Doctor Who: Rose

When Doctor Who returned to our television screens in March 2005, after a lengthy hiatus since Survival in December 1989, my tastes had moved on and I was now a hardcore comic book and Star Wars fan - even the American Paul McGann Doctor Who movie had failed to reignite my childhood enjoyment of Who.

So, when I sat down to watch Rose I really had no great expectations for the series and was, immediately, baffled by writer Russel T Davies' emphasis on The Doctor's companion, the titular Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), rather than the man himself (Christopher Eccleston). My personal anti-chav prejudices also meant that while I could tolerate her, I had big problems with her twittering mother Jackie (Camille Coduri) and even bumbling boyfriend, Mickey (Noel Clarke); although, by the end of the second season I came to appreciate them both a bit more (especially Mickey's transformation into a genuine action hero).

The story of Rose is fast-paced, taking about three minutes to pitch her headfirst into alien invasion by plastic shop dummies animated by the Nestene Consciousness, then not really slacking up for the rest of the show. There's a lot of information to dump onto a new audience, so, by necessity, the plot jumps and cuts rapidly, but still takes the time for a full-on street battle while The Doctor, Rose and Mickey confront the Big Bad.

Several of the CGI special effects (particularly the animated wheelie bin) are, like the Slitheen body suits in Aliens of London, a bit weak, but the physical effects are top notch and its only really the early script rumblings of the soap opera aspects of Rose's council estate lifestyle that stop this episode from really soaring.

There are still some elements of the plot that niggle: when the Doctor checks himself out in the mirror in Jackie's apartment it suggests that he has only recently regenerated, but then Clive the conspiracy theorist (a great character and a great loss when the Auton's blow his head off) has a stack of historic pictures of The Doctor ... all with Ecclestone's face (unless all those incidents occured in the seconds between The Doctor leaving Rose and Mickey at the end and him returning to say: "Did I mention that it can travel in time as well?").

In hindsight, Rose certainly blooms as an introductory episode, but you can't help but catch a whiff of some of the manure that the series is going to throw up along the way - before it eventually ditches soap opera (in season three) for true adventure.