No examination of science-fiction in the first decade of the third millenium could afford to exclude the BBC's regenerated Doctor Who, starring Christopher Ecclestone
No examination of science-fiction in the first decade of the third millenium could be complete without including the BBC's regenerated Doctor Who, played by Christopher Ecclestone.
In some ways, maybe the old version of the series had to be off air for 16 years, to allow time for a new generation to grow up, never having known the dubious pleasures of wobbly sets, screeching 1970s electronic music, and Louise Jameson in a loincloth.
Certainly when it was announced that Russell T. Davies had been put in charge of resurrecting a programme with one of the fiercest fan-bases in the entertainment world, a collective shudder ran around Who fandom. Davies was best known for Queer As Folk, a grittier version of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. But whereas Maupin's homosexuals were mainly upright wholesome Americans with a minority sexual orientation, Channel 4's gays were unrestrained, revelling in their homosexual lifestyle.
To make matters worse, while the appointment of Ecclestone was greeted with cautious optimism, news was released that his assistant would be a (then) 20-year-old ex-pop singer whose main claim to fame was that she was married to a radio DJ who had been sacked because of the size of his ego.
But the BBC realized that the small -- albeit vocal -- fan-base were only a portion of the available viewers, and gambled that Davies, who in his defence is himself a long-time Who fan, would be able to pull in more new viewers than the number of stalwarts that he alienated.
So it proved. From the moment the camera zoomed into a London flat , and the alarm clock ticked over to 7.30, Rose hit the ground running.
The second episode maintained that momentum, with the Doctor taking Rose on a trip to a space station in five million AD, and the death of the Earth.'
From the far future the Doctor took Rose to Cardiff 1869 for episode 3, The Unquiet Dead, where the Doctor and Rose met Charles Dickens and sowed the seeds for the series finale with a reference to Bad Wolf .
While the quality of the show dipped with the two-parter Aliens of London, Dalek put it maginifcently back on track.
The Long Game, returning to the setting of a space station, was a subdued affair, as befitted an episode where the Doctor was recovering from meeting his old enemy; while it again (with hindsight) set the scene for the series finale, it was perhaps the weakest episode of all.
The episodes that followed -- Father's Day, and The Empty Child were simply the best television of 2005.
While the last three episodes -- the Cardiff-set Boomtown, and the resolution to the mystery of Bad Wolf were two of the three -- were not quite up to those standards, The Parting of the Ways managed to end the series on a stunning high.
The only people who seemed to object to the new version were those disenchanted die-hards who felt that 'their' show had been stolen, but for all the carping of those who felt that there was a hidden gay agenda and those who objected to any modernization of the ir show, most neutrals agreed that Davies has been faithful to the spirit of Doctor Who, even where he has had to change and update details.
Doctor Who was quite simply the best television of 2005 in any genre, with fine characterization, pace and a gradual teasing out of the Doctor's back-story; it also cleverly referenced the older series at the same time as moving on, while all the while juggling the need to appeal to children even as it entertained adults.
