beneath is the Beast 666. These are great episodes, the special effects are very impressive, complete with a 1950’s-style space rocket - and quite frankly it’s all a million times better than ‘Serenity’.


10 Love and Monsters
This surreal comedy episode is centred on Elton the ELO fan. Not all Doctor Who fans like to see Russell T Davies “fuck with the formula” and it attracted a lot of criticism. It also received a lot of praise. It’s a fantastic, funny, clever and intriguing 40 minutes.


11 Fear Her
Set in London in 2012 in the days leading up to the Olympic Games, this tells the story of a lonely child who has the ability to trap people inside the pictures she draws. It’s an interesting idea, but it doesn’t quite work and ultimately the story is somewhat hijacked by the setting. It’s probably the weakest episode so far since the show was revived.


12 / 13 Army of Ghosts / Doomsday

“Planet Earth. This is where I was born. And this is where I died…

The first nineteen years of my life, nothing happened. Nothing at all. Not ever. And then a met a man called the Doctor, a man who could change his face. And he took me away from home in his magical machine. He showed me the whole of time and space. I thought it would never end… That’s what I thought. But then came the army of ghosts. Then came Torchwood and the war. And that’s when it all ended. This is the story of how I died.”

Thus goes the traumatising voiceover from the opening pre-credit sequence that begins the two-part season finale. Much was made of the fact this is the first time in the history of the show that the Daleks and Cybermen have featured in the same story.

Rose gets a fabulous and very emotional send-off that takes up much of the final twenty-minutes of ‘Doomsday’. It’s a decent Doctor Who story taken to another level altogether during that wonderful closing segment. And yet there are still people out there who cling onto the misguided idea that Billie Piper can’t act!



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Doctor Who: revived show (introduction)

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Click here for season one episodes
Click here for season two episodes
Click here for review of seasons one and two

Rose: “You were useless in there! You’d be dead if it wasn’t for me!”
The Doctor: “Yes, I would. Thank you. Right then, I’ll be off! Unless, uh… I don’t know… you could come with me.”

The original Doctor Who was cancelled in December 1989 after twenty-six seasons, having begun in November 1963. It was and remains the longest running sci-fi show in the world ever. Seven actors had played the title role during that time and the only break came in 1985 when no episodes were broadcast at the insistence of Michael Grade, then controller of BBC1, who disliked the show and thought it had no place on the channel.

That wasn’t exactly the end of the story until the arrival of the new show. In between times, there had been the 1995 straight-to-video film ‘Downtime’ with Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney, veterans of the Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker eras. The BBC commissioned several radio productions, with the voice of the doctor variously provided by Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann and Richard E Grant. McGann, of course, played the doctor in the ill-fated 1996 BBC/Fox TV film version, alongside Eric Roberts as the Master, one of the show’s most celebrated villains. It wasn’t a complete disaster but it did misfire on several counts. The ongoing video and DVD releases have been very successful and the search continues for the lost episodes, wiped during the wholesale clearout of the BBC archives in the 1970s.

Julie Gardner, the head of drama at BBC Wales, commissioned the revived show in 2003, acting as co-executive producer alongside Russell T Davies, the head writer. Davies began his career as a writer for children’s television and was briefly a story consultant on ‘Coronation Street’, but came to prominence as the creator, producer and writer of ‘Queer As Folk’. His other work includes ‘Second Coming’ (starring Christopher Eccleston) and ‘Casanova’ (starring David Tennant).

There was a lot of speculation who would play the doctor in the new show. Richard E Grant and Anthony Stewart Head were thought to be the most likely candidates. The announcement that Christopher Eccleston, who is considered to be rather a serious and intense actor, had been cast in the role came as a surprise to most people. This was soon overshadowed by the announcement that Billie Piper would play the doctor’s companion; a piece of casting that was greeted with deep suspicion by many, myself included.

How very wrong we were.

Russell T Davies was very specific that although the show would revolve around the doctor, the central focus would be his companion, Rose Tyler. He gave her a family (mother, boyfriend and dead father) to ground the story in reality and used this to explore the nature of the doctor who, as portrayed by Christopher Eccleston in particular, is someone who harbours a great deal of repressed guilt and anger and is often capable of being callous and cruel. He is alone in the universe and Rose gives him love. In very basic terms, the doctor is lonely and Rose is stuck in a rut. They gave each other new hope and a renewed sense of shared purpose.

The Doctor: “My planet’s gone. It’s dead. It burned like the Earth. It’s just rocks and dust, before it’s time… I’m the last of the Time Lords. They’re all gone; I’m the only survivor. I’m left travelling on my own because there’s no one else.”
Rose: “There’s me.”

The new show premiered on BBC1 on 26 March 2005.

I am a lifelong fan of the show, although I certainly would not claim to have an expert knowledge about it. I can remember watching it as far back as the Patrick Troughton era (1966-69) and my favourite doctor is Jon Pertwee. I had a huge schoolboy crush on Katy Manning, who played Jo Grant, companion to Pertwee’s doctor between 1971 and 1973. I also have a soft spot for Sylvester McCoy. His tenure as the doctor is not universally well liked but I have very fond memories of the four stories told across fourteen episodes that make up his second season (the final season of the original show). The near-total absence of any budget is very evident and the stories frequently verge on the incomprehensible, but there was no shortage of ideas at work and the episodes have an interesting dreamlike quality to them.

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