Sick of Saturday telly? It's time you saw the Doctor
- Publication: The Independent on Sunday
- Date: 2005-03-27
- Author: Charlie Courtauld
- Page: ABC, p. 22
- Language: English
You'd think it was the Second Corning. Appropriately enough this Easter weekend, I suppose, because many of the same team - writer Davies, with actors Eccleston and Benton - made The Second Coming too, that fantastic ITV drama from a couple of years back But this, what we might call the ninth coming of Doctor Who, was perhaps the most overhyped reincarnation since Michael Portillo. Trails, interviews, Blue Peter appearances... the week that DG Mark Thompson was laying off thousands seemed an odd time to blow zillions on the corporation's marketing budget. After such a fanfare, Doctor Who could hardly fail to disappoint.
But amazingly, it didn't. OK, the monster was feeble and the lack of a cliffhanger ending was a shame. But Christopher Eccleston portrayed a far more complicated Doctor character than we've become used to seeing, certainly since Jon Pertwee - and far more interesting as a result. Under Russell T Davies' script, this Doctor had some of the madcap eccentricity of Tom Baker, which all the more recent doctors have felt the need to ham up - but he was also lonely, confused, literally other-worldly. He needs Rose (Billie Piper) more than she does him.
And it's in the hither-to pretty unexplored territory of the Doctor-assistant relationship that this new incarnation really breaks new ground. For the most part, the Doctor's previous assistants have been fairly blank canvasses, plonked there into the Tardis with only a few demeaning requirements: to scream, to look eye-catching and to enable the Doctor to explain - in simple terms what is going on. To be the butt, in essence, of a million playground jokes about what the Doctor gets up to with his sonic screwdriver. In the 21st century, this "doormat" role is no longer acceptable for the female lead, and Rose is no such walkover.
On a scientific level, of course, she's no match for the Doctor. Her only qualification is a bronze medal in under-seven gymnastics. But emotionally, Rose is light years ahead. Working in a Piccadilly Circus department store, boyfriend in tow, Rose is self-assured and wilful When she runs over Westminster Bridge, hand in hand with the Doctor, it's he who grabs hers - not the other way.
The other welcome development in the new Doctor Who is a clever self-awareness. Davies tipped his hat to the geeky Who industry which has burgeoned in recent years, especially on the internet. TV's favourite overgrown schoolboy Mark Benton played Clive, a nerdish and paranoid conspiracy theorist who has traced images of the mysterious "Doctor" around historical disasters from the Kennedy assassination to the Titanic sinking. Clive died, vindicated, in a hail of plastic bullets from showroom dummies: "I was right all along," he croaked, as he croaked.
There were some good jokes too, as when Piper challenges Eccleston's Lancashire accent:
"If you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North?"
"Lots of planets have a North!"
The programme did, of course, suffer from its relative cheapness. The man-eating wheelie bin, risible as it was, was probably the best manifestation of the "living plastic" monster. Others were even less credible: the sub-Terminator table-chopping headless thing, the murderous mannequins - the Autons - and the enormous "nesting plastic" tongue under the London Eye.
The BBC has invested a great deal in the new Doctor Who. They've even moved Casualty to Sunday evening to make way, in the hope that the programme dents Ant and Dec's dominance of the Saturday schedule. I'm afraid that it won't work. In their ambitions to roll back our Saturday viewing habits by a generation, I suspect that the BBC will fail. But what a heroic failure. In Christopher Eccleston, in Russell T Davies - and particularly in Billie Piper's thoroughly modern assistant - they've done the best they can with the rusty old franchise.
Caption: Emergency room: Christopher Eccleston plays the ninth and certainly the most complicated Doctor since Jon Pertwee
Disclaimer: These citations are created on-the-fly using primitive parsing techniques. You should double-check all citations. Send feedback to whovian@cuttingsarchive.org
- APA 6th ed.: Courtauld, Charlie (2005-03-27). Sick of Saturday telly? It's time you saw the Doctor. The Independent on Sunday p. ABC, p. 22.
- MLA 7th ed.: Courtauld, Charlie. "Sick of Saturday telly? It's time you saw the Doctor." The Independent on Sunday [add city] 2005-03-27, ABC, p. 22. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Courtauld, Charlie. "Sick of Saturday telly? It's time you saw the Doctor." The Independent on Sunday, edition, sec., 2005-03-27
- Turabian: Courtauld, Charlie. "Sick of Saturday telly? It's time you saw the Doctor." The Independent on Sunday, 2005-03-27, section, ABC, p. 22 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Sick of Saturday telly? It's time you saw the Doctor | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Sick_of_Saturday_telly%3F_It%27s_time_you_saw_the_Doctor | work=The Independent on Sunday | pages=ABC, p. 22 | date=2005-03-27 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=4 January 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Sick of Saturday telly? It's time you saw the Doctor | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Sick_of_Saturday_telly%3F_It%27s_time_you_saw_the_Doctor | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=4 January 2025}}</ref>
