#8 (1.9 - 1.10): The Empty Child.

The Doctor receives a disturbing phone call...

2 episodes: The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances. Approx. 84 minutes. Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: James Hawes. Produced by: Phil Collinson.


THE PLOT

The TARDIS locks onto a dangerous object hurtling through the Time Vortex. Because the object is "jumping Time Tracks," the closest the Doctor is able to materialize is about a month after the object hits with a bang... Right in the center of London during the 1941 blitz!

This is the work of Capt. Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), a former Time Agent who now gets by as a con artist. He finds bits of space junk and uses them to attract the attention of time travelers, sending the debris back in time to coordinates where the objects will be destroyed by bombs or natural disasters. "The perfect, self-cleaning con," Jack boasts smugly. This object was an abandoned Chula hospital ship - completely harmless, Jack assures the Doctor.

But Jack has miscalculated, as the Doctor realizes when he meets Nancy (Florence Hoath), a young woman who does her best to look after the city's street orphans. Nancy lost her young brother, Jamie, the night the object fell to Earth. He was killed by a bomb, his skull so fractured that it was impossible to tell where the gas mask he was wearing ended and his face began.

Somehow, the ship has reanimated the dead child. Now he is "empty," wandering through the streets of London, asking one question endlessly: "Are you my mummy?" Everyone he touches is infected, doomed to become just like him - right down to the injuries, the gas mask, and the demand for "mummy." "Physical injury as plague," observes Dr. Constantine (Richard Wilson), the local physician.

As this plague spreads, the Doctor, Jack, and Rose find themselves on the run from an increasing horde of what could very accurately be labeled the undead. It's a race not only for their survival, but for the entire future of humanity!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: As soon as he realizes that the device was a Chula hospital ship, he has a pretty good idea of what happened - as demonstrated by his line, "Human DNA is being rewritten by an idiot. When he meets Jack, the disapproval radiates from him with almost physical force, and he responds to every one of Jack's protestations that this could not be his fault by tuning him out and ignoring him. Eccleston has fully found his Doctor by this point, and is simply superb, whether delivering an inspiration speech to Nancy about "one tiny, damp little island (that) says no" to the German war machine or snapping and glowering at Jack. Particularly good is the near-desperation at the end, that little crack of pure need that breaks through his self-confidence as he attempts to fix the problem, simultaneously pleading with the universe: "Give me a day like this. Give me this one!"

Rose: Is smitten with Jack right away - Which, given that Jack makes his entrance by saving her life, beaming her literally into his arms, is likely not surprising. She spends their entire first conversation so flustered that she only half-grasps what he's saying to her. Even so, she does not reveal the Doctor's background to him, instead bringing Jack to meet her associate, "Mr. Spock." Once Jack leaves, Rose's attraction to him is tied right back into her relationship with the Doctor, as she tells the Time Lord: "I trust him because he's like you. Except with dating and dancing."

Capt. Jack Harkness: The Empty Child introduces Capt. Jack Harkness, who would be a companion for the remainder of the season before being attached to the spinoff Torchwood. We get the information we need to make him an intriguing character: He's more morally gray than the Doctor, but attempts to avoid doing anything harmful. He is a con artist, but his primary goal isn't to make money - What he wants is to recover two years of missing memories. Barrowman is a strong enough screen presence to hold hiw own opposite Eccleston, and their banter over sonic guns vs. sonic screwdrivers or the Doctor's destruction of Jack's favorite weapons factory is enjoyable even as it points to the differences between the two characters.


THOUGHTS

"I need more days like this!"
-The Doctor, after one of his greatest triumphs, in one of his greatest stories.

The Empty Child is a big story for the new Doctor Who series: It introduced Captain Jack Harkness.  It was the first story written by Steven Moffat, who would write several of the best stories of the Russell T. Davies era before taking over as showrunner for Series Five. It was the first Doctor Who story to win a Hugo Award, and has been at or near the top of several "best story" polls of not only the new series, but of the now more than half a century of Doctor Who, ever since its airdate.

This is an outstanding piece of television, one of those magical moments in which everything comes together exactly right. Steven Moffat's first script for the series remains, in my opinion, his best, making good use of the extra space afforded by two episodes to make the setting feel authentic and lived-in. Details such as the black market food on one homeowner's table, or the people enjoying themselves at a nightclub just before the air raid siren sounds, simply wouldn't be possible if the same story had to be squeezed into 45 minutes... And it's those moments of absolute authenticity that make this so very effective.

The ending is nothing short of extraordinary. I would say is the moment at which the battle-scarred Ninth Doctor truly becomes "The Doctor" again. Standing in the middle of a hopeless situation, a bomb about to drop from the sky and hordes of what can only be described as Undead approaching from all directions, it's clear that it's The End. "Nothing can stop it!" the Doctor has said, just a few minutes before.

But that was the shell-shocked Doctor, the one who has kept looking at the universe through the battered, blood-soaked haze of the Time War. As his eyes fall on the sobbing Nancy, as his ears take in the refrain of "Are you my mummy?", something in his mind wakes up, puts it all together, and snatches salvation from desolation - not just for himself and his companions, but for everybody present. In this moment, an exultant Doctor rediscovers himself. He stops insulting those around him and celebrates them instead, becoming the hero he used to be. In effect, as he cries out in the tag:

"I just remembered - I can dance!"


