Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Since its first airing in 1963, Doctor Who has remained one of the most unique and absorbing programmes that the B.B.C. has had the honour to produce.
It is to be seen as an honour due to the fascination and creative hold has it has had over the viewing public, across its golden years in the days when Tom Baker held the reigns of the mysterious Doctor, through the dark days when it could be argued that the distance between the Corporation and one of its longest standing programmes was a void. The B.B.C. seemingly wanting the programme to die a natural death and towards the day when in 2005, under much scrutiny, joy and fanfare it returned to the screens with Christopher Eccleston as the man from Gallifrey and Russell T. Davies entrusted with making sure the programme was not a one series wonder, brought back to appease the fans.
Doctor Who never really went away, yes the screens were hollow of the time-travelling mad man and his T.A.R.D.I.S, the continuation of Science Fiction for the television family continued onwards without the mention of Cybermen, Daleks and mysteries that were profoundly British in their outlook and writing; The Doctor despite all that stayed in the background, books and magazines, the steadfastness and appeal of the character, perhaps a piece of hope in a rapidly cynical, dogmatic world, something old, something borrowed, something blue…it just needed the new to be a success.
History records that the first episode of the first series of the re-launched programme was just that, the something new caught the viewer, the older fan and those who had grown up listening to tales of Autons, Sea-Devils and a just as mysterious man with a penchant for tricks, disguises, deception and death, by surprise and a whole new audience came together to love The Doctor and the new companion from 21st Century London, Rose.
History may record it, but like an programme worth its weight, the chance to revisit the story in novelisation form is a great temptation and thanks to the ongoing support of Target, Russell T. Davies has been able to transfer that opening episode into an expanded narrative in which the fuller story of the invasion of Earth by the Nestene Consciousness can become clearer, more rounded, a relishing of the fact that before The Doctor arrived to save the day, there was still a story going on, unfolding, that Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith had that back story denied them and the truth of the matter that Mickey was not the clingy coward initially thought of, just a man to whom had lost out once again to the apparent bad boy in town.
It always seems that a novelisation of a hit film or television programme could be seen as rehashing a familiar favourite, a lot of the time you aren’t exactly stuck for inspiration, all you have to do, it could be argued, is stick to the formula that made the initial offering a hit, but Rose offers more than that, it is a chance by the writer of the episode to expand, to generate a slightly different feel to the piece without changing the overall story; the flesh upon the bones, the extra muscle and the addition of characters that make Rose, Mickey, the sorry tale of Clive the fanatic fan, Jackie Tyler and the others to come feel as though they have lives outside of the one moment in which a mad man in a box entered their lives.
A very good adaptation of a classic episode; it is true in this case that a Rose by any other name can still be just as sweet an experience.
Ian D. Hall