Watching New Who – in conversation with David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely
David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Seasons 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all (plus a six-year-old daughter who is finding her own Doctors for the first time). We’re going to work our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, as our blogging points. Just for fun! We have already talked about:
“Rose”, S01E01
“Dalek”, S01E06
FATHER’S DAY – Season one, episode eight
The Doctor – Christopher Eccleston
Rose Tyler – Billie Piper
DAVID:
Perhaps I should have waited a little bit before writing this, because I am actually a little teary. That would have to be one of the most well crafted Doctor Who story lines I can remember, and it had everything that made me fall in love with Doctor Who to begin with. What a crunchy story, we get so many layers! Rose’s relationship with the Doctor, the paradoxes and dangers of time travel (but no mention of the Blinovitch Limitation Effect!), and of course the foundation of it all, Rose’s relationship with her father. Episodes like this can fall in the trap of laying on the emotion too thick, but they got it just right here.
TEHANI:
It shocked me a bit, seeing Rose and the Doctor being nasty to each other early in the episode. I mean, the Doctor is clearly very angry with Rose for saving her father, but the way they really aim at each other’s weak points, with Rose throwing the Doctor’s loneliness in his face – eep.
DAVID:
It’s sadly accurate, the better we know someone, the more effectively we can hurt them. But, this gives us an interesting insight, I don’t remember the Doctor ever being quite as vulnerable with one of his companions. Sure, there have been some (in)famous dummy spits (my favourite probably being Tegan’s great line “Call yourself a Time Lord? A broken clock keeps better time than you do, at least it is right twice a day!”) but there has always been a sense of the Doctor being a little bit above letting himself really get hurt by the things his companions have said. But, here the Doctor does have that air of loneliness, we really do get the impression that he is adrift and alone and that he needs Rose in his life, maybe even more than she needs him.
TANSY:
I like the fact that we see the Doctor and Rose’s relationship develop. On the surface they have looked all along like the usual ‘hooray we’re travelling’ pair, but there have been fractures and niggly bits all along to show that actually, they don’t completely trust or love each other yet. This story is almost the row they had to have, to become a more united team. The Doctor’s suspicion that Rose only changed her mind because of time travel, and she might have been using him for that all along, was really interesting, and I don’t think we ever really know if that was true. It’s also important because of what happened with the Adam storyline back in The Long Game where we learned that some people aren’t cut out to be companions, and the Doctor won’t forgive anyone who tries to use his gift selfishly.
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