No geek
is an island

A review, then. Contains spoilers.

The music starts, then time tunnel titles appear. You get a tingle.

And then a day of Rose Tyler’s life, compressed into a minute or so. High-paced, quickly establishing the character and those around her. She heads off to the basement of Henrik’s, the shop where she works (played in the show by Howell’s department store, Cardiff), to look for Wilson (which I like to think, probably erroneously, is a reference to Donald Wilson, oversaw the creation of the series in the 60s). The music stops and the eeriest scene of the show begins. A red sofa sits quietly in the corner of the screen, inviting us to take cover. (This episode features the highest count of sofas in any Doctor Who story.)

The Doctor appears, introduced in exactly the right way. Rose runs from the building and passes a blue box on the street. Another tingle and an excellent way to introduce the TARDIS.

Now at home, Rose’s life is fantastically real. Her mum (a performance that seems to have divided fans) could be straight out of EastEnders, which in some respects is damning with faints praise. But Rose, her mum and Rose’s boyfriend Mickey speak like real people, with the little comedy gems coming naturally from the characters (”I know she is Greek but that’s not the point”). The store blaze is on BBC News 24 (which calls Henrik’s “Henrick’s” in its strap).

I didn’t catch first time, although on watching again it was quite clear, that the dismembered arm has got back in through the catflap (note for the geeks: Catflap was a working title for Survival, the last episode of the original series).

Then a wonderful single tracking shot, following Rose and the Doctor’s conversation as they walk from outside her flat. Lovely interaction, gentle humour - Eccleston hits the spot as the Doctor here. At the end of the scene, he tells Rose to go home but clearly already wants her to come with him. He hasn’t got over his tendency to abduct young women.

Rose track the Doctor down online (using TV world search engine search-wise.net) and meets Clive, who’s been tracking the Doctor on his website (”She? She’s been looking at a website about the Doctor and she’s a she?” asks his wife). I’ve read other reviews that questioned Clive’s inclusion but his inclusion works on several levels. Apart from poking a bit of fun at fans, he also helps to imbue the Doctor with more mystery and, at the end of the scene, he succeeds in making the Doctor’s travels sound scary. The dramatic irony, of course, is that it is Clive who dies, and this is his other role: to show that in this new series likeable characters will die. Without Clive, extras and an unseen electrician would have been the Autons’ only victims.

Mark Benton, who played Clive, appeared in Russell T. Davies’s Second Coming, playing a character with the surname Tyler.

On second viewing, the pace didn’t seem quite so fast. Indeed, the underground denouement seemed very slightly slow. But the end, turning on its head the finale of the 1996 TV movie (the McGann Doctor invites Grace to join him and she says no, but he doesn’t come back and convince her), is great. The “please, sir, can I have some more?” feeling that comes with the best TV is absolutely there.

Billie Piper, on screen throughout, carries the episode unlike any Who companion since Ian and Barbara. Christopher Eccleston strikes the right, eccentric balance between toughness and cheeriness. Rose does everything the new series’ first needed and shows why Russell T. Davies is considered one of the best TV writers in the country. It has set a high standard for the rest of the series and I can’t wait.

Well, it really was Doctor Who, wasn’t it? And it seemed to manage the difficult task of trying to fit a story around all the necessary introductions. Next week (and wasn’t the teaser enticing? I want to watch it now!) will in many ways, I suspect, be more indicative of how the show will work from week to week.

The documentary earlier in BBC One had loads of clips that looked really impressive.

No time for a full review now. Hopefully the video at home will have taped the show so I can watch it again and come to a proper judgement. I watched it last night in a pub with a load of other fans (including several of the new series writers) after a few drinks, so a more sober viewing is in order. But I expect to do that and still think it was very good.

In the mean time, you can read Nick’s review.

(An off-the-wall post script: Does anyone else think Russell T. Davies sounds like Chris Rennard?)

Last night I ended up as an extra in a music video. Depending how good the video is, I may elaborate at a later date.

Today I was much less showbiz and traipsed round south London delivering leaflets.

I have taken to snacking on seeds after accidentally catching an episode of All You Can Eat (or whatever it’s called) on Channel 4 on Wedneday night. It reminds me of the line “You eat like a bird” from Psycho. I don’t imagine it will last.

One day to go to Doctor Who! How fitting that the show should be resurrected at Easter giving the literally religious following it has from some of the more extreme fans (”and on the Saturday we watched Rose from the sofa”, etc.).

Speaking of which, here’s a gag from Tory Trouble:

What do you call extremists who crucify themselves on Good Friday?

The Tory party.

Off to London for drinking, delivering and Doctor Who so don’t except much blogging until next week.

In the meantime, I’m thinking about moving from Blogger to WordPress. Any comments as to whether to take the plunge would be very welcome.

A number of blogs on my blogroll (including three by elected LibDems) are nominated in the Guardian’s Backbencher Political Weblog Awards. Vote away!

This was going to be a thoughtful consideration of the effect of the new series of Doctor Who (3 days to go!) on fans’ views of the 1996 TV movie but Blogger ate that when my internet connection disconnected itself. I’ll briefly summarise what I wrote.

The basic premise was that the new series has inherited the goodwill directed towards the McGann TV movie. (New series trailer on BBC Four as I type.) I re-watched the TV movie last night and all the benefit of the doubt I had given it in the past melted away. Direction aside (it’s one of the better directed Who stories), it was rubbish. The plot in particular, constructed from technobabble about beryllium atomic clocks, alarm clocks and midnight was rubbish; it begins with the wrong character (the Doctor instead of Grace, the audience’s viewpoint character). The opening narration and squeaky Daleks are naff. McCoy and McGann both overact in places. The gloss production tries and fails to hide a seriously ropy story.

Where the TV movie felt written by a committee, the new series has a clear guiding concept from Russell Davies. Fans might hate it. We may convince ourselves we like it to hide our disappointment. But the trailers, magazine previews, newspaper articles and TV features suggest otherwise. This time Doctor Who is back, and it really is about time.