Original Run: March 26th, 2005 – June 18th, 2005
Created by: Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber, Donald Wilson
Directed by: various
Written by: various
Music by: various, Murray Gold (since 2005)
Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, John Barrowman, Camille Coduri, Noel Clarke, Bruno Langley, Penelope Wilton
BBC, 13 Episodes, 45 Minutes (per episode)
Review:
It has been a while since I’ve watched the Eccleston era of Doctor Who but I wanted to go back and start with the 2005 revival series from the beginning.
This is certainly the best place to start with modern Who but the beginning of any Doctor’s run is still a decent starting place. However, Eccleston’s debut is more pivotal than David Tennant’s, as it helps to establish Rose Tyler and her friends and family into the Doctor Who mythos, as they do carry over into the show when Tennant takes the reins from Eccleston.
The show starts off with a bang and features an episode with the evil Autons, a classic Who alien race that was always cool to see on screen but have not returned to the show since that first episode of the revival series.
The show then goes on to reacquaint us with what Doctor Who is and how the Time Lord operates in this vast universe, throughout all of time and space.
We meet new aliens but we also get reacquainted with the Daleks in three episodes. The first of which, being titled just Dalek. Still, to this day, it is one of the best episodes of the revived Doctor Who series.
Apart from Rose Tyler and her family of characters, we also get to meet Captain Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman, who would also play Merlyn in Arrow and other CW shows revolving around DC Comics heroes. Harkness was so popular, actually, that he would get his own spin off show, Torchwood. Harkness is also one of those characters that fans have been clamoring for the producers to bring back. In this season of the show, Harkness is at his best.
All in all, this is a pretty good revival of the long running show. This season isn’t as good as what was to come with David Tennant (the Tenth Doctor) but it was a good foundation for the iconic series to return. Sadly, Eccleston left after these thirteen episodes but that also gave us Tennant, so I can’t be completely broken up about it.
Rating: 7.5/10
Talking Pulp 