Doctor Who: The Complete First Series (Blu-ray)

Russell T. Davies had a problem in 2004. His problem was how to restart Doctor Who, the great British science fiction television series that had died a slow death in the 1980s, primarily due to shoddy writing and stale characterizations.Then he remembered the basic rule of good-to-great science fiction. It isn't the situations...it's the characters. We learned this when Ronald D. Moore and David Eick reworked Battlestar Galactica.To that end, I felt that RTD really treated the four seasons he ran production more as a 52-episode story that was told in four chapters. This First Series Set plays more as a laying of the baseline for the 21st-Century Time Lord and those around him. Davies seems willing to lay more of the Doctor's emotions out. There is the irreverence and stream of thought that has usually played through the character's recent history, but Davies--through Christopher Eccelston's interpretation--starts laying the Doctor bare at times. The Ninth Doctor doesn't wear the scarf of Tom Baker, the celery boutonniere of Peter Davidson, or the straw hat of Sylvester McCoy. Davies starts this with a subtle reminder that, in spite of his name, what The Doctor is...is a warrior. Whether considered a soldier or superhero, Eccelston's Doctor is a black-wearing, short-haired survivor of a conflict that wiped out his planet. He can be severe, angry, feral and snappish all in a matter of moments. He also hurts--he's alone.This is where Davies' thought process begins to percolate around the character. He starts in this season to introduce "The Family of Time/Children of Time" concept--his Companions , the cohorts who aid and support (sometimes unwillingly), and a world that goes beyond his travels in the TARDIS (Which absolutely could NEVER change from its 1950's Police Box camouflage). In many ways it is a broader vision than what we had in the first run, and opens up new avenues for the Doctor's world. This allows Billie Piper's Rose Tyler--the Family of Time's First Lady--to be the soul and the conscience the Doctor so desperately needs. Piper is allowed to give a strength to Rose that we haven't seen in the Companion's roles before (Or at least since Sarah Jane Smith), and all the while look absolutely adorable. She saves the Doctor's life twice within the first six episodes--in the premiere/return episode "Rose" and at the conclusion of the "Aliens In London/World War III" storyline. In "Dalek", Rose actually challenges the Doctor AND the infamous robot enemy in a way no Companion had.If Rose is the Family of Time's First Lady, Camille Courdi's Jackie Tyler is the Queen Mother--her first meeting with the Doctor is a wonderfully hilarious moment of attempted seduction crushed--and Noel Clarke's Mickey Smith is the reluctant entrant. Having been the boyfriend of Rose when she met the Doctor, Mickey is the one who study's the Doctor's history and realizes the danger of being around him--yet, he finds himself working with the Doctor; even saving the world from itself in "World War III".But the character that knocks it out of the park in Series 1 is John Barrowman's Jack Harkness. Introduced in "The Empty Child", Harkness is the knight errant of the Family--born in the 51st century, Jack would seemingly prefer being a thief to his moments of heroism...that is, if he could get his mind off of getting some. With anyone. Or anything. The explanation of Jack--in the 51st century, the former Time Agent comes from a time where the term "omnisexual" is used. That explains Jack, short of using the term "male ho".While expanding the base of the people surrounding the Doctor, RTD also expands the physical world of the Doctor. In "The Unquiet Dead", the Doctor and Rose travel back to 1869 and meet Charles Dickens in Cardiff, Wales. Finding themselves in an investigation of corpses reanimating at a funeral home, the Doctor discovers the funeral home sits on a time/space rift that is capable of allowing extraterrestrials to move into this world and dimension. That rift becomes a part of the Doctor's universe about 145 years later...but that's for another review.It is the finish to the season--the two-parter "Bad Wolf" and "The Parting Of the Ways"--that set the transition from Eccelston to David Tennant, and the course for Captain Jack...but also the level of strength and devotion to The Doctor that Rose shows; a part of the four-part storyline that runs deep.This first chapter of Doctor Who's return is a fascinating watch, made all the more fascinating by the first season being Eccelston's only season as The Doctor. Among the special features is Eccelston's BBC interview before the premier episode was shown in England, an odd moment because one realizes that Chris knows he's completed his run--leading to his mentioning of regeneration.All in all, the return of Doctor Who to television has been a wonderful view--it hasn't been reimaged as severely (Though to its benefit) the way that Battlestar Galactica was, but it comes off as a diamond long-buried, found and--thanks to Russell T. Davies--well polished...and well done.Season/Series 1--highly recommended.

"I can feel the turn of the earth ... the skin of this tiny little world," declares the 9th Doctor Who."The Doctor is a legend woven into history. When disaster comes, he is there. He brings a storm in his wake." Many would love a ride in Doctor Who's TARDIS, a time-machine ans spacecraft = Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Russell T. Davies overwhelmingly succeeds in rebooting Doctor Who after a 16 year hiatus. This is a wild romp, brilliant; the normal and mundane are mixed together with elements of absolute bizarreness. Christopher Eccleston (Thor: The Dark World) adds his Geordie 'tude as the 9th incarnation of the Doctor. When asked by his soon to be new companion, Rose Tyler (the great Billie Piper) about his distinctive accent, he replies, "Lots of planets have a North." We savor northern English culture and history, and series like Manchester's The Street, and genre-defying Life On Mars, U.K. starring Doctor Who alumni John Simm Doctor Who Specials: The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, The Waters of Mars, The End of Time Parts 1 & 2.In "Rose," the first wonderful episode, which harkens back to Pertwee's 3rd Doctor and his entrance in "Spearhead from Space," we meet Rose, going about her ordinary day. As the Doctor says, "You lot, all you do is eat chips, watch telly, go to bed." Well, Rose's world is about to be rocked. Her mother, Jackie Tyler (the adorable, delightful Camille Coduri, Rumpole of the Bailey), resists the Doctor and his impact on Rose's life.Hang in there past an episode that would have been super but for annoying gaseous aliens (why?) and get to 'The Unquiet Dead," where you'll be whisked to Cardiff, Wales, in 1869, with "Torchwood" star Eve Myles as a young physic working in a haunted funeral home. A Shakespeare-quoting Dickens (Simon Callow) enters the picture, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, even for you, Doctor. Shawn Dingwall is marvelous as Rose's wayward father Pete Tyler in the poignant "Father's Day," where Rose travels back to her distant past, with 'No Third Term for Thatcher' posters pasting walls; as the Doctor says, "The past is another country." The spooky two-part "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances" features remarkable acting by Florence Heath as Nancy, helping a group of street kids survive in London during WWII, and introduces Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), a former Time Agent. "Bad Wolf" and "The Parting of the Ways" are superb social commentary - with the Anne Droid (Anne Robinson) in a brutal form of 'The Weakest Link,' Jack facing two scary female robots (Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine) on 'What Not to Wear,' a sweet contestant Lynda (Jo Joyner) on 'Big Brother' assisting the Doctor, and a new incarnation of an old, relentless foe. The Doctor sends Rose back home in the TARDIS to her mother and Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke), but she can't abide being forced back into normalcy while the Doctor is facing a huge battle. At the end, the Doctor must regenerate into a new, wonderful creation/incarnation, the inimitable David Tennant Broadchurch, Spies of Warsaw) as the 10th Doctor Who in Doctor Who: The Complete Second Series. The narrative gets even better from here on out... Enjoy!