Overall Rating: 10/10.

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#1 (1.1). Rose.

1 episode. Approx. 42 minutes. Written by: Rusell T. Davies. Directed by: Keith Boak.


THE PLOT

Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) is a fairly ordinary London teen. She works in a shop, she lives with her mother, she has a nice, if ordinary, boyfriend (Noel Clarke). Her life is running along a fairly acceptable, if unexceptional track. Then, as the employees close up the shop and are on their way out the door, she is tapped to lock up the day's lottery winnings. She heads down to the basement... and is set upon by living mannequins. It's an encounter she only survives thanks to the intervention of a mysterious man calling himself "The Doctor" (Christopher Eccleston).

Intrigued, she uses her boyfriend's computer to learn more about the Doctor. But as her search brings her closer to him, it also brings her closer to the Autons. What happens next will change her life forever - if she survives!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Christopher Eccleston's debut as the Doctor, and he's terrific. Eccleston probably has one of the more successful pre-Who careers of the various Doctors, having played a wide range of roles in films ranging from Elizabeth to 28 Days Later. His relatively high profile helped sell the show's revival to the public, and he brings a lot to the part. He has a manic energy. When he's grinning and joking, there's a sense of something slightly dangerous around the edges. He's strongest when he drops the grinning and is either harsh or sad. I particularly liked the hint of desperation in his eyes as he asks Rose to come with him, his body language and tone of voice trying to project confidence even as his eyes betray his need. It's an excellent debut performance.

Rose: I'll admit up-front that I was never a huge fan of the Rose Tyler character, and was perhaps further alienated by all the hype making her out to be the "best companion ever!!!" Thankfully, years and multiple replacements later, that hype has died down, making it a lot easier to view both character and actress for what is there. Billie Piper does a perfectly fine job of bringing Rose to life. She sparks reasonably well off Eccleston, and she manages to keep the character likable throughout. Characterization is largely in broad strokes at this point, but there's room to build on what's here.

Mickey: Speaking of broad strokes, Mickey is downright annoying in this premiere episode. Noel Clarke is a good actor, but the writing for his character is buffoonish. Things with Mickey reach their low point when he is briefly replaced by an Auton duplicate - who is shiny plastic with a plastic grin - and it isn't until he actively tries to kill her that Rose even notices the difference. The character is the source of one of the few genuinely funny moments, however, when he refers to the Doctor as a "thing," and the Doctor adds: "He's not invited."

The Autons: The Autons are resurrected to launch the series, probably because they are not a monster requiring a lot of explanation ("living plastic!") and because of the inherent strength of the visual - mannequins coming to life. Oddly, despite these Autons really looking like living mannequins, they are somehow less effective than the original Autons.  Some of it may be the frenetic pacing of the episode as a whole, not allowing the sight of them marching and shooting to really sink in the way it did in their 1970 debut. But I honestly think their look less creepy than their original design. In any case, they work in so far as they fulfill their function, but Spearhead from Space remains their most effective use.


THOUGHTS

"Broad strokes" is probably the phrase I would most apply to Rose. The defense of this episode's weak story always seems to be that Russell T. Davies is focusing on the characters. But the characters here are in little more than sketch form. Rose is an "average girl" and not much more (save for an oversold Buffy riff at the end). Her boyfriend and mother are practically cartoons. Even the Doctor is little more than a character sketch at this stage! If characterization is the excuse for the thin plot, then I would at least like to see a few strong character beats. Those will come in later episodes... but they just aren't here in this one.

What the episode does well - exceptionally well, in fact - is to lay down a foundation for the series to build on. The core characters are introduced, we get a genuinely good scene with Clive the Internet guy (Mark Benton) in which some exposition about the Doctor is laid out, and we even get our first mention of the Time War. All of this is introduced with an emphasis on action, making it painless exposition. There's enough new mythology that viewers familiar with Who will not feel like they're having to wait for new viewers to play "catch up" while the episode pauses to lay everything out.

The introduction of the TARDIS is particularly well-done. At the start, we just see Rose dashing past it, barely registering it. Then we see the Doctor walking toward it as Rose walks away from him; when she looks back, both he and it are gone. Then we see the interior, and Rose's reaction to it. Only at the very end do we actually see it dematerialize. It is as good, and carefully paced, an introduction to the TARDIS as has been seen since An Unearthly Child.

Where the episode falls down for me is in tone and pacing, much of which I think can be laid at the feet of director Keith Boak. He just doesn't seem to have a sense of how to pace this show, when to hold on a moment for an extra beat or two. As a result, the pace isn't so much sprightly as frenetic. His direction also hurts the character work. In one very good scene, we see Rose appalled at the Doctor's callousness toward Mickey's likely death. Less than two minutes later, she is running hand-in-hand with him, grinning. These moments simply should not be right next to each other. The shot itself isn't bad, but the placement of it is downright awful.

So a mixed reaction from me. Russell T. Davies' script does what it needs to do as a pilot. The exposition is doled out, the characters are introduced, there's enough action to sell this as an adventure show, and the foundation is laid for better episodes to come. Unfortunately, as an entity unto itself, I just don't find Rose particularly satisfying. It's entertaining, but it's also unevenly paced and a bit scattershot. It's certainly a better pilot than The TV Movie was, but I'm not sure it's a particularly better episode.


Rating: 5/10.

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